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• To a beautiful soul. Inscriptions on lead mirrors (Collection of Roman Antiquities, Hungarian National Museum)

  101–113

  György Németh

  Ádám Szabó

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  104

  There is a collection of several hundred small Roman lead mirrors (former private collection) in the Hungarian National Museum. Greek or Latin inscriptions can be read on 17 mirrors. The present study publishes these items along with the drawings of the inscriptions. Such mirrors were found mainly in graves of women, functioning as escorts to the souls of the dead and as apotropaic amulets.

• Das Hin und Her der Blicke, Eidola in der Pupille Augenförmiger Gemmen: Liebesgeschenke mit Amulettcharakter?

  185–203

  Carina Weiss

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  55

  The presented group of late Republican to early Imperial intagli consists of round layered stones (sardonyx, cornelian onyx) with a flat reverse side, which are strongly convex on the front side. Their horizontally stacked and differently coloured plies are sanded on the front to form concentric rings around a dark centre. The motif incised in this centre looks like an eidolon in the pupil of a 'fisheye'. Most of these motifs can be interpreted against the background of Augustan love poetry. It is possible that gems of this kind were gifts of love and, due to their striking design as an eye, also had an apotropaic function.