Magical papyri beyond Egyptian practice - dish divining (again)
I love discussing ancient sources with students, as it make you have to think a little deeper about what you might otherwise read superficially. This is the case even when they ask you to revisit a topic you have already covered. I guess you should consider it a success when students ask you to repeat a workshop for them. Well, that was how I took it when this happened at the start of this semester when I had been asked to repeat my workshop on dish-divining (lecanomancy) this semester. I had previously done this in 2019 and I wrote about it on this blog here.
To make it a little different, I decided to look for some new material to add to what I had discussed previously, and happily came across sources which I had missed previously. And I must say I am really glad I did.
A source which I had previously missed was a Syriac document which outlined accusations against a the bishop of Constantina, a town whose ruined site is today near the South Eastern Turkish town of Viranşehir. This appears to be a Syriac translation of the now lost Greek minutes of a session of a gathering of bishops at Ephesus on the 22nd of August 449 CE in which the bishop Sophronius was accused of practicing the magical arts of phialomancy, which is another form of divining in which a cup rather than a dish was used to hold oil and water. He was also accused of other kinds of divination in addition to this one, including oömancy - divination by way of eggs. Yes, apparently that was a thing. For those interested, the yolk of an egg kept in the broken shell after the white was poured out was used as a scrying medium.
What I found most interesting was this description of the divination process:
On another occasion, too, he was guilty of this same thing, and had recourse to the divining-cup, as we learnt from Simeon, who used to act as server to him at the bishop's house: for, he once took this man's son and introduced him quite along into his bed-chamber, with one Abraham, deacon, a relative of his, together; and, having placed a table in the middle, they put under the table incense, destined for the Daemons, but, upon the table, a cup (phial), in which were oil and water, and he placed the lad, in a state of nudity, at the side of the table; and the whole was covered with clean linen. Then, the deacon began intoning words which the bishop had formulated for him from his wicked divining-art. Then they questioned the lad, saying to him: "What do you see in the cup?" And he said, "I see sparks of fire going upwards out of it"; and again, after a little while, he questioned him, saying: "What do you see yet?" And he said, "I see a man sitting on a throne of gold, and clad in purple, and a crown upon his head."
This is the adapted translation of Reverend S.G.F. Perry which was published by Ernest Honigmann (see bibliography for details).
This makes for an interesting comparison with a magical papyrus written in Demotic text. The Demotic Magical Papyrus XIV lines 395-426 on dish diving provides this description:
You bring a copper cup; you engrave a figure of Anubis in it; you fill it with settled water guarded which the sun cannot find; you fill the top [of the water] with true oil; you place it on [three] new bricks, whose undersides are spread with sand; you put another four bricks under the youth; you make the youth lie down on his stomach; you make him put his chin on the bricks of the vessel; you make him look into the oil, while a cloth is stretched over him, and while a lighted lamp is in his right hand and a burning censer in his left hand; you put a lobe of Anubis plant on the lamp; you put this incense up [on the censer]; and you recite these writings which are above to the vessel seven times. The incense which you should put up [on the censer]: frankincense (?), oil, ammoniacum incense, dates. Pound them with wine, make them into a ball and offer up this scent. When you have finished, you should make the youth open his eyes and you should ask him, “Is the god coming in?” If he says, “ The god has already come in,” you should recite before him. Formula: “Your bull(?), MAO, O Anubis, this [soldier?], this bull / this blackness . . . . This . . . This ITSI this SRITSI SRITSI SRITSI ABRITSI IS YOUR NAME, BEING YOUR CORRECT NAME.” And you should ask him concerning that which you [desire]; when you have finished you enquiry about which you are asking, you should recite to him. Seven times and you should recite to him seven and you should dismiss [the god] to his home.
Similar descriptions can be found in Apuleius' defense against the accusation of magic (Apologia 42-3):
...they alleged that I had used a spell to bewitch some boy, once I had gotten observers out of the way, in a secret place, with a small altar, a lantern and a few accomplices looking on; on being bewitched he collapsed, and when he came round later he did not know where he was. ...to complete the drama they should have added that the same boy prophesied and made many predictions. For we are told that foresight and divination are the reward of spells, and not only popular belief but the authority of notable scholars too attest to this miraculous power in young boys. ...when the people of Tralles used magic to inquire about the outcome of the Mithridatic war, a boy gazing at a reflection of Mercury in water gave a prophecy of the future in a hundred and sixty lines of poetry.
[43]...though I do believe Plato's doctrine that certain heavenly powers are situated by their nature and position halfway between gods and humans, and that they control all forms of divination and wonders of magic. I also reflect on the fact that the human soul, especially when young and innocent, can be lulled to sleep either by seductive carminum [magic song or spell] or by soothing aromas, and can thus be distracted into forgetting the present; then, in a brief suspension of its physical memory, it reverts and returns to its true nature, which of course is immortal and divine, and thus foretells future events in a kind of trance.
Yet at the same time, whether this is true or not, if these stories deserve any credence this supposed boy must ... be chosen for his beautiful and unblemished body, acute intelligence and eloquent speech, so that either the divine power can have a sort of suitable home in which to lodge decently...
Often when you look at Egyptian papyri you tend to look at it as Egyptian practice. But when you look at the Syriac notes of the Greek accusations against Sophronius in Turkey in 449 CE and Apuleius published Latin defense of his own court case before 190 CE in what is today Algeria, in comparison to the 3rd Century CE Demotic magical papyrus. They have a lot in common:
- Use of young male child
- Adult intoning magical words or spells
- Use of water in a vessel (oil too in the case of the papyrus and Syriac text)
- Use of incense
- Adult questions the child
There are other elements in common to just two texts such as the use of a lamp (Apuleius and papyrus), covering the boy in fabric (Syriac document and papyrus), and likely other examples as well.
What this tells me is that while we acknowledge that much of the material such as magic words included in Egyptian magical papyri come from outside of Egypt, for example the use of Hebrew and angelic names, illustrating a magical cultural milieu in southern Egypt, we should not consider some of the basic magical practices as Egyptian. While we know that dish-divining started out as an augury practice in Babylon (see my previous blog), we should remember that the later scrying form of dish-divining was not a specifically Egyptian practice, and that it was used in both the Greek east and the Latin west in a fairly consistent manner.
Dish Divining with Students
Of course 2019 was before Covid-19, and I did want to make this session more "Covid safe" and at least a little different from the original session. So to do this not only did I do a little more research, I also cracked out my art supplies to make multiple bowls suitable for dish-divining for students to use individually.
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| Melamine bowls with their inner surface covered in metallic foil to act as metal dishes. |
I used metallic foils inside some melamine bowls bought from a cheap shop to replicate some of the metallic bowls described for some:
In other cases I left the bowl mostly in its natural state, but engraved the image of Anubis into it and coloured it with alcohol inks to allow it to be seen. This was based on the Demotic Magical Papyrus 14 lines 395-426.
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| A melamine bowl with the image of Anubis scratched into it and coloured with alcohol inks. |
For another bowl I followed the directions given in the Greek Magical Papyrus IV (also known as the Great Magical Papyrus of Paris) lines 3209-54.
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| A melamine bowl written on with sharpie and some of the spell words covered in wax as directed. |
Having dragged bowls and oil to uni, we set up to look at what dish divining looked like in antiquity.
One this I could not do in 2019 was see if oil auguries were something that could be read as I only had one bowl. After pouring We started out by looking at whether or not oil took different forms on the surface of the water to see if different patterns appear. Thanks to one of the students, Emily Hutton, I have some videos of how this looked:
I also got students to draw what the oil looked like on a sheet of paper to help show how different these could appear to the interpreter.
This all showed me clearly that the oil would definitely move differently for each divination done in the Babylonian style.
We then filled the surface of some bowls. That took a surprising amount of oil.
I just had to keep adding more, as you can see.
And this is what the surface of one of the bowls looked like by candle light once the entire surface was covered in oil.
Conclusions
It was well worth revisiting this topic, and while the student turnout was not terrific, those who attended were at least polite enough to say that they found it interesting and fun.
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