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| The Sun Invokes Health in Humanity - Dawn at my place. |
"Triple-sounding, triple-headed,
triple-voiced..., triple-pointed, triple-faced, triple-necked" is how the goddess (called
Hecate,
Persephone, and
Selene,
among other names) in the Spells and hymns in the
Greek magical papyri
In one
hymn, for instance, the "Three-faced Selene" is simultaneously
identified as the three
Charites, the three
Moirai, and the three
Erinyes; she is further addressed by the titles of several goddesses.
"The goddess Hekate, identical with Persephone, Selene, Artemis,
and the old Babylonian goddess Ereschigal, is one of the deities most
often invoked in the papyri."
The
Greek Magical Papyri (Latin
Papyri Graecae Magicae, abbreviated
PGM) is the name given by scholars to a body of
papyri
from Graeco-Roman Egypt, which each contain a number of magical spells,
formulae, hymns and rituals.
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| English: Statuette of Triple-bodied Hekate. Pen, ink and light brown and grey wash. (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
The materials in the papyri date from the
2nd century BC to the 5th century AD.The manuscripts came to light through the antiquities trade, from the
18th century onwards. One of the best known of these texts is the
so-called
Mithras Liturgy
The texts were published in a series, and individual texts are referenced using the abbreviation PGM
plus the volume and item number. Each volume contains a number of
spells and rituals. Further discoveries of similar texts from elsewhere
have been allocated PGM numbers for convenience.
Discovery
The first papyri in the series appeared on the art market in Egypt in
the early 19th century. The major portion of the collection is the
so-called Anastasi collection.
About half a dozen of the papyri were
purchased in about 1827 by a man calling himself
Jean d'Anastasi, who may have been Armenian, and was a diplomatic representative at the Khedivial court in Alexandria.
He asserted that he obtained them at Thebes (modern
Luxor), and he sold them to various major European collections including the British Museum, the Louvre, the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, the Staatliche Museen in Berlin and the
Rijksmuseum
in Leiden. H. D. Betz who edited a translation of the collection states
that these pieces probably came from the library of an ancient scholar
and collector of late antiquity based in Thebes.
Anastasi acquired a
great number of other papyri and antiquities as well. The "Thebes Cache" also contained the
Stockholm papyrus and
Leyden papyrus X containing alchemical texts. Another papyrus (PGM III) was acquired by Jean Francois Mimaut and ended up in the French Bibliothèque Nationale.
PGM XII and XIII were the first to be published, appearing in 1843 in Greek and in a Latin translation in 1885.
In the early twentieth century Karl Preisendanz collected the texts
and published them in two volumes in 1928 and 1931. A projected third
volume, containing new texts and indices, reached the stage of galley
proofs dated "Pentecost 1941", but the type was destroyed during the
bombing of Leipzig in the Second World War.
Photocopies of the proofs circulated among scholars. A revised and
expanded edition of the texts was published in 1973-4 in two volumes.
Volume 1 was a corrected version of the first edition volume 1, but
volume 2 was entirely revised and the papyri originally planned for vol.
III were included.
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| The Moon Goddess - Selene |
The indexes were omitted, however. The PGM can now be searched in the
Thesaurus Linguae Graecae database and various concordances and dictionaries have been published. The most recent addition was the book Abrasax, published by Nephilim Press in 2012.
Many of these pieces of papyrus are pages or fragmentary extracts
from spell books, repositories of arcane knowledge and mystical secrets.
As far as they have been reconstructed, these books appear to fall into
two broad categories:
Some are compilations of spells and magical
writings, gathered by scholarly collectors either out of academic
interest or for some kind of study of magic; others may have been the
working manuals of travelling magicians, containing their repertoire of
spells, formulae for all occasions.
These often poorly educated
magic-users were more like showmen than the traditional Egyptian
wizards, who were a highly educated and respected priestly elite.
The
pages contain spells, recipes, formulae and prayers, interspersed with
magic words and often in shorthand, with abbreviations for the more
common formulae.
These spells range from impressive and mystical
summonings of dark gods and daemons, to folk remedies and even parlour
tricks; from portentous, fatal curses, to love charms, cures for
impotence and minor medical complaints.
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| English: hecate with dog (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
In many cases the formulaic words and phrases are strikingly similar to those found in
defixiones (
curse tablets or binding spells, κατάδεσμοι in Greek), such as those we find inscribed on
ostraka,
amulets
and lead tablets.
Since some of these defixiones date from as early as
the sixth century BC, and have been found as far afield as Athens, Asia
Minor, Rome and Sicily (as well as Egypt), this provides a degree of
continuity and suggests that some observations based on the PGM will not
be altogether inapplicable to the study of the wider Greco-Roman world.
Throughout the spells found in the Greek Magical Papyri, there are
numerous references to figurines. They are found in various types of
spells, including judicial, erotic and just standard cursing that one
might associate with Haitian voodoo (“Vodou”).
The figurines are made of
various materials, usually corresponding to the type of spell, but
often with liminal properties, as is frequent in a number of elements of
Greek Magic.
Such figurines have been found “throughout the
Mediterranean basin”, usually in places that the ancient Greeks
associated with the underworld; “graves, sanctuaries or bodies of
water”, all stressing the liminality of Greek magic. Some have been
discovered in lead coffins, upon which the spell or curse has been
inscribed.
The religion of the Papyri Graecae Magicae is an elaborate
syncretism of Greek, Egyptian, Jewish (see
Jewish magical papyri),
and even Babylonian and Christian religious influences engendered by
the unique milieu of Greco-Roman Egypt.
This
syncretism is evident in
the Papyri in a variety of ways. Often the Olympians are given
attributes of their Egyptian counterparts; alternatively this could be
seen as Egyptian deities being referred to by Greek names.
For example
Aphrodite (who was associated with the Egyptian
Hathor), is given the epithet Neferihri—from the Egyptian Nfr-iry.t, "nice eyes" (PGM IV. 1266).
Within this profusion of cultural influences can still be seen
classical Greek material, and perhaps even aspects of a more accessible
"folk-religion" than those preserved in the mainstream literary texts.
Sometimes the Greek gods depart from their traditional Olympian natures
familiar to Classicists, and seem far more chronic, demonic and
bestial.
This is partly the influence of Egyptian religion, in which
beast cult and the terror of the divine were familiar elements; equally
the context of magical texts makes such sinister deities appropriate.
Wikipedia
Images @ Eminpee Fotography - Dawn
