Getting Closer: Research on the origin of magic signs

Kirsten Dzwiza
Universitt Erfurt/Universitt Heidelberg
kd@charakteres.com
Magic signs occur from the late 1st/early 2nd century AD throughout
the northwestern Roman Empire on artefacts of applied magic on
one hand, and in Greek spell collections from Egypt on the other hand.
Within a few decades they were distributed all over the Roman Empire,
their inclusion in Demotic and Coptic spell collections soon following.
This paper is divided into three sections. First I am going to outline the
occurrence and manipulation of magic signs as described in the Greek,
Demotic, and Coptic spell collections dating to the 1st---7th centuries AD. I
will then provide an overview of the archaeological evidence of applied
magic depicting magic signs dated to the same period. In addition, the
few known historical sources will be introduced as well. Combining the
information gained from the philological, archaeological, and historical
sources, I will attempt to formulate a theory on the origin of magic signs.
This origin seems not to be part of an ancient Egyptian tradition, as is
often assumed, but may rather shed some light on an ancient way to outline
cultural borders within the cross-cultural setting of magical practice
in Egypt, and how these borders were re-interpretated in late antiquity.