A Rediscovered Syriac Amulet from Turfan in the Collection of the Hermitage Museum

Abstract

Item ВДсэ-524 in the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg is an amulet scroll written in Syriac which was discovered by the Second German Turfan Expedition (19041905) and kept afterwards in the Museum of Ethnology (Museum fr Vlkerkunde) in Berlin. The artifact originates in the Turkic-speaking Christian milieu of the Turfan Oasis, probably from the Mongol period. The text, however, reflects a long tradition of magical literature that goes back to ancient Mesopotamia and can be categorised as a piece of apotropaic (protective) magic. The article contains an edition of the Syriac text with translation and a discussion of its place of discovery, its overall composition and specific words and expressions found in the text. The authors point out likely connections between the Hermitage amulet and the Turfan fragments SyrHT 274276 kept in the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin Preuischer Kulturbesitz and briefly discuss its similarity with amulet H彩101 discovered in Qara Qoto by the 19831984 expedition of the Institute of Cultural Relics, Inner Mongolia Academy of Social Sciences.