Acknowledgments
This volume could never have been written without the expert assistance of dozens of specialists responsible for management and curation of collections in museums and other public institutions around the world. Your kind help is deeply appreciated. Thank you Eugenio Alliata (Terra Sancta Museum, Jerusalem); Pablo Alvarez (Special Collections Research Center, University of Michigan Library, Ann Arbor, MI); Nancy Benovitz (The Israel Museum, Jerusalem); Mathilde Avisseau-Broustet (Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris); Dana Barkagan (Bible Lands Museum Jerusalem, Jerusalem); Yael Barschak (Israel Antiquities Authority, Jerusalem); Catherine Bastien (Musée du Louvre, Paris); Aadya Bedi (American Numismatic Society, New York); Yigal Bloch (Bible Lands Museum Jerusalem, Jerusalem); Anna-Laura de la Iglesia y Nikolaus (Diözesanmuseum Freising, Freising); Laurien de Gelder (Allard Pierson Museum, Amsterdam); Frédérique Duyrat (Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris); Sebastián Encina (Kelsey Museum of Archaeology, Ann Arbor, MI); Johan van Heesch (Bibliothèque royale de Belgique, Bruxelles); Kelly Flaherty (Princeton University Art Museum, Princeton, NJ); Cäcilia Fluck (Skulpturensammlung und Museum für Byzantinische Kunst, Berlin); Michelle Fontenot (Kelsey Museum of Archaeology, Ann Arbor, MI); Carla Galfano (Dumbarton Oaks Research Library & Collections, Washington, DC); Aspasia Soula Georgiadou (Department of Antiquities, Republic of Cyprus, Nicosia); Giorgos Georgiou (Department of Antiquities, Republic of Cyprus, Nicosia); Haim Gitler (The Israel Museum, Jerusalem); Abigail Glazer (The Israel Museum, Jerusalem); Jean-Daniel Gullung (Saint-Pierre en Gallicante, Jerusalem); Perry Harel (Hecht Museum, Haifa); Jana Helmbold-Doyé (Ägyptisches Museum und Papyrussammlung, Berlin); Alexia Hughes (Princeton University Art Museum, Princeton, NJ); Josh Houston (The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, MD); Fawzi Ibrahim (Rockefeller Archeological Museum, Jerusalem); Geralda Jurriaans-Helle (Allard Pierson Museum, Amsterdam); Laure-Hélène Kerrio (Musée du Louvre, Paris); Benton Kidd (Museum of Art and Archaeology, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO); Dominik Kimmel (Leibniz-Zentrum für Archäologie, Mainz); Alexandra King (Art Museum, University of Toronto); Kornelia Kressirer (Akademisches Kunstmuseum, Bonn); Agnete Lassen (Babylonian Collection at the Yale Peabody Museum, New Haven, CT); Timothy Porter (Smart Museum of Art, Chicago, IL); Reine Mady (American University of Beirut Archaeological Museum, Beirut); Angela Maria Manenti (Museo Archeologico Regionale Paolo Orsi, Siracusa); Daniela Massara (Terra Sancta Museum, Jerusalem); Christina Merkouri (Ephorate of Antiquities of West Attica, Athens); David Mevorah (The Israel Museum, Jerusalem); Gabriele Mietke (Skulpturensammlung und Museum für Byzantinische Kunst, Berlin); Heinz-Helge Nieswandt (Archäologisches Museum, Universität Münster); Olga Novoseltseva (The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg); Elisabeth O’Connell (The British Museum, London); Leonardo Pajarola (Musée Bible+Orient, Fribourg); Nadine Panayot (American University of Beirut Archeological Museum, Beirut); Evan Peugh (Penn Museum, Pennsylvania, PA); Navit Popovich (Israel Antiquities Authority, Jerusalem); Peter Prokop (Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Wien); Yuri Pyatnitsky (The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg); Ilona Regulski (Ägyptisches Museum und Papyrussammlung, Berlin); Alegre Savariego (Israel Antiquities Authority, Jerusalem); Taniah Simpson (Birmingham Museums, Birmingham); Jeff Steward (Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, MA); Sabine Strauß (Staatliche Münzsammlung, München); John Thomassen (American Numismatic Society, New York); Sarah Thomson (Museum of Art and Archaeology, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO); Antonis Tsakalos (Byzantine and Christian Museum, Athens); Mara Verykokou (Benaki Museum, Athens); Sergio Vidal Álvarez (Museo Arqueológico Nacional, Madrid); Sheila Waller (Caesarea Maritima Museum, Kibbutz Sdot-Yam); Morag Wilhelm (The Israel Museum, Jerusalem); Will Wilson (The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge); Nicola Woods (Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto); and Orit from the National Maritime Museum (Haifa), who wished to remain semi-anonymous.
I would like to extend my heartfelt thanks to my friends, colleagues, private collectors, and art dealers, whose contributions to this work are no less deserving of praise and gratitude. Favours both small and large – philological expertise, invitations to lectures, access to collections both private and public, countless suggestions for improvement, wonderful acts of hospitality, words of encouragement, generous sharing of published and unpublished research, and assistance with copyright permissions – have been copiously bestowed upon the author by Julien Aliquot, Shua Amorai-Stark, Gideon Bohak, Theodore de Bruyn, Alessandro Cavicchia, Dávid Cielontko, Alessandro Coniglio, Diego Corral Varela, Massimo Cultraro, Véronique Dasen, Robert Deutsch, Korshi Dooso, Mert Dogan, Vera Dürrschnabel, Christopher Faraone, Pierre-Louis Gatier, Rudolf Haensch, Basema Hamarneh, Shai Hendler, Richard Hodges, Roy Kotansky, Thomas J. Kraus, Markéta Kulhánková, Franziska Leumann, Maria Lidova, David Livingstone, Adam Łajtar, Magdalena Łaptaś, Francisco Marco Simón, Nikolay Markov, Attilio Mastrocinque, Markéta Melounová, Demetrios Michaelides, Georgios Michalopoulos, Simone Michel, John Mitchell, Lina Nacouzi, Paweł Nowakowski, Árpád Nagy, Bernhard Palme, Joseph Patrich, Brigitte Pitarakis, Paolo Poccetti, Max Shick, Evina Stein, Markéta Svobodová, Celia Sánchez Natalías, Roi Sabar, Gideon Sasson, Adam Shattenstein, Christian Schmidt, Deniz Sever Georgousakis, Yvona Trnka-Amrhein, Paolo Vitellozzi, Zuzana Vítková, Jacques van der Vliet, Charles Watkinson, Alexandra Werner, Leonard Alexander Wolfe, and Hussam Zurqieh.
I am especially indebted to Daniela Urbanová, Chair of Latin Philology at the Department of Classical Studies at Masaryk University (Brno), my teacher and friend, who first introduced me to the world of Graeco-Roman magic, and to Jeffrey Spier, former Anissa and Paul John Balson II Senior Curator of Antiquities at the J. Paul Getty Museum (Los Angeles), whose constant encouragement, invaluable counsel, and overall generosity of spirit helped to improve this work in more ways than one. My deepest thanks also go to David Frankfurter, William Goodwin Aurelio Chair of the Appreciation of Scripture at Boston University, whose numerous comments, suggestions, and general enthusiasm for this project benefited both the author and the manuscript immensely. Vincent Oeters and Gera van Bedaf, my editors at Brill, deserve sincere thanks for their patience and good counsel. Barbora Kocánová, head of the Centre for Classical Studies at the Institute of Philosophy of the Academy of Sciences (Prague), and Petr Kitzler, director of the same Institute, have my heartfelt gratitude for their unreserved support. I am much obliged to the EdMed foundation (Prague) for their generous financial grant, which made it possible to commission new photographs of objects from the collections of The British Museum (London). All remaining errors of judgement and infelicities of style are mine alone. As always, none of my endeavours, academic or otherwise, would be possible without the loving support of my family. The contribution to this book, and its author’s well-being, of my significant other, Marta Kłosiewicz, is incalculable, and stretches far beyond the preparation of dozens of excellent facsimiles, freshly drawn for this volume.