Danville isn’t often considered a hotspot for linguistic or textual studies, but this week some interesting and important research has been under way at Centre College.
Aaron Butts, lector in semitics at Yale University, has been on campus to edit a Mandaic amulet from Late Antique Mesopotamia — modern-day Iraq and Iran — at Centre.
The process consists of deciphering the letters of the text, translating it and providing notes. The result will be a published edition that will make the amulet available to a larger audience.
“Mandaic amulets in general — including this particular amulet — were usually written on lead, rolled up, placed within a casing, often copper, and presumably worn around the client’s neck for protection,” Butts says. The amulets contain incantations for healing and protection against various evils.
Centre received five grants from the Associated Colleges of the South Andrew W. Mellon Faculty Renewal Program earlier this year, including $8,000 toward this project, called “Unrolling, Drawing, Translating and Analyzing Amulets.”
The grant gives faculty members the opportunity to explore and research in ways that might not otherwise have been possible. Centre faculty contributing to the study include Tom McCollough and Beth Glazier-McDonald, religion professors, and Jeff Fieberg, associate chemistry professor.
The project aims to study Mandaean culture and language, as well as use the science of artifact preservation, by looking at three particular amulets purchased from an antiquities collector in 2008.
The amulet that Butts has been editing was already unrolled, but the other two amulets are currently undergoing the process of being unrolled as well as treated for corrosion and damage.
The incantations on the amulets are written in a language called Mandaic, which is a dialect of Aramaic. Aramaic is perhaps best known as the language spoken by Jesus, and it is related to other Semitic languages, such as Arabic and Hebrew.
Mandaic amulets are thought to be from Late Antiquity (roughly third century to mid-seventh century), but as Butts explains, a more exact dating is more difficult than it might first appear.
“The dates are really up in the air. These amulets are dated anywhere from the second century to the seventh century, with most people placing them at around 400 BCE,” Butts says. “The dating is especially difficult since many Mandaic amulets were not found in modern, controlled excavations, and thus they are lacking archeological context.”
Only a handful of Mandaic amulets have been fully edited and published, in part because deciphering them is such a painstakingly difficult task. The editing process is made even more difficult by damage incurred to the amulets over the centuries.
“With the amulets, the difficult part is not the translating, per se, but the script. They’re not made to be read, necessarily. They’re not literature, they’re not books — it’s much more like looking at a handwritten note,” Butts says. “Therefore, deciphering the actual letters is very difficult.
“If the amulet was written in a nice Mandaic book-hand, we could translate it in a matter of 15 to 20 minutes, but this is not what we have,” Butts continues. “It takes a day and a half to get around 50 letters.”
Butts compares deciphering the Mandaic incantations on the amulets to reading another person’s handwriting.
“It’s much more like handwriting than printing — that’s the easiest way to think of it. It’s like having to read somebody else’s cursive handwriting, except in a language that’s not your native language,” Butts explains.
The amulet that Butts is editing is lengthy. At more than 50 lines on each side of the amulet, it will take Butts more than these three days to complete his edition. When he does, though, the amulet will be an important addition to what is known about Mandaic culture.
“It is an interesting text,” Butts says. “There are less than a dozen published, so having another one available will be great.”
Aaron Butts, lector in semitics at Yale University, has been on campus to edit a Mandaic amulet from Late Antique Mesopotamia — modern-day Iraq and Iran — at Centre.
The process consists of deciphering the letters of the text, translating it and providing notes. The result will be a published edition that will make the amulet available to a larger audience.
“Mandaic amulets in general — including this particular amulet — were usually written on lead, rolled up, placed within a casing, often copper, and presumably worn around the client’s neck for protection,” Butts says. The amulets contain incantations for healing and protection against various evils.
Centre received five grants from the Associated Colleges of the South Andrew W. Mellon Faculty Renewal Program earlier this year, including $8,000 toward this project, called “Unrolling, Drawing, Translating and Analyzing Amulets.”
The grant gives faculty members the opportunity to explore and research in ways that might not otherwise have been possible. Centre faculty contributing to the study include Tom McCollough and Beth Glazier-McDonald, religion professors, and Jeff Fieberg, associate chemistry professor.
The project aims to study Mandaean culture and language, as well as use the science of artifact preservation, by looking at three particular amulets purchased from an antiquities collector in 2008.
The amulet that Butts has been editing was already unrolled, but the other two amulets are currently undergoing the process of being unrolled as well as treated for corrosion and damage.
The incantations on the amulets are written in a language called Mandaic, which is a dialect of Aramaic. Aramaic is perhaps best known as the language spoken by Jesus, and it is related to other Semitic languages, such as Arabic and Hebrew.
Mandaic amulets are thought to be from Late Antiquity (roughly third century to mid-seventh century), but as Butts explains, a more exact dating is more difficult than it might first appear.
“The dates are really up in the air. These amulets are dated anywhere from the second century to the seventh century, with most people placing them at around 400 BCE,” Butts says. “The dating is especially difficult since many Mandaic amulets were not found in modern, controlled excavations, and thus they are lacking archeological context.”
Only a handful of Mandaic amulets have been fully edited and published, in part because deciphering them is such a painstakingly difficult task. The editing process is made even more difficult by damage incurred to the amulets over the centuries.
“With the amulets, the difficult part is not the translating, per se, but the script. They’re not made to be read, necessarily. They’re not literature, they’re not books — it’s much more like looking at a handwritten note,” Butts says. “Therefore, deciphering the actual letters is very difficult.
“If the amulet was written in a nice Mandaic book-hand, we could translate it in a matter of 15 to 20 minutes, but this is not what we have,” Butts continues. “It takes a day and a half to get around 50 letters.”
Butts compares deciphering the Mandaic incantations on the amulets to reading another person’s handwriting.
“It’s much more like handwriting than printing — that’s the easiest way to think of it. It’s like having to read somebody else’s cursive handwriting, except in a language that’s not your native language,” Butts explains.
The amulet that Butts is editing is lengthy. At more than 50 lines on each side of the amulet, it will take Butts more than these three days to complete his edition. When he does, though, the amulet will be an important addition to what is known about Mandaic culture.
“It is an interesting text,” Butts says. “There are less than a dozen published, so having another one available will be great.”
