| dc.description |
It was not without trepidation that I set out to supplement and slightly to correct the discussion of an amulet by that expert on the subject Professor Campbell Bonner, whose excellent book has recently come into my hands. Among the many curious specimens contained therein is one which is listed as D 144 and figured on Plate VII, described on p. 276 and discussed on pp. 87–89. It has on the obverse a pterygoma, that is to say an inscription written first in full, then without its first letter, then without its first two letters and so on, thus forming a conventional wing. In the space left by the tapering of this is shown a warrior in full equipment, who may or may not be Ares. Above him is a thunderbolt. On the reverse is a curious erection, perhaps a very oddly formed altar, above which is something like a jar, in the shape of a recurrent object on some of these amulets, which Bonner, plausibly at least and probably rightly, interprets as the human uterus, but in an unusual position, for its neck (the os uteri?) is turned upwards, not, as commonly, downwards. On either side is a snake, above “a disk with eight radii — whether a wheel or a conventional sun is uncertain.” Around the margin runs some magic jargon ending in “Sabaoth.” |
