Technical Notes on the Amulet Page
Getting a Hebrew Font
If you are not getting the Hebrew
in Hebrew (it will probably look like a bunch of accented
Latin alphabet vowels), then you need to download a font that
includes Hebrew in Unicode. There are numerous ones out there;
I like David, but Arial Unicode MS, Tahoma [Tahoma Grande on
the Mac] and Times New Roman all have Hebrew support.
The latest version of Internet Explorer & Netscape come
with Hebrew fonts, I believe. Of course, if you don't read
Hebrew, why bother?
Regarding the amulet
Colors
As far as I know, the amulet contains
no colors. My use of colors on this page
reflects a (not uncommon) feature of this amulet. The quotations
from the Bible (Num. 6.22-27 & Psalm 121), in both
cases, begin with the text for a few words (enough to identify the
passage) and then continue it using only the first letter of each
word. The Numbers passage then concludes with two complete words. I
have used the blue letters (if you don't
have color, please accept my apologies) to mark the portions of
the text that are given only in the abbreviated fashion.
If this were in English the first three lines
might look something like this:
The L-D spoke to Moses, saying: StAahs
stysbtIYssttTL-Dbyaky tL-DmhftsuyabgtytL-Dluhcuy
agypStspmnotI and I will bless
them.
The tetragrammaton is represented
in several ways (only one of which is the tetragrammaton itself).
I have used red to indicate those places.
Hebrew readers will recognize the éåé abbreviation right away. It is
used in the Numbers passage consistently, even in the abbreviated
section. But ä is used in the
Psalms passage in all but one case (where é is used -- I suspect this may be an error). Inside Lilith's
portrait we see îöôõ written
vertically. This is atbash
for the name of God. We also find here, in the text of the amulet,
the only unmodified instance of it, although it is split between
lines (1 & 2).
Brackets
It appears that the craftsman may have
inadvertently left out a letter in the text from Numbers.
However, the letter could have been written at the place where
the amulet is cracked. Perhaps it is visible if you look at the
amulet itself (although I would have expected it in the previous
column. I have put that letter (as well as the text it represents
in the translation) in square brackets (line #2).
Some of the text inside Lilith's body is
unreadable in the photos (again, maybe you can see more in
person). I have occasionally done some educated guessing
(helped by the more experienced eye of David Sandmel). Those
guesses are put in square brackets.
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