In Pictures : The Miraculous Treasure of a Pompeii Sorceress

While Osanna has suggested that the objects belonged to a female sorceress, classicist Mary Beard has contested this suggestion. Writing in the TLS, she said: ‘I would be quite happy calling it someone’s precious box of charms – but there is, in our imaginations, a million miles between that and the “sorceress’s kit”. If you really want it to be the latter, you have to overlook the fact that a lot of the objects are plain ordinary beads AND you have to put a lot of weight on the “magical” properties of willies and scarabs and skulls.’

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