House Amulet of John and Georgia

Abstract

This amulet, acquired by the Greek Archaeological Society in 1878, was said to have been found in a grave at an undisclosed site in Phthiotis, Thessaly. The text requests protection for a house and its inhabitants, John and Georgia. The long, narrow strip, rounded at the top, was first folded over from top to bottom a number of times to produce make-shift ruling lines between which the scribe engraved his text. Some lines thus produced are uneven and do not appear to run across the width of the tablet. Furthermore, four or five tiny pin-holes, somewhat evenly spaced, perforate the middle of the tablet and evidently served to mount the amulet on a wall somewhere in the house.