Feminae: Medieval Women and Gender Index


  • Record Number: 7434
  • Author(s)/Creator(s): Tuerk , Jacquelyn.
  • Contributor(s):
  • Title: An Early Byzantine Inscribed Amulet and Its Narratives
  • Source: Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies 23, ( 1999): Pages 25 - 42.
  • Description:
  • Article Type: Journal Article
  • Subject (See Also): Amulets Art History- Decorative Arts Byzantium Healers and Healing Medicine Miracles Woman with an Issue of Blood (Biblical Figure) Women in Art
  • Award Note:
  • Geographic Area: Eastern Mediterranean
  • Century: 6-7
  • Primary Evidence: Amulet; New York, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 17.190.491. Hematite amulet, carved on one side is Christ and the Woman with the Issue of Blood and on the other side is a praying woman between two palm trees. A Greek inscription on the amulet recounts the Bibli
  • Illustrations: Two Figures. Figure One Hematite amulet. The Woman with the Issue of Blood kneels before Christ. Figure Two Reverse of the hematite amulet with a woman praying between palm trees.
  • Table:
  • Abstract: How did an early Byzantine hematite amulet address physical illness? Contemporary medical texts explain that the stone itself was believed to cure bleeding, but how can we account for its engraved words and images depicting Christ healing the bleeding woman? The biblical narrative offers a persuasive analogy to the personal narrative of the Byzantine woman's own sickness, positing the possibility of a cure for the Byzantine woman through identity with the biblical woman. It provides a model for the infirm Byzantine woman to understand her own personal narrative, and a model of the desired ending to the Byzantine woman's narrative. [Reproduced from the journal page on the Taylor & Francis Online website: http://www.tandfonline.com/.]

  • Related Resources:
  • Author's Affiliation: University of Chicago
  • Conference Info: - , -
  • Year of Publication: 1999.
  • Language: English
  • ISSN/ISBN: 03070131