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40. Anonymous German or East European (?) 18th Century (?) Jewish Amulet to Protect Mother and Child During Childbirth Against Lilith
Woodcut, 18th Century (?), 155 x 192 mm. A good impression on old laid paper, trimmed just outside the borderline, unevenly within it at the bottom; a printer’s crease and a wormhole. If the image here does not appear to be quite so bizarre, the context certainly is. Lilith as a demon and as the first wife of Adam, created contemporaneously with him and from the same clay, is a scantily documented legend that goes back to the Dead Sea Scrolls and perhaps before. It finds its most complete documentation in the medieval Alphabet of Ben Sira (8th-10th century), where amulets against Lilith’s preying upon new-born boys, before their circumcision, are described. The names of three angels, potent against Lilith, are mentioned – Senoy, Sansenoy and Semangelof – and those three names are inscribed in this print, in abbreviated forms: Snvi, Snsnvi, Smnglf. Such an amulet would have been attached to the wall or door of the birthroom to protect the occupants. The image at the top of the print shows, unexplainedly, a blessing over food. The rest is ornamental work and text, apart from the male and female figures, the former representing Adam and the latter presumably Eve. Despite the Hebrew typography, we have been informed that the text is not in Hebrew, nor in Yiddish, but in a medieval form of German. Rare, need it be said? |
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