In Blood and Ashes: Curse Tablets and Binding Spells in Ancient Greece

From binding spells and incantations to private ceremonies, ritual practices pervaded the ancient Greek world from 750-250 BCE. In Blood and Ashes provides the first historical study of the development and dissemination of ritualized curse practice. With cultural pressures driving the practice of ancient Greek magic, individuals negotiated with the world underground conjuring the powers of the Underworld and invoking the dead to assist the living.
The study of ancient Greek rituals illuminates modern understandings of daily life in ancient communities. Through tradition and rites, people of the ancient world coped with conflict, vulnerability, competition, anxiety, desire, and loss. In particular, curse tablets documented the lives of everyday people–cooks, tavern keepers, garland weavers, helmsmen, craftspersons, and barbers–and their confrontations with ritual practice.
Utilizing epigraphic, historical, literary, archaeological, and material evidence, Jessica Lamont analyzes the traditional narratives of Archaic, Classical, and early Hellenistic Greece. The texts and artifacts from these eras offer glimpses into the lives of individuals, illuminating the interplay of ritual and conflict-management strategies among citizens and slaves, men and women, and pagans and Christians. Filled with new material and insights, Lamont’s volume offers a fresh perspective on ancient Greek social history and religion, highlighting the importance of ritual in negotiating life’s uncertainties.