Cultural Plurality in Ancient Magical Texts and Practices: Graeco-Egyptian Handbooks and Related Traditions

Description

A conference held in Heidelberg in 2014 resulted in this collection of essays, which explore the multifaceted aspects of magical texts and practices in antiquity, focusing especially on the Graeco-Egyptian magical papyri. The authors concentrate on questions of cultural plurality and fusion, ranging from earlier Egyptian, Mesopotamian and Greek magico-religious traditions, through the original developments of Graeco-Roman Egypt, up to and including their integration into Jewish and Byzantine magical lore. Table of Contents List of General Abbreviations Used Throughout the Volume Introduction • Ljuba Merlina Bortolani/Svenja Nagel Acknowledgements Part I: Egyptian, Greek and Mesopotamian Traditions of Magic: Different Genres, Perception of the ‘Other’ and Possible Transcultural Exchange Magical Practices in Egyptian Literary Texts: in Quest of Cultural Plurality • Franziska Naether Magic and Mystery at Selinus: Another Look at the Getty Hexameters • William D. Furley Beyond Ereškigal? Mesopotamian Magic Traditions in the Papyri Graecae Magicae • Daniel Schwemer Part II: Cultural Plurality and Fusion in the Graeco-Egyptian Magical Papyri (PGM/PDM) Single Handbooks and Magical Techniques Compiling P. Lond. I 121 = PGM VII in a Transcultural Context • Richard Gordon Illuminating Encounters: Reflections on Cultural Plurality in Lamp Divination Rituals • Svenja Nagel ‘We Are Such Stuff as Dream Oracles Are Made on’: Greek and Egyptian Traditions and Divine Personas in the Dream Divination Spells of the Magical Papyri • Ljuba Merlina Bortolani Cultural Plurality in Greek Magical Recipes for Oracular and Protective Statues • Christopher A. Faraone Specific Spells and Deities The Heliopolitan Ennead and Geb as a Scrofulous Boar in the PGM: Two Case Studies on Cultural Interaction in Late-Antique Magic • Joachim Friedrich Quack Traditions of Transformation and Shape-Shifting in PGM XIII 270–77 Crowns of Hermanubis: Semiotic Fusion and Spells for Better Business in the Magical Papyri • Adria Haluszka Love Spell and Hymn to Aphrodite in PGM IV (2891–941) Part III: Integration and Transformation of Graeco-EgyptianMagic in Jewish and Byzantine Spells The Greek Prayer to Helios in Sefer ha-Razim, in Light of New Textual Evidence • Gideon Bohak/Alessia Bellusci Incantations in Byzantine and Post-Byzantine Greek: Change and Continuity • Michael Zellmann-Rohrer Bibliography List of Contributors Index of Sources Index of Names Index of Subjects Plates