Kyprianos Update (10 August 2021)

We’ve just posted our latest update to the Kyprianos Database of Ancient Ritual Texts and Objects.

The update includes:

• 22 new manuscript entries, bringing the total to 943.
  • These contain primarily Greek and/or Coptic magical texts from Egypt.
• 47 new text entries, bringing the total to 156. Among the texts we’ve chosen for this update are…
  • The recipes from P. Macq. I 1, one of the most famous Coptic magical papyri. Although we have not yet edited the long prayer to the Baktiotha with which it begins, our edition of its 31 recipes resolve several problems which confronted its initial editors.
  • Two more texts featuring the Egyptian goddess Isis: Hs. Schmidt 1, another of the Horus-Isis charms, apparently to make someone fall asleep, and P. Michigan 4932f, a love spell; both were co-edited with Roxanne Bélanger Sarrazin.
  • An amulet for healing the uvula of a man named Andrew (“Antreas” in Coptic) which makes mention of the Seal of Solomon.
  • A silencing curse which draws upon the story of the Exodus, and whose user and victim both have Arabic names – Abdallah and Mouflih respectively.
  • T. Köln 35 (misidentified in previous publications as T. Köln 10), a curse of sickness, and one of the only surviving Coptic magical texts written on lead.
• These new texts include 7 new tracings of accompanying images, bringing the total to 26.