January 6, 2025
Professor Jessica Lamont was awarded the Archaeological Institute of America’s 2025 James R. Wiseman Book Award for her book In Blood and Ashes: Curse Tablets and Binding Spells in Ancient Greece (Oxford University Press, 2023). This is the highest award given by the AIA each year and is meant to honor outstanding monographs in the field. Lamont’s book offers the first synthetic study of ritual cursing practices in the Classical Greek world (750-250 BCE). Drawing on Lamont’s expertise in epigraphy, archaeology, literature, and ritual studies, it affords a rich a layered and understanding of Greek culture through the lens of this formerly neglected but remarkably widespread activity. Read more here.