Mößner, Tamara

Ägyptische Magie im Wandel der Zeiten: Eine Ausstellung des Instituts für Papyrologie in Zusammenarbeit mit dem Institut für Ägyptologie der Universität Heidelberg

The institute for Papyrology of the University of Heidelberg  is the proud owner of one of the world’s most significant corpora of magical papyri. The small but excellent collection of Coptic parchments, most of which also include drawings, probably originating from around the beginning of the second millennium. Already in 1934, this collection was  presented together with a codex containing the legend of Cyprian in the volume “Griechische, koptische und arabische Texte zur Religion und religiösen Literatur in Ägyptens Spätzeit” edited by Adolf Grohmann and Friedrich Bilabel. This volume announced the then-recent acquisition of two unique grimoires – one of which had been considered lost since 1945. One of the most famous scholars in this domain, P. Angelicus Kropp, had previously been able to publish a text of an earlier version of the other grimoire, in 1966; P. Heid. Kopt. inv. 686 (before: P. Heid. inv. 1686); the second grimoire, however, had been believed to be lost forever, with no earlier versions known of.