Curse tablet

The tablets were used to ask the gods, place spirits, or the deceased to perform an action on a person or object, or otherwise compel the subject of the curse.

Some tablets are inscribed with nothing more than the names of the targets, leading to the supposition that an oral spell may have accompanied the manufacture of the curse.

Those at whose grave sites these were placed had usually died at a very young age or in a violent manner, and the tablet was supposed to help lay their souls to rest in spite of their untimely deaths.

[10] The language of those texts that do give context is often concerned with justice, either listing the target's crimes in great detail, handing over responsibility for their punishment to the gods, using indefinite grammar.

[13] Over 80 similar tablets have been discovered in and about the remains of a temple to Mercury nearby, at West Hill, Uley,[14] making south-western Britain one of the major centres for finds of Latin defixiones.

In Ancient Egypt, so-called "Execration Texts" appear around the time of the 12th Dynasty, listing the names of enemies written on clay figurines or pottery which were then smashed and buried beneath a building under construction (so that they were symbolically "smothered"), or in a cemetery.

[17] Another possibility is that curse tablets were produced by professionals who wished to lend their art a degree of mystique through the use of an apparently secret language that only they could understand.

There were also frequent invocations of Egyptian gods and goddesses, archangels, and other biblical figures as a result of the syncretism that occurred over time throughout the Mediterranean.

have compared the tablets to modern swearing, arguing that they were produced in a fit of anger, in envy towards a business competitor or athletic opponent, or in an unhealthy obsession toward a person of romantic interest.

Scholars have debated the possible motivations for using erotic magic, including unrequited love, sexual control of the intended target, financial gain, and social advancement.

One notable type of curse was a "Diakopai", a separation spell intended to drive away rivals by making them repulsive.