Amulets and Ancestors Jewish Women's Reproductive Agency in Late Antiquity

Abstract

This article investigates a Jewish Aramaic incantation bowl from the fifth–eighth centuries CE which is currently housed at the Museu da Farmácia Lisbon (Inv. 10895). This study focuses on a biblical quotation, Gen 30:22, which is deployed on the bowl in the context of an incantation for fertility for a female client named Mihranahid. It locates this incantation within an inherited tradition of biblical matriarchs, such as Rachel, who were invoked in magical and non-magical settings in Late Antiquity because of the power they were understood to have as the ancestors of Late Antique Jewish women. The article argues that the use of this quotation exemplifies how some Jewish women utilized imitative magic in order to assert agency over their reproductive lives.