Undertaken in collaboration with the University of Michigan’s Special Collections Research Center, Papyrological Library, Museum of Natural History, and Kelsey Museum of Archaeology, Materia Magica: Materiality and Ritual in the Greco-Roman World presents a diverse array of artifacts that were created to communicate with and call upon various unseen, supernatural forces for aid and protection.
While the objects on display are disparate at first glance, ranging from lead tablets and amulets to papyrus and parchment leaves, they all share a common thread: they have long been labeled as “magical” in traditional Western scholarship. However, each of these artifacts is better understood on a broad spectrum of ancient ritual, from subversive and transgressive acts to highly social and visible ones. The exhibition, curated by IPAMAA PhD candidate Abigail Staub, highlights the objects’ oft-overlooked material dimensions, asking us to consider how qualities like color, texture, and weight shaped an object’s perceived efficacy and meaning.
Materia Magica centers the Campbell Bonner Collection of Magical Amulets, held in the University’s Special Collections Research Center. The Bonner Collection is renowned amongst scholars, particularly for its diverse array of uterine amulets. Despite the gems’ international significance, the general public remains largely ignorant of their presence at the University of Michigan. The amulets are rarely on display, in part due to their minuscule scale, which presents a difficulty for communicating information—a hurdle we were able to overcome with the indispensable help and talent of the Kelsey Museum’s own scientific illustrator, Bruce Worden. The Kelsey generously contributed five remarkable objects to the exhibition: two phallic bone amulets, a bone bead, a child’s lead amulet bracelet, and fragments of a rolled lead amulet.
The exhibit is on view now through April 30 in Room 100 of Hatcher Library North—visit today!
