The Wisdom of Thoth

Magical Texts in Ancient

Mediterranean Civilisations

Edited by

Grażyna Bąkowska-Czerner
Alessandro Roccati
Agata Świerzowska 

Archaeopress Archaeology
 Archaeopress Publishing Ltd
Gordon House
276 Banbury Road
Oxford OX2 7ED
www.archaeopress.com

ISBN 978 1 78491 247 5

ISBN 978 1 78491 248 2 (e-Pdf)

© Archaeopress and the individual authors 2015

Front cover: Luxor Temple. A figure of Thoth carved on the back of the throne of the seated statue of Ramesses II
(Photo Giacomo Lovera)

Back cover: Temple of Hatshepsut at Deir el-Bahari. A representation of Thoth from the entrance to the Main
Sanctuary of Amun-Re (Photo Franciszek Pawlicki)

Cover layout by Rafał Czerner

Advisory Board: Rafał Czerner, Joachim Śliwa

Reviewed independently for publication
Language consultation and proofreading: Steve Jones

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the copyright owners.

Printed in England by Oxuniprint, Oxford

This book is available direct from Archaeopress or from our website www.archaeopress.com
 Copyright material: no unauthorized reproduction in any medium

Alphabetic magic: traces of a new version of the Cyranides

Attilio Mastrocinque
University of Verona

A magical gem in the Cabinet des Médailles (Paris) shows, on the obverse side, the divine snake Chnoubis and, on the
reverse, a bird flying over a fish. This latter is a sole, which was called psetta in Greek, whereas the bird is a parrot,
whose name was psittakòs. This iconography of a bird over a fish is described in numerous passages of Cyranides
1st book, where animals, plants and stones are put together and dealt with according to the first alphabetic letter of
their name. The letter Psi presents some birds and fishes which do not correspond to the iconography of the gem. That
signifies that the gem was cut according to another version of the Cyranides, which was a widespread and popular
book in the Late Antiquity and in the Middle Age and was often modified.

KEYWORDS: CYRANIDES, ANCIENT MAGIC, ALPHABET, MAGICAL GEMS

Armand Delatte and Philippe Derchain in 1964 published
a rock crystal magical gem in the Cabinet des Médailles,
Paris, which shows, on one side, the lion-headed snake
Chnoubis with the magical writing ϹΑΡΑΒΔΟΥΧΩΧΕΩΧ
and, on the reverse side, a bird over a fish (Delatte and Der-
chain 1964, No. 86; now Mastrocinque 2014, No. 268).
The two scholars noticed the similarity of such an icono-
graphy with that of many amulet-gems prescribed by the
Cyranides, a long treatise on magical and medical proper-
ties of birds, fish, plants, and stones. In fact, one can read
in this work recipes like these:
for the treatment of eye diseases:
Ἐὰν δέ τις εἰς γνάθιον λίθον γλύψῃ γλαῦκα τὸ ὄρνεον καὶ ὑπὸ
τοὺς πόδας αὐτοῦ γλαῦκον τὸν ἰχθύν… (Cyranides 1.3.30)
If someone engraves on the gnathion stone an owl, and the glaukos
fish under its claws…
For opening doors or other closed things, and producing
other prodigies, the book suggests:
Ἐὰν οὖν τις γλύψῃ εἰς δενδρίτην λίθον τὸν δενδροκολάπτην, ὑπὸ
δὲ τοὺς πόδας αὐτοῦ δράκοντα θαλάσσιον… (Cyranides 1.4.50)
If someone engraves, on the dendritis stone, a woodpecker, and
a sea dragon (the weever)…
Many recipes are similar to these two.1 The manuscript
tradition of the Cyranides presents variations concerning
also the described iconographies for gems. For example,
the text edited by Dimitri Kaimakis (1976. Kyranides,
1.8.25) reports this prescription for an amulet to avoid
drunkenness:
Εἰς δὲ τὸν θυρσίτην λίθον γλύψον θύρα τὸ πτηνὸν καὶ Διόνυσον
κρατοῦντα τὸ πτηνὸν.
On the thyrsites stone engrave the bird thyra and Dionysos who
holds this bird.
But the manuscript tradition which was preferred by
F.de Mély Ruelle (1902) presents this reading:
Engrave on a thyrsites stone a hawk which holds a tuna…
Therefore, some manuscript traditions had Dionysos in-
stead of a hawk.
One can not find the two animals on the Paris gem in the
extant manuscripts of the Cyranides, and variations like
that of Dionysos/hawk are insufficient to explain our gem.
We will see, in fact, that this gem depends on a series of
animals, stones and plants which are unknown to us.
I have focussed for a certain time on the iconography
of the Paris gem and finally I have recognised the fish,
which proved to be a sort of sole, a flat sea fish which
took its name from solea, the sole. The different sorts
of soles took the Greek names of ψῆττα (psetta) and
βούγλωσσος (bouglossos: beef’s tongue). The fish on the
gem does not have the precise form of a beef’s tongue
and, therefore, it is a psetta. On the preserved texts of the
Cyranides, neither psetta nor bouglossos are presented
as the representatives of the alphabetic letter ψ and β.
Cyranides’ first book, which is the most rich in recipes
for engraving gems, has the following series:
Στοιχεῖον ψʹ. ψύλλιος βοτάνη, ψύλλος θαλάσσιος, ψάρος
πτηνόν, ψωρίτης λίθος (Cyranides 1.23.1).
Letter Psi. The plant psyllios (flea-wort), the sea flea, the bird
psaros, the psorites stone.
The extant text of the Cyranides can not help, and I was
unable to recognise the bird until I thought about the letter
ψ, and suddenly I realised that it had to be the ψιττακός, i.e.
the parrot. Indeed the size, the form, the beak along with
the feathers which crown its head perfectly fit the image
of a parrot.

1  The method of the Cyranides was that of presenting

On gems which can be related to the Cyranides: Waegeman
1986; Mastrocinque 2005, 223–231. series of birds, fish, plants, and stones whose names begin

49
 Copyright material: no unauthorized reproduction in any medium
The Wisdom of Thoth. Magical Texts in Ancient Mediterranean Civilisations
with the same alphabetic letter, and therefore it is evident
that we are in front of a series in which ψ was represen-
ted by ψιττακός and ψῆττα. I know no stone whose name
begins with a ψ and whose aspect is like rock crystal. But
also the god Chnoubis could have been involved in the
conception of the amulet. He appears on the other side
of the gem, and we know of several Chnoubis gems on
rock crystal (Mastrocinque 201, 62–68). It is therefore
possible that the stone did not belong to the ψ series, but
to Chnoubis’ domain.
The extant books of the Cyranides present properties of
both the parrot and the sole, namely the bouglossos.
The third book of this work says:
Ψιττακός ἐστι πτηνὸν ὡραῖον, πράσινον, πόδες δὲ αὐτοῦ καὶ
στόμα πυρρόν. εὑρίσκεται ἐν Θηβαΐδι τῆς Αἰγύπτου, καὶ ἐν τῇ
Ἰνδίᾳ. ἰσχυρὸν στόμα ἔχει, ὡς καὶ σιδηρᾶ ἀνταναιρεῖν μιμεῖται
δὲ καὶ ἀνθρώπων τὴν φωνὴν καὶ πᾶν ζῷον. Τούτου τὸ στόμα
φορούμενον δαίμονας ἀποδιώκει καὶ πᾶν ῥιγοπύρετον καὶ
δύναται ὅσα καὶ ὁ χήν. ἐσθιόμενον δὲ ἰκτεριῶντας καὶ τοὺς
φθισικοὺς καλῶς ἰᾶται (Cyranides 3.52).
The parrot is a beautiful bird. It is green, with red claws and beak.
One could find it in the Egyptian region of Thebae and in India.
Its beak is so solid that it can be set against iron. Parrot is able
to imitate the voice of humans and of every animal. If someone
bears a parrot’s beak, is able to drive demons away and stop
every fever and shivering. Properties of the parrot are the same
as the goose. If someone eats parrot’s meat will be healed from
jaundice and phthisis.
In the fourth book one can read the virtues of the
βούγλωσσος θαλάσσιος for treatment of spleen affec-
tions (Cyranides 4.6.2).
The Cyranides’ first book presents a complete series of
birds, fish, stones and plants, whereas the following books
expand the topics by devoting specific discussions to each
category. In fact, the 2nd book deals with animals, the third
with birds, the fourth with fish, the fifth with plants, and
the sixth with stones (this one has not been preserved).
We have already said that in the first the series is: ψύλλιος
βοτάνη, ψύλλος θαλάσσιος, ψάρος πτηνόν, ψωρίτης λίθος.
But in the following books we find discussions on other
animals whose first letter is the same. The third book (3.53)
keeps presenting the ψαρός as a bird, namely the starling,
but the fourth discusses on the homonymous fish ψαρός.
The second book keeps presenting the ψύλλος θαλάσσιος
but describes also the ψαμμοδύτης (sand-diver; a fish that
buries itself in the sand) (Cyranides 2.45–6).
Evidently variations were possible, and also common.
Parts of the Cyranides could appear on codices (Bain
1994, 36–42), and on gems.2
Modern studies on the Cyranides have proposed two dif-
ferent datings: Wellmann (1934) thought that this work
was conceived early in the 1st century AD, and reworked
later in the imperial age. On the other hand, Alper (1984,
2  3
See above, note 1.
50
13–88)3 strongly argued against Wellmann, by maintain-
ing that the Cyranides were written during the age of
Julian the Apostate. The proof of this date is the depend-
ence of many recipes of the Cyranides on the Christian
Physiologus, which can be dated to the 2nd century AD.
Those recipes had their sense in the Physiologus, but are
partially meaningless in the Cyranides, and this shows
the priority of the Physiologus. But the philological
analysis by Alpers affects only books 2–3, and not the
Cyranìs, that is the 1st book.
The Cyranìs claims in several passages to belong to
Assyrian, Babylonian and Syrian culture (cf. Wellmann
1934, 5 and n. 17), and the main concept of an alphabet-
ical series of animals, plants and stones with their prop-
erties is rooted in Mesopotamic Hellenistic traditions
(Weidner 1967; Reiner 1985, 593; Hübner 1988, 33–42;
Faraone 1990, 219–243).
From the text himself of the Cyranides we get the im-
pression that the 1st book was the starting point to fur-
ther dissertations and expansions, which are presented in
the following books and also in unpreserved books, like
the one which inspired the Paris gem.
The author, or rather the editor, who wrote the extant
Cyranides appears to have been somehow embarrassed
in presenting and putting together two main literary tra-
ditions, one ascribed to Cyranus, the Persian king, and
another to Harpokration the Alexandrian. We read in the
prologus:
prologus 1. Βίβλος αὕτη Κυρανοῦ <καὶ> Ἑρμεία ἐπικλητὴ ‘τὰ
τρία’, ἐξ ἀμφοτέρων βίβλος φυσικῶν δυνάμεων συμπαθειῶν καὶ
ἀντιπαθειῶν, συνταχθεῖσα {ἐκ δύο βίβλων}, ἔκ τε τοῦ Κυρανοῦ
βασιλέως Περσῶν τῆς πρώτης βίβλου τῶν Κυρανίδων, καὶ ἐκ τοῦ
Ἁρποκρατίωνος τοῦ Ἀλεξανδρέως πρὸς τὴν οἰκεῖαν θυγατέραν.
This is the book written by Cyranus and the book by Hermes,
i.e. ‘The three’. It is collected from both authors, and concerns
the physical properties, the sympathies and antipathies. It derives
from the first book of Kyranides by Cyranus, king of Persians,
and from the book by Harpokration the Alexandrian, written for
his daughter.
The editor presents sometimes confused and obscure as-
sertions, but one thing is evident: the first book was more
important and ancient than the others. It was ascribed to
Cyranus, but Harpokration also worked on it. In fact, we
read:
1 prologus 25. Εἰς τρεῖς οὖν διελὼν Κυρανίδας τὸ πᾶν σύνταγμα,
ἐσαφήνισα κατὰ στοιχεῖον ὡς ἐμνημόνευται τὰ πράγματα.
Κυρανίδες εἴρηνται διὰ τὸ τῶν ἄλλων γραφεισῶν βίβλων
βασιλίσσας εἶναι ταύτας. εὕρηνται δὲ παρὰ Κυρανοῦ τοῦ βασιλέως
Περσῶν, ὧν ἡ πρώτη αὕτη.
Οὗτος μὲν ὁ τούτου πρόλογος· τοῦ δὲ Ἁρποκρατίωνος εἶχεν
οὕτως
I have divided the system of this work into three Cyranides, and
explained the meaning of the items according to the alphabetic
 
For a dating to the 4th century see also Bain 1995, 283.
 Copyright material: no unauthorized reproduction in any medium

A. Mastrocinque: Alphabetic magic: traces of a new version of the Cyranides

Figure 1. Rock crystal gem, obverse side, depicting the lion-headed snake Chnoubis.
Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, Département des monnaies médailles et antiques
(photo Attilio Mastrocinque)

Figure 2. Reverse side of the same gem, depicting a parrot over a fish
(photo Attilio Mastrocinque)

51
 Copyright material: no unauthorized reproduction in any medium
The Wisdom of Thoth. Magical Texts in Ancient Mediterranean Civilisations
letters, when I mentioned them. They are called Cyranides be-
cause they are the queens of every written book. The books were
discovered by Cyranus, the king of Persia. This one is the first
of them. This is the prologue by Cyranus; the one written by
Harpokration is the following one.
The preserved or partially preserved books are actually
six, and not three. The editor evidently knew of the tri-
partite Cyranides.
The author presents an account by Harpokration, who
went to Seleucia (on the Tigris river) and saw an archaic
stela, on which the Cyranides’ first book was written; an
old wise man translated the text for him:
1 prol. 75 <ὅπως ἔσται δευτέρα βίβλος τοὔνομα λέξαι θεοῦ
ἡ Κυρανίς, δευτέρα βίβλος ἀπὸ τῆς πρώτης Ἀρχαϊκῆς Συριάδος
οὖσα, ὅπου ῥοαὶ χύνονται ποταμοῦ θεοῦ Εὐφράτου. στήλαις
σιδηραῖς κεχαραγμένα γράμματα ταῦτα, ὅσα πρὶν ἐχάραξα καὶ
μέλλοντα>
For the second book one has to use the name of God: Cyranìs4;
the second book comes after the first, the Syrian ‘Old book’,
published where the stream of the divine river Euphrates flows
down.
The original first book of the Cyranides was apparently
the second of a two-part work, the first part of which was
the Ἀρχαϊκἠ (Archaikê). But a confusion appears to be
here in the quotations, for the work by Cyranus appears
to correspond to the archaic iron stela. In fact, the first
book was also quoted as ‘the stela’:
Ἡ δὲ τοῦ Κυρανοῦ περὶ εὐφρασίας στήλη εἶχεν οὕτως (Cyra-
nides 1.1.160).
The first, and more ancient book presented a series of 24
stones, birds, plants and fish, each series for one letter of
the Greek alphabet:
prol. 15 Αὕτη ἡ βίβλος Συριακοῖς ἐγκεχαραγμένη γράμμασιν ἐν
στήλῃ σιδηρᾷ ἐν <λίμνῃ τῆς Συρίας κατεχώσθη ὡς προείρηται
ἐν> {μὲν} τῇ πρὸ αὐτῆς βίβλῳ Ἀρχαϊκῇ ὑπ’ ἐμοῦ ἑρμηνευθείσῃ·
ἐν ταύτῃ δὲ τῇ καλουμένῃ Κυρανίδι ἐγράφη περὶ λίθων κδʹ,
πτηνῶν κδʹ, βοτανῶν κδʹ, καὶ ἰχθύων κδʹ.
This book was written on an iron stela with Syrian letters and
laid down in a Syrian lake, as mentioned in the previous Ar-
chaic Book, which I have explained. In this book, which is called
Cyranìs, 24 stones, birds, plants and fish are presented.
All the series in one book: this is indeed the case of the
first book, whereas the following ones are devoted each
one to a specific domain (stones, birds, plants or fish, and
earthly animals are added as well).
The end of the first book makes it clear that both Cyranus
and Harpokration reported the arcaic book, i.e. the Cyranìs:
Οὕτως ὁ Ἁρποκρατίων ἐνταῦθα τὴν βίβλον ἐπλήρωσεν· καὶ ἕτερον
αὐτοῦ βιβλίον ἐκ τούτων τῶν λεγομένων Κυρανίδων ἡμεῖς οὐχ
εὕρομεν, ἀλλ’ ἐν τούτῳ μὲν ὅσον διεφώνει ὁ Ἁρποκρατίων πρὸς
τὸν Κυρανόν, ἢ ἕτερος ἑτέρου, ἅπαντα κατὰ λόγον ἀναλεξάμενος
ἐκ τῶν ἀμφοτέρων ὡς ὑπόκειται συνέταξα τὸ βιβλίον μηδενὸς
4  5
Kyranìs was pronouced like Koiranìs, from koiranos: ‘the Lord’.
52
καταφρονήσας λόγου. νῦν δὲ μετελεύσομαι ἐπὶ τὰς τοῦ Κυρανοῦ
ἑτέρας βίβλους, ὅπως καὶ παρ’ αὐτῶν ὠφεληθῶμεν.
Here Harpokration finished his book. We were unable to find
another book from the so-called Cyranides, but we have repor-
ted every discrepancy and difference between Harpokration and
Cyranus. I have composed this book in this way by picking up
elements from both authors and I never disregarded any part of
the treatments. I will pass now to the other books by Cyranus…
(Cyranides 1.24)
The editor sometimes notices discrepancies between
Cyranus and Harpokration:
1.1.75: Ὁ μὲν Κυρανὸς καὶ Ἁρποκρατίων ἕως τοῦ παρόντος
ὡμοφώνησαν. ἔνθεν δὲ ὁ Κυρανὸς μεταλλάσσων λέγει…
1.1.125: Ὡς ἐνταῦθα μὲν ὁ Κυρανὸς οὕτως. ἀπὸ δὲ τῆς ἀνωτέρῳ
γραφείσης τῶν ἀμφοτέρων διαφωνίας εἶχεν ἐκεῖ οὕτως ὁ τοῦ
Ἁρποκρατίωνος λόγος…
In the following books we could find the mention of an-
other source:
ἐξ ἑτέρας βίβλου (Cyranides 3.50.30).
This other book is not quoted. The editor had at his dis-
posal many versions of the Cyranides, and now we know
that there was another one. This work of magic arts and
supposed medicine was probably the most influential
and popular in the antiquity and in the Middle Ages.
A  medieval Arabic translation of the first book, with
drawings, exists. Parts of the old French Book of Nature’s
Secrets derive from this translation. The Cyranides were
translated into Latin by Paschalis Romanus for Emper-
or Manuel I Comnenos.5 Moreover, it is probable that
the name Picatrix (the title of a famous Arabic treatise
of magic, astrology, and properties of substancies) was
a  corruption of Harpokration, the author of the Cyran-
ides (Kahane and Pietrangeli 1966, 574–593). These two
works present indeed many similarities.
In the future, the study of the Cyranides could provide
us with new information on magic and folk medicine in
antiquity and the Middle Ages.
Bibliography
Alpers, K. 1984. Untersuchungen zum griechischen Phy-
siologos und den Kyraniden. Vestigia Bibliae: Jahr-
buch des deutschen Bibel-Archivs Hamburg 6, 13–88.
Bain, D. 1994. Some unpublished Cyranidean Material
in Marc. Gr. 512 (678): three addenda to Meschini,
Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 104, 36–42.
Bain, D. 1995. περιγίνεσθαι as a Medical Term and
a Conjecture in the Cyranides. In: D. Innes, H. Hine
and C.  Pelling (eds). Ethics and Rhetoric: Clas-
sical Essays for Donald Russell on His Seventy-Fifth
Birthday. Oxford, 281–286.
 
On the Latin translations: Delatte, L. (ed.). 1942.
 Copyright material: no unauthorized reproduction in any medium
A. Mastrocinque: Alphabetic magic: traces of a new version of the Cyranides
Kaimakis, D. (ed.) 1976. Kyranides. Beiträge zur klas-
sischen Philologie 76. Meisenheim am Glan.
Delatte, A. and Derchain, Ph. 1964. Les intailles magiques
gréco-égyptiennes. Paris.
Delatte, L. (ed.). 1942. Textes latins et vieux français re-
latifs aux Cyranides. Liège–Paris.
Faraone, C. A. 1990. Aphrodite’s KESTOS and Apples
for Atalanta: Aphrodisiacs in Early Greek Myth and
Ritual. Phoenix 44, 219–243.
Hübner, W. 1988. Zum Planetenfragment des Sudines
(Pap. Gen. inv. 203). Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und
Epigraphik 73, 33–42.
Kahane, H. R. and Pietrangeli, A. 1966. Picatrix and the
Talismans. Romance Philology 19, 574–593.
Mastrocinque, A. 2005. Die Zauberkünste der Aphrodite.
Magische Gemmen auf dem Diadem der Liebesgöt-
tin (Kyranides I.10)‘. In: Th. Ganschow (ed.). Otium.
Festschrift für Volker Michael Strocka. Remshalden,
223–231.
Mastrocinque, A. 2011. The Colours of Magical Gems.
In: ‘Gems of Heaven’. Recent Research on Engraved
53
Gemstones in Late Antiquity c. AD 200–600. Ch. En-
twistle, N. Adams (eds). Proceedings of the confer-
ence London, London 28–31 May. British Museum
Research Publication 177. London, 62–68.
Mastrocinque, A. 2014. Les gemmes magiques du Cabi-
net des Médailles. Paris.
de Mély Ruelle. F. 1902. Les Lapidaires de l’antiquité
et du moyen âge. Tome III. Les lapidaires grecs. Pa-
ris. http://remacle.org/bloodwolf/alchimie/cyranides/
intro.htm
Reiner, E. 1985. The Uses of Astrology. Journal of the
American Oriental Society 105, 589–595.
Waegeman, M. 1986. Amulet and Alphabet – Magical
Amulets in the first Book of Cyranides. Amsterdam.
Weidner, E. 1967. Gestirn-Darstellungen auf babyloni-
schen Tontafeln. Sitzungsberichte. Österreichische
Akademie der Wissenschaften. Philosophisch-Histo-
rische Klasse 254. Bd., Abh. 2. Wien.
Wellmann, M. 1934. Marcellus von Side als Arzt und
die Koiranides des Hermes Trismegistos. Philologus
Supplementband XXVII. Heft 2. Leipzig.