Kernos Revue internationale et pluridisciplinaire de religion grecque antique 27 | 2014 Varia Inscribed Greek Thunderstones as House- and Body-Amulets in Roman Imperial Times Christopher A. Faraone Electronic version URL: http://journals.openedition.org/kernos/2283 DOI: 10.4000/kernos.2283 ISSN: 2034-7871 Publisher Centre international d'étude de la religion grecque antique Printed version Date of publication: 1 November 2014 Number of pages: 257-284 ISBN: 978-2-87562-055-2 ISSN: 0776-3824 Electronic reference Christopher A. Faraone, « Inscribed Greek Thunderstones as House- and Body-Amulets in Roman Imperial Times », Kernos [Online], 27 | 2014, Online since 01 October 2016, connection on 19 April 2019. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/kernos/2283 ; DOI : 10.4000/kernos.2283 This text was automatically generated on 19 April 2019. Kernos Inscribed Greek Thunderstones as House- and Body-Amulets in Roman Imperial Times 1 Inscribed Greek Thunderstones as House- and Body-Amulets in Roman Imperial Times Christopher A. Faraone 1 Although it was the focus of extended discussion at the turn of the last century, the re- use of Neolithic axe-heads — also known as “celts” or “thunderstones” — as amulets in Roman times is nowadays underappreciated.1 As a result, the ancient date of two small inscribed examples in the British Museum (BM nos. 1* and 504) is now in doubt,2 a negative assessment that arises, I will suggest, from the use of insufficient comparanda. When compared with the growing corpus of magical gems, the media of these two small axe-heads (jadeite or serpentine), their high polish and their shape do indeed seem suspicious and difficult to assess as gems, but when viewed alongside other, inscribed and uninscribed thunderstones found in Roman and later sites, we can see that both of the London stones belong to a clearly defined category of body-amulets. 2 Such stones were originally shaped and polished in Neolithic times and used as axes or adzes, either hand-held or attached to a wooden haft. But they sometimes turn up in later archaeological sites or graves from the Bronze Age down to the medieval period, because they were apparently thought to have some kind of magical power to protect buildings and people, especially from lightning and violent storms. We know something about these beliefs thanks to a string of testimonia in technical treatises on stones, beginning with a third-century BCE Greek author named Sotacus and ending with a twelfth-century bishop of Rennes. At least ten of these pre-historic axe-heads carry Greek inscriptions and sometimes Egyptianizing images that corroborate their use as amulets during the Roman Empire. We shall see, too, that nearly all of the inscribed thunderstones of known provenance come from the eastern half of the Mediterranean, although many uninscribed examples were clearly reused as amulets in Italy, France, Britain and elsewhere. One should stress, moreover, the fact that there is no evidence that the Greeks or Romans realized that these axe-heads were manufactured by previous stone-age cultures and Kernos, 27 | 2014 Inscribed Greek Thunderstones as House- and Body-Amulets in Roman Imperial Times 2 indeed the inclusion of them in lapidaria or natural histories confirms to the contrary that they were believed to be “natural” stones which, like amber, jet or coral, had special protective powers. 3 In what follows I will examine the ten inscribed thunderstones that are known to me. In the first section I study the five larger examples of similar size (roughly 9–13 cm tall and 4–6 cm wide) that were probably used to protect a house or some other building. Then I look at the five remaining stones, which are about half that size and could have easily been worn or carried as a personal amulet — indeed, two of them are perforated near edge for easy suspension. In both sections I combine close readings of the texts, images and symbols on the stones themselves with ancient literary references, recent archaeological surveys and folklore studies to argue that the inscribed versions are merely the most visible evidence of a rich and widespread tradition of using un-inscribed thunderstones, long before and long after the Roman period. I close, moreover, by arguingthatthetwoLondonstones,whenexaminedinthelightofthiswidertradition, seem indeed to have been inscribed, at least partially, in the Roman times. Larger Axe-heads as House Amulets 4 It seems fairly certain that the Greeks and Romans, at least from the Hellenistic period onwards, believed that pre-historic axe heads could be used to protect buildings. Our clearest evidence comes from a rather late source, Timotheos of Gaza, a fifth-century CE author who tells us that “you will have an amulet (periapton) against a thunderblast (keraunon), if you inscribe a thunderstone (lithon keraunion) with the letters αφια αφρυξ and keep it in your house.”3 This idea seems, however, to have circulated among the Greeks much earlier: Sotacus, the Hellenistic author of a lost treatise on stones maintained (according to Pliny’s abridged account) that cerauniae “are similar to axes ( similes … securibus)” and can be divided into two types by color and shape: the black and round ones called baetyli, which can be used aggressively to attack cities and navies; and the red and oblong ones called cerauniae. Sotacus does not mention any special powers for this second category, but he then goes on to remark that a third and rare type were sought out by magi in places that had been struck by lightning.4 This is a somewhat confused passage, but we can nonetheless make out three important elements that persist in most of the later authors: (i) the name ceraunia, derived from Greek keraunion (“thunderbolt”); (ii) the implicit claim that they were thought to fall from the sky during thunderstorms; and (iii) the interest that these stones held for the magi, by which in this case Pliny probably means Persian ritual workers.5 5 The general idea, then, seems to be that like bans like: a thunderstone fallen from the sky will in future protect against thunderstorms and lightning strikes. All of the other late- antique and medieval sources insist on the protective qualities of these stones. For example, the Latin lapidary attributed to Damigeron-Evax (and roughly contemporaneous with Timotheus) devotes an entire chapter (12) to the lapis ceraunius, which is found in places where lightning has struck; a house or villa in which they are placed will never be struck by lightning.6 In his Etymologies Isidore, the early seventh-century CE bishop of Seville, also notes that thunderstones — he calls them both brontea and ceraunia — were found in places struck by lightening and could avert lightening (XVI, 13, 5 and 15, 24) and a few centuries later Marbodaeus, the bishop of Rennes (d. 1123), preserves a similar account in his own Liber lapidum.7 Ethnographers and folklorists have established, Kernos, 27 | 2014 Inscribed Greek Thunderstones as House- and Body-Amulets in Roman Imperial Times 3 moreover, the existence of similar long-standing and widespread beliefs throughout pre- modern Europe.”8 In modern Greece they are called astropelékia (“lightening axes”), are kept in houses to ward off lightning and fire, and are likewise sought out at places where lightning has fallen.9 6 Archaeological evidence confirms, moreover, that this pre-modern practice in western Europe goes back at least to the early Roman Empire.10 In a survey of Britian, for example, of the forty known pre-historic axe-heads found in Roman sites, twenty nine were found in or closely associated with buildings:11 ten in villas or houses (nos. 7, 12, 14, 17, 18, 23, 28, 30, 32 and 33); eight in forts or other military structures (nos. 2, 8 [barracks], 20, 25 [watchtower], 31, 39 and 40) four in temples (nos. 12, 21, 29 and 35), three in or near kilns (nos. 3, 4 and 15), three in buildings or huts of unknown use (nos. 1, 6 and 26) and one under a Roman bath (no. 19). Five stones of this type were found in a leather carrying case “with Roman remains” in Germany, a context that suggests they were valuable commodities and could be transported rather easily by merchants or soldiers on the move.12 7 Archaeologists have suggested that the examples found in temples may have been placed there as votives or dedications13 and this is certainly plausible, but we should remember that temples themselves, as larger buildings, could also be the frequent target of lightning strikes and that some of these stones may have been used for protection.14 Medieval sources and northern European ethnography suggest that these axe-heads were often positioned at doorways, in walls and under rooftops,15 butthe British survey gives us little specific information about their placement in Roman buildings, with the exception of the one axe-head found near the entrance of a fort (no. 2). Another example (no. 9), unassociated with any buildings, has a deep notch and grooves in its surface that destroyed its cutting edge, but allowed it to be suspended with this edge pointing downwards.16 Subsequent to the survey of British sites discussed above, a ground flint axe-head was discovered in a Roman villa in Surrey, whose context amidst a collapsed ceiling suggests that it fell from the roof, where it was “originally kept… as a charm against lightning and other dangers as well.”17 8 Five large axe-heads bear magical inscriptions that confirm their use in Roman or late- antique times as house-amulets. The firstis a “hard brown polished stone” that measures 13.5 × 6.3 cm. and was said to come from Ephesus (Fig. 1).18 Near the cutting edge of the axe-head we find engraved the Egyptian “pantheistic deity” and magical names encircled by an ouroborus-serpent, the Egyptian design of a serpent eating its own tail that was a common motif on amulets of the Roman period.19 Kernos, 27 | 2014 Inscribed Greek Thunderstones as House- and Body-Amulets in Roman Imperial Times 4 Figure 1 9 The Greek words that surround the god are also popular on magical amulets, for example, the palindrome ablanathanalba and the name Damnameneus by the god’s feet, as wellas the well-known words akramma-achamarei and sesengen-pharanges inscribed vertically at his sides.20 On either side of his neck and head we see Jewish names and titles — Iao (= Jahweh), Sabaoth, and Adonaie — of the sort that also show up frequently on gemstones and other amulets of the Roman period.21 There are, however, two uncommon words above and to the sides of his vegetative headdress: αιαουαηλ and παιζηθφθλθωζα. The first seems to be an angel name (Aiaouael) generated by adding a plausible Semitic ending (-ηλ) to a string of vowels.22 The second, however, seems, (as we shall see below) to be a variation of a special acclamation found on other thunderstone-amulets.23 10 The “pantheistic” or “polymorphic” deity at the center of the design is an Egyptian god not archeologically attested until the first millennium BCE and usually depicted in small- scale statues of bronze or faience or inscribed on papyrus or gems.24 Such figures appear often on personal amulets of the Roman period surrounded, as here, by magical words and vowels, for example, three very similar gems in the British Museum, which each depict the pantheistic god with the same generic phrase: “protect from evil!” (φύλαξον ἀπὸ κακοῦ).25 There are at least one hundred extant examples of this type.26 There is also a recipe in the Greek magical papyri for creating a small wax statuette (“three handbreadths tall”) of a similar god designed to bring prosperity and success to homes, shops and even temples.27 Since this axe-head from Ephesus is rather large (13.5 × 5.3 cm.), it, too, was most likely used as an amulet to protect a house or a shop or served asa good luck charm. There is no hole or attachment for suspension, and since the top of the scene in Figure 1 lies close to the cutting edge of the axe, we should probably Kernos, 27 | 2014 Inscribed Greek Thunderstones as House- and Body-Amulets in Roman Imperial Times 5 imagine that this axe-head was set up with the sharp edge pointing up, perhaps against incoming lightning. 11 A second large axe-head now in Athens is said to come from Argos. It is of green color (serpentine) and slightly shorter than the Ephesian specimen (10.3 × 5.2). One side was engraved in Roman times with two scenes (Fig. 2).28 In the lower half we see the standing figures of Athena and Zeus in a scene familiar from a gigantomachy like the one on the Altar of Zeus at Pergamon: the goddess is about to stab a tiny snake-footed “giant” with her spear, while her father looks on holding a scepter topped by an eagle, his usual attribute.There are, however, some eastern features: Zeus grasps a wilted ankh-sign in his left hand and Athena holds or supports with her left hand a tall ribbed rhyton.29 In the upper register we find a simplified version of the well-known Mithraic icon: the god kneels on the back of the bull and stabs it, while three animals surround it from below. This second scene is encircled by two magical words: βακαζιχυχ and παπαφειρις. The first often appears alone on gemstones and translates the Egyptian phrase “son (or “soul”) of darkness”, even though it paradoxically is used often to describe solar deities, here presumably Mithras.30 The second word has yet to be fully deciphered.31 The parallelism between the two scenes on this axe-head is noteworthy: in both powerful gods (Mithras and Athena) threaten or stab powerful adversaries (a bull and a snake-footed “giant”). Because this object is unique, it is difficult to say what it was used for, but the parallel scenes of divine triumph and the magical inscriptions both suggest that it was a protective amulet.32 The orientation of the design, as we can see in Figure 2, suggests that the axe-head was positioned with its cutting edge pointing downwards, that is, in the opposite direction of the Ephesian stone. The back of this axe-head is uninscribed. Kernos, 27 | 2014 Inscribed Greek Thunderstones as House- and Body-Amulets in Roman Imperial Times 6 Figure 2 12 Our third example combines text, symbols and the stone medium in a somewhat different way. At the turn of the last century archaeologists discovered at Pergamum a so-called “magician’s kit” that contained three longitudinal slices from at least two different axe- heads.33 All three were inscribed on the obverse and reverse with the same pair of inscriptions, one much larger than the other, as we can see in Figure 3.34 Figure 3 13 All three of the Pergamum slices were oriented with the cutting edge pointing down like the Argive stone. The two larger examples were apparently cut from the center of the same bluish-black stone and in their dimensions they are similar (11 × 5.5 cm.) to both the Ephesian and Argive stones. The third slice, however, was cut from the outer edge of a smaller greenish-black stone and, because of it is of smaller dimensions (8 × 4.5 cm.) and has a hole drilled laterally through its top for suspension, it will be discussed below in the context of body-amulets. 14 On the Pergamon amulets we find only words and symbols surrounded by a circle and (in the larger inscription) by the well known iaeô-logos, a long palindrome.35 Mastrocinque points out, however, that the words παι φθα φωζα, which are repeated thrice in the smaller circular inscription (at lines 2, 6 and 11), seem to be a version of the words that appear in the first two lines of the Ephesian stone: παι {ζηθ} φθλ θωζα.36 Scholars have, in fact, deciphered the phrase as an Egyptian acclamation: “This is Ptah, the Healthy One!”37 This acclamation, in some cases followed by a similar series of symbols, appears elsewhere on a magical gem,38 in three magical recipes for protection,39 and on three metal lamellae: two gold examples found in Thessaloniki and Italy and a silver Aramaic one of unknown provenance.40 A ring-stone in the Skoluda collection, however, provides Kernos, 27 | 2014 Inscribed Greek Thunderstones as House- and Body-Amulets in Roman Imperial Times 7 the best comparandum, because it is carved from polished obsidian, a type of stone used to make pre-historic axe-heads, and because it is inscribed with similar texts and symbols (Fig. 4):41 Αβλαναθαναλβα παι φθα φωξα [SYMBOLS] ακραμα-χαμαρει σεσενγενβαρφαρανγ ης θωβαρραβαυκωωπιτει ιαρβαθαγραμνηφι βλωχνημεωθ Figure 4 15 The name παι φθα φωξα in the second line is, first of all, followed by the same magical symbol (see Fig. 4), which in line 6 of the smaller Pergamum inscription (see the stone on the left in Figure 3) also follows παι φθα φωξα. The magical names above and below, moreover, — ablanathanalba in line 1 and akrama-chamarei and sesenen-barpharanges in lines 4 and 5 — are the same as those that surround the pantheistic god on the Ephesian stone (Fig. 1). This gemstone would seem, in fact, to be a miniature thunderstone in terms of its polished medium and its text, but it does not have the usual shape. 16 In the larger inscription on the other side of all three of the Pergamum slices, the iaeô- logos encircles a text that begins with magical words and then angel names (Michael, Gabriel, Ragouel and Raphael), the latter of which have been separated from one another, at least on the two larger slices, by extra space, suggesting that the scribe or his source rightly understood them to be discrete words. The inscription continues with a series of magical words that are also separated in similar fashion: ψανχον ια ια αβρια φριξ ακτειρα σθεννω.42 In the midst of these words the pair αβρια φριξ recalls the only two words that Kernos, 27 | 2014 Inscribed Greek Thunderstones as House- and Body-Amulets in Roman Imperial Times 8 are to appear on Timotheus’ thunderstone: αφια αφρυξ. We expect, of course, that all of the words that follow on the heels of the angels are the names of similarly powerful supernatural allies. The first word ψανχον may be a corrupted transliteration of an Egyptian phrase meaning “he of darkness”43 and the two short words ια ια, which seems to be a kind of ritual cry that introduces a powerful name, often of Jewish origins, e.g. GMA 7.2 (ια ια ια Ιαω Σαβαωθ [Αδωναι) or GMA 33, where each of thirty angel-names is introduced by the singular cry ια.44 The doubled cry on the Pergamon stone supports expectation that the next two words αβρια φριξ are also divine names or titles. The word αβρια certainly fits the bill. A gem in the British Museum depicts Zeus-Sarapis on one side and on the other: αβρια ια ια αρχαωθ αρβας Ιαω (u 31) and on a gold amulet from Sicily that calls itself the “Phylactery of Moses”, we find the words αβρια[]ς Ιαω (GMA 32.18). Kotansky (ad loc.) suggests, in fact, that αβρια is a Greek rendering of a common Hebrew epithet for Jahweh “strong, powerful”. Given the Jewish epithets and angel names that accompany αβρια on the Pergamon slices and these two other amulets, his suggestion certainly seems apt. 17 Should the second word be φριξ (Pergamon) or φρυξ (Timotheus)? There are two more comparanda. In a papyrus recipe for prognostication, a laurel leaf is to be inscribed (PGM IV 2209): αβραα, σὺ εἶ ὁ τὰ πάντα προμηνύων μαρι αφραξ (“Abraa, you who reveal all things, Mari Aphrax).” Since μαρι (Aramaic for “lord”) appears in other magical invocations as a kind of detachable title,45 the words αβραα … αφραξ when taken together appear to be further variations on the two magic words preserved by Timotheus. Elsewhere in the magical papyri, Zeus is invoked as the “star-grouping god, you thunderbolt-with-great-clap-Zeus-confining-world flashing-abundant-bolt-bestowing daimon, cracking-through-the-air, ray-producing etc.”46 The last two compounds appear in Preisendanz’ edition as ἀερ<οδ>ιαφρίξ ἀκτινοπ<οι>ῶν,47 but the reading of the papyrus (αερια φριξ ακτι) needs no emendation, because it most probably is drawn from the same tradition as the words known to Timotheus and the Pergamum stone-cutter: Thunderstone amulet (Timotheus) αφια αφρυξ Invocation (Pergamon slices) αβρια φριξ ἀκτιρα Invocation of Zeus (PGM XII 176) αερια φριξ ἀκτινοπων Invocation for prophecy (PGM IV 2209) αβραα αφραξ 18 The first three cases are also linked, of course, by thunder and lightening: the first two are inscribed on thunderstones and the third appears in an invocation ofZeus as a god of thunder and lightening. 19 There are, it seems, two plausible readings of the first term. The first is Kotansky’s suggestion (mentioned earlier) that αβρια is a Hebrew epithet (“powerful”) of Jahweh, which makes good sense in the context of the Pergamon invocation, where this word is preceded by a string of angel names. Its closest parallel, however, is the αερια φριξ preserved in the PGM XII invocation, which can, in fact, be construed as Greek ἀερία φρίξ (“fearful-shuddering up in the air”), an apt description of a thunderbolt. The Greek noun φρίξ “shuddering” is related to a number adjectives that show up in curses48 and the prefixes φριξ- and φρικτο- stand at the beginning of compound adjectives used to describe the supernatural allies of the magician, for example φριξωποβρονταξαστράπτης (“hurler of frightful thunder and lightening”) describing Zeus-Serapis (PGM V 19–20). And given the close similarity of epsilon + rho to phi, is quite easy to understand how αερια might end up in the Byzantine excerpt of Timotheus as αφια.49 Timotheus, however, Kernos, 27 | 2014 Inscribed Greek Thunderstones as House- and Body-Amulets in Roman Imperial Times 9 recorded the second word differently as φρύξ, which appears (LSJ s.v.) to be a rare word for “firewood” and is cognate with φρύγειν (“to roast”” or “to scorch”) and φρυκτός (“torch” or “firebrand”), the last of which could also be an appropriate term for lightening. Timotheus and the PGM XII invocation, therefore, either invoked a “shuddering high in the sky” or a “firebrand high in the sky”. But Hebrew αβρια can also be construed as part of the other versions of the phrase that we see on the Pergamon slices and the prophetic spell in PGM IV, e.g. “powerful shuddering’ or “powerful firebrand”.50 20 A fourth large axe-head of mottled brown, grey and white color is inscribed with Greek letters and resides in the British Museum. It was purchased in 1885 in Smyrna and measures approximately 8.8 × 4.7 cm.51 The inscriptions on the sides were read as βακχε/ αυρι/ζωεον (obv.) and εχλαμσι/πυ/ον/η (rev.) by Bonner, who found the text to be unintelligible, except for βακχε which he took to be the popular epithet of Dionysus, which is probably correct.52 On a recent visit to the museum, however, I was able to make out the following: βακχε/μυρι/ζωον (obv.) and εξλαμσι/πυρ/ον/θη (rev.).53 Dionysus’ presence here is unexpected, until we recall that a thunderblast did, in fact, end the human portion of his life as he lay in the womb of his mother. The epithet Bacchios appears, however, in only one other magical text and the reading is not sure.54 The rest of the letters on the obverse of this axe-head (μυρι/ζωον) may be some form of the verb μυρίζειν, “to anoint”. The other side is more promising, but corrupted: εξλαμσι πυρ could easily hide a phrase describing lightening, e.g. something like “the fire will gleam forth”. 55 21 Our fifth example of a large inscribed axe-head is a dark-green polished stone 11 cm in length that was said to have been found in the ruins of Herculaneum in the nineteenth century.56 Although it carries no images, it is inscribed as follows with a series divine or magicalnames, all but three of which (marked with an asterisk below) also appear on the Ephesian stone:57 Ιαω Αναλβα- Αβλαναθ Σαβαωθ Αδωναιον Ελωαιο* Λακιωβ* Βηλβλααν* Αεηιουω Σεσενγεν- βαρφαραν- Γην 22 The scribe wrote the text with the cutting edge of the axe pointing downwards, starting at the very top, were the stone is very narrow, as a result of which he divided up the palindrome ablanathanalba incorrectly, inscribing the second half of it (Analba) first. 23 We can, I think, sum up the common features of these larger inscribed axe-heads as follows: Place Dimensions/Stone Blade Symbols/Images Common Inscriptions type Kernos, 27 | 2014