Anthropology and the Classics Six Lectures Delivered Before the University of Oxford — Background and Themes

Magical Binding and the Evolution of Prayer

The most sustained evidence in the excerpts comes from F. B. Jevons’s lecture on Greek binding tablets (katadesmoi). He distinguishes two types: those where the writer claims direct power—“I bind all these”—and those where the writer prays to a god, using imperatives like “pierce his tongue.” Jevons traces a transition between them, showing how the gods Hermes and Gê, originally invoked to hold down the dead, were later called upon to reinforce human magical acts. A tablet from Alexandria explicitly asks Earth to “make this binding effective.” The analysis is grounded in specific inscriptions, some dated to the fourth century BCE, and draws parallels to Australian “pointing” sticks and German folk practices. Jevons treats the tablets as evidence of a shift in religious mentality, not merely as curiosities.

Catalog Subjects vs. Lecture Content

The Project Gutenberg record lists “Picture-writing” as a subject, yet the excerpts contain no discussion of pictographic systems. The catalog also assigns “Classical philology” and “Anthropology—History,” which fit the volume’s stated aim, but the actual lectures range more narrowly. Jevons’s material on binding tablets is philological in method—he cites Greek texts and compares verb forms—but his argument is anthropological in its comparative use of ethnographic parallels. The preface’s call for a “pacific penetration” is thus only partially realized in the excerpts: the lectures tend to apply anthropological concepts to classical data rather than the reverse. Readers expecting a broad survey of picture-writing or a systematic history of anthropology will not find it here.

The Lecturer as Dual Specialist

The preface emphasizes that each contributor embodies the union of anthropology and classical scholarship. Arthur Evans “by restoring the Minoan age to the light of day, has set Greek history in a new and juster perspective.” Andrew Lang is described as an anthropologist “of renown” who has “enriched the science with so many original and fertile hypotheses.” This framing is crucial: the lectures are not by outsiders dabbling in classics, but by established authorities who bring anthropological training to bear on familiar texts. Jevons’s analysis of binding tablets, for instance, uses the same philological tools as any classicist, but his willingness to compare Greek spells with Australian magic and German folklore marks the anthropological contribution. The volume thus demonstrates a specific method—comparative religion grounded in textual detail—rather than a general theory.

Readers should approach this volume as a set of independent lectures rather than a systematic treatise. Each chapter can be read alone, and the excerpts suggest that the most rewarding sections are those, like Jevons’s, that work closely with primary texts. The preface provides the best overview of the editors’ intentions, but the lectures themselves vary in how far they realize the interdisciplinary ideal. Those interested in the history of classical scholarship or the early application of anthropology to ancient religion will find the most value here.

Those Oxford lectures stayed with me—how the old magical tablets felt so human, so desperate. Reading about binding spells made me think about the quieter structures we cling to, the ones we don’t name as magic. That’s why Kinship and Social Organisation — Edition Insights lingered too, in its own soft way, tracing the invisible threads we still hold.