{"id":1389,"date":"2018-05-10T10:29:08","date_gmt":"2018-05-10T10:29:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/classicalstudies\/?p=1389"},"modified":"2018-05-14T21:23:14","modified_gmt":"2018-05-14T21:23:14","slug":"a-new-publication-material-approaches-to-roman-magic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/classicalstudies\/?p=1389","title":{"rendered":"A new publication – Material Approaches to Roman Magic"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s almost exactly two years since we published a blog post\u00a0<\/i>introducing Adam Parker<\/a>, who was then\u00a0at the beginning of his PhD on Roman magic. Time flies, and Adam is now in his third year of part-time study. W<\/i>e’re delighted to share news of a recent publication entitled ‘Material Approaches to Roman Magic: Occult Objects\u00a0and Supernatural Substances’<\/strong><\/a>, which Adam\u00a0co-edited with another (recently graduated) OU PhD, Stuart McKie.\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

<\/i>Adam writes:<\/em><\/p>\n

“My research is on the archaeology of magic in Roman Britain. It’s a material-led study which is looking\u00a0at a broad range of different object types from this province in order to establish chronological, spatial, material, and contextual relationships from within this large data-set\u00a0and it has the ultimate goal of trying to understand what magic was in this period and what function it served for those who used it.\u00a0Stuart McKie’s PhD (2017)\u00a0was on The Social Significance of Curse Tablets in the North-Western Provinces of the Roman Empire.\u00a0 He is now a Lecturer in Classics and Ancient History at the University of Manchester. We both share a strong belief that material culture analysis\u00a0has the capacity to revolutionise our understanding of Roman magical practices and that this publication will help to\u00a0draw the subject into the paths of 21st Century theoretical models, archaeological practices, and analytical techniques.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The core of this book comes from a panel held at the\u00a0Theoretical Roman Archaeology Conference (TRAC) 2015\u00a0entitled “Charmed I\u2019m Sure: Roman Magic \u2013 Old Theory,\u00a0New Approaches” . One\u00a0of the most exciting features of that panel was the coming\u00a0together of university academics, postgraduate students,\u00a0professional archaeologists and museum curators in the\u00a0pooling of ideas and approaches to Roman magic. The volume has maintained that variety and energy, with papers\u00a0from five of the original contributors plus further articles\u00a0from authors working in the same wide range of professions.\u00a0Our aim with this collection of papers is to further develop\u00a0some of the ideas presented at TRAC 2015, particularly the\u00a0focus on materiality and embodied experience of magic in the\u00a0Roman world. At the core of this volume is the contention\u00a0that fine-grained artefact analysis has great potential to offer\u00a0new ways to understand ancient magic practices.”<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

You can order the book via the Oxbow website<\/a>, and read a summary and the table of contents below.<\/p>\n

Congratulations, Adam and Stuart! <\/em><\/p>\n

—-<\/p>\n

This second volume in the new TRAC Themes in Roman Archaeology series seeks to push the research agendas of materiality and lived experience further into the study of Roman magic, a field that has, until recently, lacked object-focused analysis. Building on the pioneering studies in Boschung and Bremmer’s (2015) Materiality of Magic, the editors of the present volume have collected contributions that showcase the value of richly-detailed, context-specific explorations of the magical practices of the Roman world. By concentrating primarily on the Imperial period and the western provinces, the various contributions demonstrate very clearly the exceptional range of influences and possibilities open to individuals who sought to use magical rituals to affect their lives in these specific contexts \u2013 something that would have been largely impossible in earlier periods of antiquity. Contributions are presented from a range of museum professionals, commercial archaeologists, university academics and postgraduate students, making a compelling case for strengthening lines of communication between these related areas of expertise.<\/p>\n

\n

Table of Contents<\/h2>\n
\n
1. Introduction: Materials, Approaches, Substances, and Objects<\/span><\/div>\n
Stuart McKie and Adam Parker<\/em><\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
2. The Medium Matters: Materiality and Metaphor in Some Latin Curse Tablets<\/span><\/div>\n
Celia S\u00e1nchez Natal\u00edas<\/em><\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
3. Phallic Magic: A Cross Cultural Approach to Roman Phallic Small Finds<\/span><\/div>\n
Alissa Whitmore<\/em><\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
4. Little Bottles of Power: Roman Glass Unguentaria in Magic, Ritual, and Poisoning<\/span><\/div>\n
Thomas Derrick<\/em><\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
5. Victory of Good over Evil? Amuletic Animal Images on Roman Engraved Gems<\/span><\/div>\n
Idit Sagiv<\/em><\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
6. \u2018The Bells! The Bells!\u2019 Approaching Tintinnabula in Roman Britain and Beyond<\/span><\/div>\n
Adam Parker<\/em><\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
7. Rubbing and Rolling, Burning and Burying: The Magical Use of Amber in Roman London<\/span><\/div>\n
Glynn Davis<\/em><\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
8. Linking Magic and Medicine in Early Roman Britain: The \u2018Doctor\u2019s\u2019 Burial, Stanway, Camulodunum<\/span><\/div>\n
Nicky Garland<\/em><\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
9. The Archaeology of Ritual in the Domestic Sphere: Case Studies from Karanis and Pompeii<\/span><\/div>\n
Andrew Wilburn<\/em><\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
10. The Legs, Hands, Head and Arms Race: The Human Body as a Magical Weapon in the Roman World<\/span><\/div>\n
Stuart McKie<\/em><\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
11. Amulets, the Body and Personal Agency<\/span><\/div>\n
V\u00e9ronique Dasen<\/em><\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s almost exactly two years since we published a blog post\u00a0introducing Adam Parker, who was then\u00a0at the beginning of his PhD on Roman magic. Time flies, and Adam is now in his third year of part-time study. We’re delighted to share news of a recent publication entitled ‘Material Approaches to Roman Magic: Occult Objects\u00a0and Supernatural […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33,123,15],"tags":[78,128,63,129],"class_list":["post-1389","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-phd","category-postgraduate","category-publications","tag-magic","tag-materiality","tag-rome","tag-trac"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/classicalstudies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1389","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/classicalstudies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/classicalstudies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/classicalstudies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/classicalstudies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1389"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/classicalstudies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1389\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1392,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/classicalstudies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1389\/revisions\/1392"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/classicalstudies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/classicalstudies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/classicalstudies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}