Draco tauri pater. A new gold lamella from a private collection in Hungary

Abstract

In 2019 a tiny gold tablet, once folded several times, turned up in a private collection in Hungary. Due to its physical appearance and the layout of the text, the tablet originally had been identified as a ‘foil with a Greek magical inscription’ in an auction catalogue. At first glance, however, it becomes obvious that the text was written with Latin letters. Although parts of the text recall Greek and Latin Christian apologists' works, the pagan apotropaic language of the amulet is evident throughout. The text itself proposes a major impact of Greek. This paper offers a preliminary report on establishing the text and gives approaches for interpreting the gold lamella.