This votive was found at a Sanctuary of Apollo on Cyprus (late 4th century BCE). For example, thousands of phallic-shaped amulets, which warded off evil and misfortune for the wearer, survive from antiquity. Apotropaic magic was predicated upon a belief that certain depictions, texts, or practices shielded the user from harm. The former includes apotropaic, or protective, magic. Museum Object Number(s): 65-34-1 ProtectionĪncient practitioners employed both helpful, defensive magic and harmful, offensive magic, which might be thought of in modern terms as “white” or “black” magic. He appears surrounded by knives and scorpions, possibly as protection for a tomb or temple. Known as “the one who keeps enemies at a distance,” Tutu was a sphinx-like protective god with a human head, lion body, bird wings, and a snake for a tail. Thus, from birth until death, magic touched all stages of human life. It even lay at the root of many funerary practices. It was a source of protection a means for healing a method for ensuring success in business, love, and reproduction and a platform for predicting the uncertain future. Magic, often overlapping with what today might be considered science or religion, was a resource for mediating one’s interaction with society and the world. Surviving literature and archaeological remains from ancient societies surrounding the Mediterranean, including those of Egypt, the Near East, Greece, and Rome, reveal the extent to which magic pervaded most aspects of life in antiquity. Yet in the ancient world, magic was not only a perceived reality, but was also accessible to many people. To the modern mind, the word “magic” likely conjures up images of Hogwarts and other fantastical and exclusive realms. Both demons were among a number of apotropaic images that warded off evil. The striations around the face of this demon are either the entrails of an enemy, worn by Humbaba, or the whiskers of Pazuzu’s lion-like face. Professors Robert Ousterhout and Grant Frame, curators of Magic in the Ancient World Protective figurine of Humbaba or Pazuzu. This exhibition features objects from the Museum’s rich collections of the Near East, Babylonian, Egyptian, and Mediterranean sections. The exhibition Magic in the Ancient World, now at the Penn Museum, illuminates how different cultures used magic as a way of managing or understanding the present, controlling supernatural agencies, and seeing the future. Using magical acts, they attempted to control supernatural powers- gods, demons, spirits, or ghosts-to accomplish something beyond the scope of human capabilities. R.In ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, Greece, and Rome, practitioners of magic exploited symbolic words, images, and rituals to achieve desired outcomes through supernatural means. This should appeal to scholars of Andean studies and serve as an important resource for students interested in the anthropology of warfare, violence, sacrifice, and political economy." - E. They innovatively explore this issue through a detailed analysis of the ritual procurement, exchange, and curation of heads in both prehistoric and contemporary Andean polities. "In a fascinating study, Arnold and Hastorf address a perduring problem in anthropological theory-the institutionalization of social inequality and the centralization of political and economic power. Using ethnographic and archaeological fieldwork, highland-lowland comparisons, archival documents, oral histories, and ritual texts, the authors draw from Marx, Mauss, Foucault, Assadourian, Viveiros del Castro and other theorists to show how heads shape and symbolize power, violence, fertility, identity, and economy in South American cultures. In this synthesizing work, cultural anthropologist Denise Arnold and archaeologist Christine Hastorf examine the cult of heads in the Andes-past and present-to develop a theory of its place in indigenous cultural practice and its relationship to political systems. Scholars have spoken of captured and trophy heads, curated crania, symbolic flying heads, head imagery on pots and on stone, head-shaped vessels, and linguistic references to the head. The human head has had important political, ritual and symbolic meanings throughout Andean history. Heads of State: Icons, Power, and Politics in the Ancient and Modern Andes
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