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169 Chapter 4 Practitioners and Craft at Amathous, Cyprus Finding Magic Rituals without the Magical Papyri Egypt’s rich documentary record is the result of a dry desert environment that has allowed for the preservation of papyri and other organic materials. The rest of the Mediterranean is wetter, resulting in the loss of comparable written records. Some form of ritual manuals likely existed in many locations; the practitioners at Amathous relied on a prototype for the creation of magical artifacts at the site, and model texts were likely in use from such diverse locations as Athens, Carthage, Hadrumentum, Rome, and Cnidus.1 We only know of the existence of these models through inscriptions on archaeological artifacts, where scribal errors or multiple copies point to the consultation of a formulary. That these manuals were similar or identical to the Egyptian texts of the Greek Magical Papyri is much less likely. The magical papyri were the products of extensive redaction and compilation by the priestly class in Egypt and blended local and foreign traditions, tailored for the desires of both tourists and residents. Despite incorporating spells and magical incantations that can be attributed to Greece or the Near East, the PGM instructions are most similar to earlier Egyptian ritual practices. While archaeological remains at Karanis could be identified as magical with reference to the spells of the papyri, we lack access to a similar ritual framework as we turn to other locations. The details provided by the magical papyri allowed us to sketch a general view of what magic might look like, and to place examples of practice within a culture-specific ritual framework. Without this data, the process of finding magic becomes more difficult. It is still possible to rely on the markers of magic outlined in chapters 1 and 2, but 1. For a listing of the large caches of tablets associated with formularies, see above, p. 2, n. 4. 170 Materia Magica the body of comparative material that can be used to accurately identify rituals from archaeological remains alone is significantly constrained. Commonplace magical items such as curse tablets or amulets remain accessible and recognizable , but it is a greater challenge to move beyond these classes of inscribed artifacts, particularly in the absence of detailed excavation records. Therefore, the remainder of this book will investigate objects that can be identified as magical through the presence of texts. Still, the contextual investigation of artifacts, their inscriptions, and archaeological context has much to contribute to our understanding of ancient ritual and its place in the local community. These are the same sources that were employed to understand ritual at Karanis, and such data also can be used to document local forms of ritual engagement elsewhere in the Mediterranean. Cyprus lies to the north of Egypt and near the southern coast of Asia Minor. In the late nineteenth century, locals who were digging a well near the modern village of Agios Tychonas discovered a hoard of over two hundred lead and approximately thirty selenite (a translucent, crystallized form of gypsum) tablets at the bottom of a disused shaft. The lead tablets had been rolled into small tubes; the selenite tablets, which were originally rectangular or square, were broken into many small chips. The tablets were soon sold to the British Museum, Wilhelm Froehner, and, perhaps, to other private individuals.2 Most of the artifacts are inscribed with a variation on one spell, a curse that invokes various underworld divinities to bind and punish a victim.3 One of the tablets, DT 22 (BM 1891,4–18.1, plate 20) reads: 2. Wilhelm Froehner, an assistant curator at the Louvre, bequeathed his collection of antiquities to the Cabinet des Médailles in Paris. His collection was acquired over many years through various contacts, and the pieces derive from an extensive number of places of origin. L. Robert , Collection Froehner, vol. 1, Inscriptions Grecques (Paris: Editions des Bibliotheques Nationales, 1936), ii. 3. The tablets have been published in numerous collections since their editio princeps, and further examples have been associated with the cache: L. MacDonald, “Inscriptions relating to sorcery in Cyprus,” Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archaeology 13 (1891); DT nos. 22–37; Wünsch, “Neue Fluchtafeln,” nos. 10, 11, 12; Robert, Collection Froehner 106–7; T. B. Mitford, The inscriptions of Kourion (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1971), nos. 127–42; T. Drew-Bear, “Imprecations from Kourion,” BASP 9 (1972); SGD no. 193; CT no. 45; P. Aupert and D. R. Jordan, “Tablettes...

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