Magical practices in Roman Egypt: cultural and religious boundaries in Graeco-Egyptian magical papyri

• Grant number: 19/24571-3
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate
• Effective date (Start): March 01, 2020
• Effective date (End): February 29, 2024
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - History - Ancient and Medieval History
• Principal Investigator: Norberto Luiz Guarinello
• Grantee: Ana Paula Scarpa Pinto de Carvalho
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

Our project aims to discuss the progressive detachment from Egyptian magical-religious practices of temples and traditional priestly functions towards the pragmatic applicability of rituals, medical, and divinatory knowledge to all Egyptian inhabitants during the Roman period. For this, we analyze the contents of the Graeco-Egyptian Magical Papyri, a corpus composed mainly between the first century b.c.e and fifth century c.e. Our purpose is to understand the main continuities and ruptures of the syncretic features that characterize them. Over the years, we identify in the papyri an ever-increasing conjunction of heterogeneous deities, rituals, formulas, and practices. This, as we argue, indicates the flexibilization of local cultural and religious boundaries, which became more aimed at both the effectiveness of the magical-religious procedure and the care of more circumstances and people. Such long-term modifications represent, in our reading, both a reflection of local adapting to Roman imperial order and a phenomenon that was possible due previous and contemporary processes of cultural contact in the Ancient Mediterranean. (AU)