Home : Book details : Book description

Description of  The Long Life of Magical Objects: A Study in the Solomonic Tradition (Magic in History)

0271083662 azw3 This book explores a series of powerful artifacts associated with King Solomon via legendary or extracanonical textual sources. Tracing their cultural resonance throughout history, art historian Allegra Iafrate delivers exciting insights into these objects and interrogates the ways in which magic manifests itself at a material level. Each chapter focuses on a different Solomonic object: a ring used to control demons a mysterious set of bottles that constrain evil forces an endless knot or seal with similar properties the shamir, known for its supernatural ability to cut through stone and a flying carpet that can bring the sitter anywhere he desires. Taken together, these chapters constitute a study on the reception of the figure of Solomon, but they are also cultural biographies of these magical objects and their inherent aesthetic, morphological, and technical qualities. Read more