CARACTERIZACIÓN DEL ESPACIO

The other set of secret letters that occurs in P. London-Leiden is used not only in this manuscript, but enjoyed a wide popularity from the second century onwards in the eastern Mediterranean as a mystical and powerful ‘sacred’ script, the signs of which were called charaktêres.¹³⁹ David Frankfurter defines the category in the following terms:

137 Tr. Janet H. Johnson, with minor modifications (=PDM xiv1206–1218).

138 Tr. Janet H. Johnson, with minor modifications (=PDM xiv384–388).

139 The best discussion of the nature and meaning of these signs is Frankfurter, ‘The

Charaktêr is the general term for the small designs and figures found in lines or clusters on magical papyri and gems, having no apparent source in any known alphabet, and yet employed in such a way that a ‘mean-ing’ (albeit unutterable) is implied in their sequence or arrangement. The most common forms of magical charaktêres consist of asterisks and config-urations of straight lines with small circles or lobes on each end. They appear in a variety of contexts, ranging from loose clusters inscribed on certain magical gems, to their integration with a larger drawing or figura on a magical text or tablet, to integration with a recognizably alphabetic text as if to suggest phonetic symbols ‘transcendent’ of the normal alpha-bet, much as voces magicae were supposed to be transcended of normal language.¹⁴⁰

Unlike the ‘cipher’ script, these signs had a function in the ritual itself, that is to say, in the majority of cases they had to be written on a piece of papyrus, lead or bronze, which, for example, was subsequently worn around the neck as a phylactery or deposited at a hidden spot as a binding spell. The mysterious signs were supposed to represent ‘sacred’

writing intelligible only to demons and deities, so that its application would enable direct communication with the divine world.¹⁴¹ Whereas the voces magicae served as a linguistic code to establish communication with the gods, the charaktêres functioned as an unutterable, and presum-ably untranslatable graphic code to convey a message to the gods.¹⁴²In the following healing spell, the mystery signs are supposed to cure a patient who is bitten by a scorpion.

Magic of Writing and the Writing of Magic’, 205–211. Instructive introductions are:

Theodor Hopfner, ‘Charaktêres’ PRE Suppl. 4 (1924) 1183–1188; Brashear, ‘The Greek Magical Papyri: An Introduction and Survey’,3440–3443; John G. Gager, Curse tablets and Binding Spells from the Ancient World (New York and Oxford1992) 10–11. Illustrations are given in the latter publication, figs. 1 (Picatrix, medieval Arabic), 7 (Apamea); 8 (Carthage),9, 10, 19 (Rome); 15 (Jewish, Cairo Geniza); 16, 25, 30 (Egypt); 20 (Athens).

Consider also the magical signs on the divination apparatus from Pergamum; Richard Wünsch, Ein antikes Zaubergerät aus Pergamon (Berlin1905).

140 Frankfurter, ‘The Magic of Writing and the Writing of Magic’,205.

141 Frankfurter compares the nature of the charaktêres with the late antique concept of the ‘heavenly books’ whose writing was understandable only to divine beings and those enlightened; Frankfurter, ‘The Magic of Writing and the Writing of Magic’, 207. However, one has to bear in mind that the communication situation is opposite:

heavenly books reveal a message of the divine world to humans, whereas the magical spells or gems with charaktêres are an attempt on the part of humans to address the divine world.

142 In the late antique period, charaktêres became powerful entities of themselves who could be called upon as protectors or divine assistants. For example, a lead defixio to bind competitors in the chariot races from Apamea, Syria, dating from the 5^th-6^th century CE reads: ‘Most holy Lord Charaktêres, tie up, bind the feet, the hands, the

For scorpion sting. On a clean sheet of papyrus, write the charaktêres, place it on the place where the sting is and bind the sheet around it, and it will be painless immediately. These are the charaktêres: (a string of signs; jd).

They make11 charaktêres. [PGM VII.193–196]

The final clause demonstrates that the signs had to be copied carefully:

one sign more or less would make the rite futile.

It remains unknown from where, by whom and through which chan-nels the use of these signs spread over the eastern Mediterranean.

Possibly, their popularity resulted from the awe that the hieroglyphs were generally afforded in Hellenistic circles.¹⁴³ Both scripts were seen as divine symbols transcending regular alphabetic scripts as regards semantic possibilities and imbued with great powers. Together with the rapid decline in knowledge of the hieroglyphic script in Egypt itself dur-ing the early Roman period, the Hellenistic perception may have pro-vided fertile soil for these magical signs to develop into an alternative yet international ‘hieroglyphic’ script. For the same reason, it cannot be ruled out that Egyptian priests took an active part in spreading the belief in, and use of, the mystery signs.¹⁴⁴

In P. London-Leiden, charaktêres occur once in a long string of29 signs that, according to the Demotic instructions of the recipe, should be written on a reed leaf, whose subsequent treatment determines whether the practitioner will acquire dreams, send dreams or attract a woman.

sinews, the eyes, the knees, the courage, the leaps, the whip (?), the victory and the crowning of Porphuras and Hapsicrates …’; Gager, Curse tablets and Binding Spells,56–58, nr.6. A Byzantine-period public inscription on the wall of the theater of Miletus, Asia Minor, addresses a set of seven charaktêres as protectors of the city; H. Grégoire, Receuil des inscriptions grecques chrétiennes d’Asie Mineure (Paris1922) nr. 221.

143 On the Hellenistic perception of hieroglyphs, see, chapter1. The link between charaktêres and hieroglyphs has often been proposed; the most recent treatment is Frankfurter, Religion in Roman Egypt,255–256.

144 A study of the hieroglyphic texts on the so-called Horus-cippi of the Ptolemaic period revealed that the knowledge of the meaning of single signs rapidly declined in the course of this period and that only certain hieroglyphs or clusters of signs were copied to stand for the complete text. Written in this fashion, a hieroglyphic sign became an index of sacredness; Heike Sternberg-El Hotabi, ‘Der Untergang der Hieroglyphenschrift. Schriftverfall und Schrifttod im Ägypten der griechisch-römischen Zeit’ CdE69 (1994) 218–245. According to Malcolm Mosher, a similar development is detectable in the Book of the Dead papyri from Akhmim; Malcolm Mosher, Jr, ‘The Book of the Dead Tradition at Akhmim during the Late Period’, in: A. Egberts, B.P. Muhs and J. van der Vliet (eds.), Perspectives on Panopolis. An Egyptian Town from Alexander the Great to the Arab Conquest (P.L.Bat.31; Leiden 2002) 201–209. Note that both developments might reflect changes that were only valid for specific professional groups.

Hence, the treatment of the charaktêres is in line with prescriptions from other Roman-period magical handbooks. Although a few signs resemble Greek letters, the majority are fanciful and not like any other contemporary ‘official’ script.¹⁴⁵

Fig.3.6. P. London-Leiden verso 17/1–8

A spell¹⁴⁶ to bring [a woman] to a man (and) to send dreams (another

manuscript says: to dream dreams) as well.

You should write these on a reed leaf and put (it) under your head. You should go to sleep; it makes dreams and sends dreams. If you will do it to send dreams, you should put it on the mouth of a mummy. It brings a woman also. You should write this name (pAy rn) on the reed leaf with blood of a *.?.* or a *hoopoe*; you should put the hair of the woman inside the leaf and put it on the mouth of the mummy. You should write on the ground this name (pAy rn), saying: ‘Bring NN, the daughter of NN, to the house of the sleeping place in which is NN, the son of NN!’

Yet, it is also a fetching charm (4στ δ5 κα 6γ$γιμον)

[P. London-Leiden V17/1–8]¹⁴⁷

145 The Greek letters are:ο(nrs.1, 3, 19),π(nr.12),υ(nrs.14, 21),η(nr.18),ν(nr.20),

(nr.22). Several signs occur more than once: (nrs. 1, 3, 19), (nrs. 5, 8, 11), (nrs. 9, 28), (nrs.14, 21), (nrs. 15, 25), (nrs, 16, 17).

146 Herbert Thompson’s hand copy does not reproduce that this caption is written in red.

147 Tr. Janet H. Johnson, with modifications (= PDM xiv1070–1077).

It is noteworthy that the Demotic text refers to the string of charaktêres as pAy rn, ‘this name’, as if the Egyptian editor interpreted the mystery signs as a magical name similar to voces magicae instead of as a secret message (in which case he would probably have written nAy s

¯h.w, ‘these writings’). The Greek clause at the end of the spell might be a gloss, which was added afterwards to the Demotic spell as a caption by a person who was less proficient in Demotic than in Greek, or a remnant of the original Greek spell that was translated into Demotic. If the clause is indeed a residue of the original spell in Greek, the Demotic clause ‘It brings a woman also’ (

˘hr "ır

--

^f "ıny s.hm.t #n; P. London-Leiden V17/5) is probably its direct translation. It is therefore well possible that the extant spell goes back to a version in Greek and that the charaktêres are a remnant of this lost Greek spell as well.

The twin manuscript, P. Leiden I384 verso, preserves a Greek spell that prescribes a similar ritual technique, in this case to gain favour and friendship by carrying an amulet that has a series of charaktêres written upon it. The recipe gives 8 or 9 charaktêres, none of which is identical with a sign of the above given dream-sending recipe, to write with special ink on a pasithea or wormwood root.

For favour and friendship forever. Take a pasithea or wormwood root, write this name (τ7 8νομα τοτο) on it in a holy way:

and wear it and you will be an object of favour, friendship as well as admiration to those who see you. The formulafor the ink:1 dram of myrrh,4 drams of truffle, 2 drams of blue vitriol, 2 drams of oak gall, 3

drams of Arabic gum. [PGM XII.397–400]

The Greek text calls the mystery signs ‘this name’ (τ7 8νομα τοτο), as is the case in the Demotic dream-sending spell. This might suggest that the editors of the spells were familiar with the concept, but not aware of its correct technical term. This is however not correct. In fact, the term charaktêr occurs as a Greek loan word transcribed in alphabetic Demotic signs in an elaborate Demotic recipe for a lamp divination ritual (P. London-Leiden5/1–32 = PDM xiv 117–149). Before the practitioner can truly start with the divinatory rite, he should get a white lamp, onto which no red lead or gum water has been applied.

You should put a clean wick in it°; you should fill it with real oil°, after writing this name (pAy rn) and these charaktêres (gh#l#gter) on the wick with ink of myrrh first°. [P. London-Leiden5/4–5]

Fig3.7. Pseudo-hieroglyphs, P. London-Leiden 5/8–10

In the right margin two lines below, the name and the charaktêres are carefully written one above the other and identified by the phrase

‘here are (the) writings (s

¯h.w) that you should write on the wick of the lamp’ (P. London-Leiden 5/8; fig. 3.7). The name, which is spelled in Greek letters like a common vox magica, reads bachuchsichuch, possibly a transcription of bA kkw sA kkw, ‘soul of darkness, son of darkness’.¹⁴⁸ The charaktêres that stand below this name are not like any of the signs that are called charaktêres today, but are carefully drawn and represent a geometric sign, a scarab (

˘hpr hieroglyph), an Udjat-eye (w¯dA.t hieroglyph), a cross and a sitting dog in side-view. Despite their deviant shape (one is even tempted to speak of pseudo-hieroglyphs), the treatment of the signs corresponds otherwise with the use of charaktêres.

These same5 signs and the vox magica are repeated in two other recipes for fairly similar divination rituals (P. London-Leiden6/1–8/11 = PDM xiv150–231 and P. London-Leiden 27/1–32 =PDM xiv 805–840). The Demotic text refers to the vox magica and the signs in one case as ‘the writings’ (nAs

¯h.w)¹⁴⁹and in the other case as ‘this name’ (pAy rn) as in the dream-sending recipe.¹⁵⁰

148 GMPT,202, fn. 76 [R.K.R.].

149 P. London-Leiden6/25.

150 P. London-Leiden27/31.

THE FORM AND FUNCTION OF BILINGUALISM

4.1. Introduction

One of the most remarkable characteristics of the two manuscripts under study is the combination of spells in Demotic and Greek on one and the same manuscript. As has been said in the introductory chapter, previous scholars never took the bilingual nature of the manuscripts fully into account, but chose to concentrate their attention either on the Greek or the Demotic sections, which eventually resulted in a disciplinary division of the material. By contrast, this chapter will take the bilingual nature of the manuscripts as point of departure for an investigation into the language attitude of the composers and compilers of the spells by studying in detail the relationship between Egyptian and Greek and their degree of interference in the spells. Before embarking on a close inspection, the interaction between Egyptian and Greek in the source material can be defined for the moment as follows:

1. On the level of the manuscripts, the distribution of Egyptian and Greek is rather clear-cut, this is to say, the use of a language is restricted to a self-contained section each. On P. Leiden I 384 verso, the Greek spells are grouped together in a section of 13 consecutive columns, which is flanked by a section of Demotic spells on both ends; the twin manuscript, P. London-Leiden, does not contain any separate Greek spells next to the Demotic spells.

2. On the level of individual spells, Egyptian and Greek are occa-sionally juxtaposed or combined as rather autonomous elements:

three Greek spells contain a title in Demotic in addition to their Greek title (PGM XII.201–269; 270–350; 365–375) and seven Demotic spells include an invocation in Greek, to wit: PDM xii.

76–107 [PGM XII.453–465], PDM xii.135–146 [PGM XII.474–

479], PDM xii.147–164 [PGM XII.480–495], PDM xiv.93–114 [PGM XIVa.1–11], PDM xiv.451–458 [PGM XIVb.12–15] and PDM xiv.675–694 [PGM XIVc.16–27].

3. The reverse side of P. London-Leiden contains a fair number of single Greek nouns in the Greek script, which serve mainly as headings to short Demotic descriptions of plants, minerals and animals. Their integration into Egyptian syntactical patterns is rather superficial.

4. In certain cases, the recipe part of a Demotic spell contains one or more Greek loanwords transcribed into alphabetic Demotic signs and fully integrated into the Egyptian syntax. The transcribed loan words may be accompanied by glosses in Greek script above the line.

As argued in the introductory chapter, there are reasons to believe that certain members of the Egyptian priesthood had, and propagated, a negative language attitude toward Greek to define their cultural superiority over the Hellenistic ruling elite. Therefore, it may come as a surprise to find that the two magical handbooks under study, which must have circulated among Egyptian priests, as demonstrated in the foregoing chapter, preserve a considerable number of spells in Greek next to those in Demotic. Why would an Egyptian priestly milieu put faith in spells written in Greek and treat them on a par with spells in the Egyptian language? The present chapter is an attempt to determine to what extent the incorporation of Greek spells and words truly meant a breach with traditional Egyptian religious concepts and practices.

This detailed study of the bilingual phenomena in the two handbooks will hence put the general validity of the propagated priestly negative language attitude to the test.

In document UNIVERSIDAD COMPLUTENSE DE MADRID (página 161-174)