Skip to main navigation Skip to search Skip to main content

Cursing Beyond the Grave: Imprecations and Jewish Funerary Culture in Antiquity

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

This article discusses curses found in ancient and late antique Jewish funerary inscriptions. It begins with a typology of imprecatory texts based on a survey of funerary epigraphy, both Jewish and non-Jewish. It proceeds with an analysis of explicit curse formulae found in a Jewish funerary context: on ossuaries, on the walls of burial caves, or on architectural elements of graves. The article discusses several aspects of these curses, placing them in a physical, religious, and psychological context.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1-24
Number of pages24
JournalEntangled Religions
Volume13
Issue number6
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2024

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2024 Center for Religious Studies. All rights reserved.

Funding

The author wishes to thank Alexandra Cuffel and Eduard Iricinschi, who organized the conference \u201CInvoking a Strange God: Rituals of Power and Religious Contacts in the Late Antique Mediterranean World and Medieval Europe,\u201D which took place at the Center for Religious Studies (CERES) of Ruhr-Universit\u00E4t Bochum, Germany, on 7-8 November 2019. Many thanks also go to Omri Abadi, Gideon Bohak, and the two anonymous reviewers of this journal for their helpful suggestions.

Funders
Alexandra Cuffel and Eduard Iricinschi
Late Antique Mediterranean World and Medieval Europe

    Keywords

    • Funerary epigraphy
    • Jewish curses
    • Jewish epitaphs

    Fingerprint

    Dive into the research topics of 'Cursing Beyond the Grave: Imprecations and Jewish Funerary Culture in Antiquity'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

    Cite this