The so-called Phylactery of Moses
is a text inscribed on a single, small (9.1 cm. x 5.6 cm.) sheet of copper
found in Akrai, Sicily sometime in the early nineteenth century. . . . The
Phylactery of Moses is, properly speaking, a lamella—a magical amulet
engraved onto a thin metal sheet (usually of gold or silver, but occasionally
of copper) and worn about the body for general protection.
. . .
Text
The text of the Phylactery of
Moses is preserved in a single manuscript: a small copper or copper-alloy,
tablet, height 9.1 cm.; width 5.6 cm, formerly housed in the Syracuse Museo
Archeologico Nazionale (no inventory number given) but now lost. Although reported
to be bronze, apparently no tests were conducted to identify the metal used.
Since copper routinely oxidizes to a green patination, and since copper is the “pure”
metal usually adopted for use as amulets, it seems likely that this amulet is
copper but has been misidentified as bronze. Bronze is a copper-tin alloy. In
the ancient magical handbooks, phylacteries made of metal are to be written on
gold, silver, copper, tin, or (occasionally) lead or iron—all pure earth metals
that are not alloyed. No instructions in the ancient magical literature
prescribe the engraving of amulets onto bronze.
. . .
The original date of the composition
of the amulet must be viewed not only in the context of its use of the Aquilan
version, but also alongside the paleographic issues and how this text stands in
relation to the fact that it shows a lot of wear and tear from excessive handling
in antiquity, something that may account for the injunction within the text
that the tablet should be handed down to no one but one’s legitimate heirs. This
mandate recorded more than once on the tablet enhances the prospect that the
amulet was highly venerated within the family who owned it and that it was
possibly handed down for posterity within subsequent generations. Hence, the
actual writing of the tablet may belong to a period much older than the
archaeological context in which it was discovered, uncertain as that may be. In
this respect, the amulet can be seen as an heirloom artifact kept in the
household for centuries before eventual burial with the last surviving family member.
The paleographic hand preserved
on the Acre copper lamella can be dated from the late second century to
the third century, although it is not impossible that the amulet could date as
late as the early fourth century CE. (Roy D. Kotansky, “The Phylactery of
Moses: A New Translation and Introduction,” in Old Testament Pseudepigrapha:
More Noncanonical Scriptures, ed. James R. Davila and Richard Bauckham, 2
vols. [Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2025], 2:356, 358, 359)
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