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Ancient Magical Texts To Be Studied By Cadre Of Professors

Yithian

Yithian

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ANCIENT MAGICAL TEXTS TO BE STUDIED IN UNPRECEDENTED DEPTH BY CADRE OF UNIVERSITY PROFESSORS​

CHRISTOPHER PLAIN·JUNE 30, 2023

A team of German university professors has set up a specialized center dedicated to researching and understanding ancient magic and magical texts, with a focus on the spread of that knowledge across ancient Egypt, the ancient Near East, and surrounding regions.

Dubbed “Magic between Entanglement, Interaction, and Analogy,” or MagEIA, the new center will spend at least four years and 3.5 million euros analyzing ancient magic and magical tests to determine how the texts and the ancient knowledge they contain originated and how they could spread from the Eastern Mediterranean to Egypt and Central Asia several thousand years ago.

While previous attempts to understand how belief in ancient magic used by practitioners to cast spells, protect against enemies, or even find a mate have been undertaken, the new well-funded effort by the Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg (JMU) will be the first to look at the roots, documentation in texts, and eventual spread of magical knowledge across the region.

“Such texts, which are referred to as ‘magical’ in modern research, are prominent in the written traditions of all ancient cultures of West Asia and the Eastern Mediterranean and represent an important source for the history of religion and ideas in antiquity,” says Professor Daniel Schwemer, a professor of Near Eastern Studies and one of the three professors headlining the unique study effort.

With the establishment of MagEIA, Schwemer and his colleagues Daniel Kölligan, professor of Comparative Linguistics, and Martin Andreas Stadler, professor of Egyptology, hope to understand the extremely ancient roots of such magic, and according to the press release announcing the effort, “provide new insights into how texts – and thus knowledge – could spread in an area from the Eastern Mediterranean to Central Asia several thousand years ago.”

More Details:
https://thedebrief.org/ancient-magi...cadre-of-university-professors/#sq_hfgimc8pz3
 
I wonder if Adam McLean is involved... he ought to be!

https://www.alchemywebsite.com/

I knew him when he was in Glasgow, although I doubt I was very memorable. I see he's moved now. Nice man, very interesting - his library is just [insert superlatives words and noises here] and his cat would move to where it could see you in a mirror, and then watch you.
 
Yithian said:

ANCIENT MAGICAL TEXTS TO BE STUDIED IN UNPRECEDENTED DEPTH BY CADRE OF UNIVERSITY PROFESSORS​

CHRISTOPHER PLAIN·JUNE 30, 2023

A team of German university professors has set up a specialized center dedicated to researching and understanding ancient magic and magical texts, with a focus on the spread of that knowledge across ancient Egypt, the ancient Near East, and surrounding regions.

Dubbed “Magic between Entanglement, Interaction, and Analogy,” or MagEIA, the new center will spend at least four years and 3.5 million euros analyzing ancient magic and magical tests to determine how the texts and the ancient knowledge they contain originated and how they could spread from the Eastern Mediterranean to Egypt and Central Asia several thousand years ago.

While previous attempts to understand how belief in ancient magic used by practitioners to cast spells, protect against enemies, or even find a mate have been undertaken, the new well-funded effort by the Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg (JMU) will be the first to look at the roots, documentation in texts, and eventual spread of magical knowledge across the region.

“Such texts, which are referred to as ‘magical’ in modern research, are prominent in the written traditions of all ancient cultures of West Asia and the Eastern Mediterranean and represent an important source for the history of religion and ideas in antiquity,” says Professor Daniel Schwemer, a professor of Near Eastern Studies and one of the three professors headlining the unique study effort.

With the establishment of MagEIA, Schwemer and his colleagues Daniel Kölligan, professor of Comparative Linguistics, and Martin Andreas Stadler, professor of Egyptology, hope to understand the extremely ancient roots of such magic, and according to the press release announcing the effort, “provide new insights into how texts – and thus knowledge – could spread in an area from the Eastern Mediterranean to Central Asia several thousand years ago.”

More Details:
https://thedebrief.org/ancient-magi...cadre-of-university-professors/#sq_hfgimc8pz3
Click to expand...

Update.

"Magical" texts from Egypt in Coptic script and language are at the center of a research project at the University of Würzburg. They have now been collected and scientifically annotated for the first time in a 600-page book.

A team of scholars spent five years studying "magical" texts from Egypt that were written on papyrus, parchment, paper and shards of clay—so-called ostraca—and date from the period between the 4th and 12th centuries AD. Worn in an amulet around the neck or secretly hidden in the house of an adversary, the texts were supposed to heal illnesses, curse enemies, evoke love or hatred or allow a glimpse into the future, among other things.

What these texts also have in common is that they were all written in Coptic script and language. Coptic is the last stage in the development of the Egyptian language. It replaced Demotic around the 2nd century A.D. and was itself gradually replaced with the Arab conquest of Egypt in the 7th century.

"Papyri Copticae Magicae" is the title of the book. The scholars of antiquity Dr. Korshi Dosoo and Markéta Preininger are responsible for the publication. At the Chair of Egyptology at Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg (JMU), the two have led the research project of the same name for the past five years.

"Around 600 of these texts have survived, but the largest published collection to date only contains around 100 of them. The rest were previously scattered in numerous books and articles and were therefore only accessible and known to a few specialists," says Korshi Dosoo, describing the initial situation of the project.

The content of these texts can be categorized into a handful of categories. For example, they deal with protection from death or demons, the appeasement of enemies or the fulfillment of specific wishes. Love spells are a frequently found genre; they were mainly used by men. In some cases, the spell was intended to ensure that married couples separated again. Magic played an important role in medicine, for example, to prevent fever, headaches and insomnia. It was not uncommon for the papyrus to help its wearer become pregnant.

"These documents serve as an important source of information about popular religion—the reality, rather than the ideal, of religious practices and beliefs as they were lived and practiced in everyday life," explains Markéta Preininger Svobodova. ...

https://phys.org/news/2024-02-ancient-anthology-magical-texts-published.html
 
There was another thread which talked about using AI to read old texts from Pompeii or egyptian papyrus. What are the odds of *not* getting some demon/AI mix unleashed upon the world?
 
Xanatic* said:
There was another thread which talked about using AI to read old texts from Pompeii or egyptian papyrus. What are the odds of *not* getting some demon/AI mix unleashed upon the world?
Click to expand...
Do not read from the book!
 
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