Results 1 to 2 of 2

Thread: Ancient Egyptian 'Magic Spell' Deciphered

  1. #1
    Retired Member United States
    Join Date
    13th September 2013
    Location
    Dixieland - USA
    Posts
    1,030
    Thanks
    642
    Thanked 6,928 Times in 1,027 Posts

    Ancient Egyptian 'Magic Spell' Deciphered


    This ancient Egyptian papyrus, now at Macquarie University, is decorated
    with an image of two bird-like creatures. A magical spell written in Coptic,
    an Egyptian language that uses the Greek alphabet, is visible around the
    image.



    An ancient Egyptian papyrus with an image showing two bird-like creatures, possibly with a penis connecting them, has been deciphered, revealing a magic spell of love.

    "The most striking feature of [the papyrus] is its image," wrote Korshi Dosoo, a lecturer at the University of Strasbourg in France, who published the papyrus recently in the Journal of Coptic Studies.

    Dosoo estimates that it dates back around 1,300 years, to a time when Christianity was widely practiced in Egypt.

    In the image, the winged creature on the left seems to be poking its beak into the open beak of its counterpart on the right — which also seems to have a nail through its head. A person's outstretched arms surround the creatures.

    Both creatures are connected through what Dosoo said could be chains, bonds or a penis. The creature on the right has two ears (or horns), and both creatures have what look like feathers or scales on the front of their bodies. The small differences between the two creatures may be an attempt to show sex differentiation, Dosoo said, noting that the creature on the right may be a female and the one on the left a male.

    A magical spell written in Coptic, an Egyptian language that uses the Greek alphabet, surrounds the image. Just fragments of text have survived over the years, with part of the deciphered spell reading, "I call upon you … who is Christ the god of Israel …" The next part of the spell includes the words "you will dissolve" and mentions "every child of Adam…," who according to the Hebrew Bible was the first man on Earth and lived with a woman named Eve in the Garden of Eden before being expelled by God. The fragmented text also mentions Ahitophel, a man who betrayed King David, according to the Hebrew Bible.

    What was it used for?

    The papyrus seems to have been one page of a larger text, possibly a handbook that was used by a magician, Korshi said.

    The hypothetical magician's clients may have been impressed by the image on the papyrus. "From an observer point of view, we could say that the image might have enhanced the performative aspect of the spell — the client might find the weird drawings an impressive addition to the overall atmosphere and impression created by the ritual," Dosoo told Live Science.

    The fragmentary text makes it hard to determine what exactly the spell was used for, but Dosoo said he believes that it may have been related to love, possibly in cases where there was a complex situation such as a love triangle, or where a man was in love with a woman he couldn't marry.

    "Christian literary texts from Egypt which mention love spells often imply that the problem is not that the woman doesn't love the man per se, but that he does not have access to her, because she is a young unmarried girl protected and secluded by her family, or already married to someone else," Dosoo told Live Science.

    Mysterious origins

    The papyrus is at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, but how it got there is a mystery. The university has no records indicating who sold or donated the papyrus, or when the acquisition occurred, Dosoo said.

    The university has a collection of about 900 papyri, the bulk of which were purchased by or donated to the university between 1972 and 1985; it wasn't until 2007 that the university stopped purchasing papyri or accepting them as donations. Many of these 900 papyri were purchased from Anton and Michael Fackelmann, who were antiquities dealers that were active in Austria in the 1970s and 1980s. Among these papyri is a "Handbook of Ritual Power" (as modern-day researchers call it), which is a lengthy magical text that also dates back around 1,300 years. However, while that handbook is from the Fackelmanns, it's not clear if the newly published magical papyrus is also from them.

    The university's collection history poses a problem for scholars. In 1972, a UNESCO treaty banned the sale of antiquities that were removed from their country of origin after 1972. It's not certain when this papyrus, and other papyri in the collection, were removed from Egypt.

    With the ongoing looting that has ravaged Egypt's archaeological sites, many scholars are not comfortable working with material that may have been taken out of Egypt after 1972. Part of the reason is that some scholars believe that publishing such material may help those trying to loot and sell archaeological remains from Egypt. There is also the question of ownership since, if an artifact was taken out of Egypt after 1972, then it's possible the legal owner could in fact be the government of Egypt.

    Many of the university's papyri are not published. Despite the lack of information on when the recently deciphered papyrus was acquired, or who it was acquired from, the committee decided to publish the papyrus, noting the uncertain provenance in the journal article.





    Source: https://www.livescience.com/63659-an...eciphered.html



    peace...

  2. The Following 6 Users Say Thank You to skywizard For This Useful Post:

    Aragorn (25th September 2018), Dreamtimer (25th September 2018), Dumpster Diver (27th September 2018), Elen (25th September 2018), Emil El Zapato (28th September 2018), Kitsune (30th September 2018)

  3. #2
    In Memoriam Shadowself's Avatar
    Join Date
    9th March 2015
    Posts
    696
    Thanks
    754
    Thanked 4,290 Times in 688 Posts
    Good morning!

    This has been bugging me for days. So I'm just going to come out and say it. I'm not certain who Korshi Dosoo is but he has made a few mistakes regarding the image. I looked him up and aside from claiming to be a lecturer at a French university I can't find much on him other than some indications that he writes about magic spells and some on animals. Which surprises me because if he studies animals you'd think he'd get it right.

    That image is not two birds. It is a bird and a jackal. Birds do not have ears....Jackals do and were intune with the gods of Egypt.

    The coptics while being Christians did also assume the gods of Egypt in many things. Including their calendar as shown thus:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coptic_calendar

    So if that is a not a bird but a Jackal why would it have a nail through the head? Because it does not. That is the Greek and Coptic letter "phi" as shown here:


    Name:  copticphiX.PNG
Views: 80
Size:  21.1 KB

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coptic_alphabet

    There is also above the bird figure "XXX" which is "khi" the same goes for the greek alphabet here but in the Greek it's "Chi":

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_alphabet

    From looking at the Jackal in the greek god form you get this:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermanubis

    Which proclaims that: Although it was not common in traditional Greek religion to combine the names of two gods in this manner, the double determination of Hermanubis has some formal parallels in the earlier period. The most obvious is the god Hermaphroditus, attested from the fourth century BC onwards, but his name implies the paradoxical union of two different gods (Hermes and Aphrodite) rather than an assimilation in the manner of Hermanubis.

    Which might make more sense as a union....and also the phi above the head of the Jackal with the phi letter could be interpreted as

    Much older (classical) Sahidic pronunciation: [pʰ] as
    in Ancient Greek.





    the heaven nivyoui the heavens
    this (masculine)
    new
    dream, vision

    It could also mean the golden ratio but that is doubtful given the image itself.



    ~

    XXX above the head of the bird is pretty simple

    It could be interpreted as soul, Christ, good or kind, grace, or leader. Given there are three X's it could be a combination of those in any order I suspect.

    http://yearsandmiles.com/coptic-alphabet.pdf

    I'm not sure if this is a romantic love spell or not but the nail in the head is certainly phi, and the head of that animal is not a bird...it's a jackal.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anubis
    Last edited by Shadowself, 26th September 2018 at 13:36.

  4. The Following 8 Users Say Thank You to Shadowself For This Useful Post:

    Aragorn (26th September 2018), Dreamtimer (26th September 2018), Dumpster Diver (27th September 2018), Elen (26th September 2018), Emil El Zapato (28th September 2018), Fred Steeves (26th September 2018), Kitsune (30th September 2018), skywizard (26th September 2018)

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •