The Plaque and the Prayer

The tama is the Greek Orthodox member of a very old Mediterranean family. Its embossed rectangles echo the anatomical votives that ancient Greeks left at the sanctuaries of Asklepios, and the resemblance is regularly pointed out; whether it marks continuous descent or the reinvention of an obvious idea is genuinely uncertain, since the documentation between late antiquity and the modern practice is thin. What is certain is the modern form: thin sheet silver or tin, die-stamped by church suppliers in a standard repertoire of images, pierced for a ribbon or wire, sold wherever candles are sold. Reading a rail of tamata is reading a parish's worries.

Clusters of infant plaques hang where couples have prayed for children; eyes and hearts predominate near healing saints; new images enter the repertoire as life changes, cars for safe driving, graduates for examinations. The plaque may be offered with the prayer or after its answer, and families sometimes renew an offering annually, maintaining the relationship rather than closing an account. The custom travels with the diaspora, and Greek churches from Melbourne to Chicago keep tamata beside their icons, as do some other Orthodox communities under Greek influence. Shrine clergy periodically gather older plaques, and precious-metal offerings may be melted to serve the church, a recycling no one considers a breach of the vow, which was completed the day the tama was hung.