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This article provides a translation and preliminary evaluation of selected curses written on lead tablets discovered in the joint temple of the Great Mother and Isis in the German town of Mainz. They belong in the category of prayers for justice and the most remarkable features or information we can obtain from them are especially the facts that: (1) they invoke, quite unexpectedly, the Great Mother and Attis, whose presence on curse tablets had been previously either only very rarely attested (in case of Attis) or completely unknown (in case of the Great Mother); (2) the relatively early dating of these tablets (75-125 CE), together with the use of very deferential epithets in addressing Attis and allusions to mysteric components, might lead to a reconsideration of the traditional opinion that the deification of Attis should be placed in the reign of the Antonine dynasty or even later; (3) they use colorful persuasive analogies and proleptic expressions probably attesting a very good knowledge of the Attis myth and rituals taking place during the March festival of this god in Rome or in Ostia and thus making the traditional demarcation between magic and religion problematic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the substitutions and deformations of human faces in the Ashkenazi Hebrew illuminated manuscripts in the 13th and 14th centuries of Germany. It says that facial deformations are predominantly represented by Jewish characters while birdlike or animal faces are being used as a typical substitution. It adds that the insight of medieval Jewish scholars on the images biblical prohibition for the faces' substitutions and deformations are also discussed.