The Archaeological Contexts of Curse Tablets in the Athenian Kerameikos Jutta Stroszeck Abstract: In 2016, about thirty new curse tablets were found in the Athenian Keram- eikos, most of them in the late-4th to early-3rd-century BCE layers of an ancient well in the courtyard of the Kerameikos bathhouse. Before this discovery, the majority of curse tablets from the site belonged to the 5th and 4th century BCE and were found in and around a limited number of tombs and precincts, all situated on the fringes of the Kerameikos necropolis and next to crossroads. As far as we can tell, the corpses buried in the tombs that contained curses fall into certain categories mentioned in ancient sources: people whose course of life was somehow unfinished (aôroi), such as children and young adults; people who had not been properly buried for lack of money (apôroi); people who were violently murdered or had undergone maschalis- mos (biaiothanatoi); and war casualties buried in a mass grave (polyandrioi). Among the 5th- and 4th-century examples, only a few were found in layers of ancient streets or in public and private buildings. I propose that at the end of the 4th century BCE there was a general shift away from graves and toward wells for the deposition of curses, due to a law issued by Demetrios of Phaleron (317–307 BCE). Officers were installed at that time to ensure compliance with the new law; their presence must have made it far more difficult to perform magic rites on any tomb in Athens. From then on mostly, public wells were used for that purpose. Key words: Ancient Athens, Kerameikos excavation, ancient Greek burials, curse tablets, Demetrios of Phaleron, ancient Athenian wells, polyandrion, psyche, eidolon, voodoo dolls In June 2016, during the excavation of a well situated within a bathhouse in front of the Dipylon Gate, about 30 new lead tablets were discovered in the Kerameikos site. 1 This total includes some uninscribed specimens, as well as 1. I am grateful to Chris Faraone and Sofía Torallas-Tovar for organizing this conference, C 1