AN ANCIENT JEWISH AMULET IN AUSTRIA?

Shema amulet unearthed in Austria

Published: 03/13/2008 (JTA Breaking News)

University of Vienna archeologists unearthed an amulet in a third century grave bearing the Shema prayer.

The find in eastern Austria represents the earliest sign of Jewish inhabitants in present-day Austria, the university said in a news release.

The silver amulet contains a gold scroll on which the words of the Shema are inscribed in Greek.

The grave of the child is one of about 300 graves in an ancient Roman cemetery discovered in 1986 near the town of Halbturn. The Jewish amulet was identified in 2006 and will go on public display next month in the Burgenland State Museum in Eisenstadt.

I'm surprised to hear of a Jewish inscription in Austria this early, but Western European Jewish epigraphy is not my specialty. Still, I would not rule out the possibility that this is a Christian amulet or even pagan amulet using the Shema with a magical force. I would be more confident of Jewish origin if the inscription were in Hebrew rather than Greek. It may be, though, that the archaeological context provides more information.

UPDATE: The Science Blog has a long post with more information. Excerpts:

Archaeologists from the Institute of Prehistory and Early History of the University of Vienna have found an amulet inscribed with a Jewish prayer in a Roman child's grave dating back to the 3rd century CE at a burial ground in the Austrian town of Halbturn. The 2.2-centimeter-long gold scroll represents the earliest sign of Jewish inhabitants in present-day Austria.

This amulet shows that people of Jewish faith lived in what is today Austria since the Roman Empire. Up to now, the earliest evidence of a Jewish presence within the borders of Austria has been letters from the 9th century CE. In the areas of the Roman province of Pannonia that are now part of Hungary, Croatia and Serbia, gravestones and small finds attest to Jewish inhabitants even in antiquity. Jews have been settling in all parts of the ancient world at the latest since the 3rd century BCE. Particularly following the second Jewish Revolt against the Roman Empire, the victorious Romans sold large numbers of Jews as slaves to all corners of the empire. This, coupled with voluntary migration, is how Jews also might have come to present-day Austria.

[...]

THE INSCRIPTION ON THE AMULET IS A JEWISH PRAYER
Suma Istrahl adwne elwh adwn a
Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord is one.

GREEK SCRIPT, HEBREW LANGUAGE
Greek is common with amulet inscriptions, although Latin and Hebrew and amulet inscriptions are known. In this case, the scribe's hand is definitely familiar with Greek. However, the inscription is Greek in appearance only, for the text itself is nothing other than a Greek transcription of the common Jewish prayer from the Old Testament (Deuteronomy, 6:4): "Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord is one."

[...]

So it's Hebrew transliterated (badly) into Greek letters. But that does not allay my suspicion. The pagan Greek magical papyri sometimes use transliterated Hebrew as part of the spell. See, for example, "BAROUCH ADONAI ELOAI ABRAAM" ("Blessed be the Lord, the God of Abraham") in PGM V.480-85. And would a Jew write Israel as "Istrael? I doubt it. In fact, Istrael is found in PGM XXXVI around line 310 as a magic word in a love spell. One could argue that this spell in PGM XXXVI is Jewish too, but one soon gets tied up in knots trying to figure out what Jewish magicians might or might not write in their spells. I'm keeping an open mind about the origin of the Austrian amulet until I hear more convincing information one way or another.