We’ve just posted our second 2021 update to the Kyprianos Database of Ancient Ritual Texts and Objects. As well as correcting some small mistakes in manuscript, text, and archive entries, the update includes:
- 39 new manuscript entries, bringing the total to 879.
- These are primarily Greek and/or Coptic magical texts from Egypt.
- 23 new text entries, bringing the total to 62. Among the fascinating texts we’ve chosen for this update are…
- a strange set of curses from a paper codex from the 10th or 11th century never before published in English translation…
- a copy of the exorcistic prayer attributed to the Virgin Mary known as ‘Mary in Bartos’ (also never before published in English)…
- a pair of curses based on the Testament of Solomonintended to destroy buildings or machinery…
- a prayer to help a woman conceive a child…
- and a fragmentary copy of the amuletic Letter to Abgar, supposedly written by Jesus himself.
- The manuscripts table now contains links to the PAThs Atlas, which provides fuller codicological descriptions (and much more) of several of the more literary manuscripts in Kyprianos.
