November 13, 2024
Svenja Nagel on Ancient Egyptian Erotic Magic
Roots of Magic Interview 2
In this interview we are delighted to speak with Svenja Nagel about erotic magic in the Egyptian context from the bronze age to late antiquity.
We begin with two main blocks of context-setting. In the first we get all the languages and scripts which make up the corpus of Egyptian magic straight: hieroglyphic, hieratic, demotic, and Coptic are all ways of writing the Egyptian tongue, and of course Greek is in play alongside these scripts. We then discuss the native Egyptian term heka, often translated as ‘magic’, but which isn’t precisely magic as we understand the term, or as the Greeks understood mageia.
This contextual work under our belts, we turn to the corpus of erotic magic from Egypt. Nagel and her colleague Ljuba Bortolani have done synoptic typological work on this material, and divide the corpus in the first instance into two broad categories: those aimed at influencing a target person (sometimes called ‘aggressive’ spells and practices) and those aimed at influencing the practitioner him/herself.
In the aggressive category we find agōgē spells, which basically compel a person to fall into erotic madness, lusting uncontrollably for the practitioner. We get into some of the dicey ethics of these practices. We also find binding rituals (katadesmoi) used to lock the target person’s body, or specific body parts, to the practitioner, and ‘separation’ rituals designed to break up existing erotic pairings. This material runs the gamut from disturbing to kind of sweet.
Then we have a whole range of practices designed to improve the practitioner’s sexual potency, attractiveness, and so on, as well as love-potions which can be given to a target-individual. Plant-lore comes in here, and there are a lot of anointings going on, including of the more, ahem, private parts of the body, for various effects including for his erection and for her increased pleasure.
Having typologised these practices generally, we get into some examples, including very ancient Egyptian medical practices; case-studies going waaaaaaaay back (Ramesside-era love-magic, which shows deep continuity with the more well-known antique materials) and all the way to the end of antiquity (yes, it turns out that there are Christian erotic magic documents surviving in Coptic); a wonderful exploration of all the gender-combination possibilities found in the papyri; a case-study of a Demotic spell with deep roots in both Egyptian and Greek lore; and a cameo-appearance from the great Damascius and his colleague Theosebios, who has a magic anti-erotic ring.
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Interview Bio:
Svenja Nagel is an Egyptologist and archæologist currently working on postdoctoral research with the MagEIA team in Würtzburg. She has published widely on a number of fascinating topics including Egyptian erotic magic (naturally), the goddess Isis in ancient cult, and the more esoteric fringes of ancient religions.
Works Cited in this Episode:
Hans Dieter Betz. The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation, Including the Demotic Spells. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL, 1996.
Svenja Nagel. Ägypter, Griechen und Römer im Liebesbann Antiker Liebeszauber im Wandel der Zeiten. In A. Jördens, editor, Ägyptische Magie und ihre Umwelt, Philippika 80, pages 218-80. Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden, 2015. With a contribution by F. Wespi.
Idem. Narrations of Magical Power in Ancient Egypt or: A Counter-Narrative to Witchcraft-Concepts. In E. Eidinow and R. Gordon, editors, Narrating Witchcraft: Agency, Discourse and Power, Magic, Ritual and Witchcraft, Special Volume 14.1, pages 11-36. 2019 [on the ‘Harim Conspiracy’ mentioned in the interview, see p. 31].
Tanja Pommerening, whom we mention in the interview as someone working on the pharmacology of ancient Egyptian medical ingredients, has written the following:
- Pommerening, Tanja 2019. Von der Textquelle zur Interpretation: Können wir heute noch von überlieferten Rezepturen aus altägyptischer Zeit profitieren? Geschichte der Pharmazie 71, 11-20.
- Idem 2017. Medical re-enactments: ancient Egyptian prescriptions from an emic viewpoint. In Rosati, Gloria and Maria Cristina Guidotti (eds), Proceedings of the XI International Congress of Egyptologists, Florence Egyptian Museum, Florence, 23-30 August 2015. Oxford, 519-526.
- Idem. 2016. Wege zur Identifikation altägyptischer Drogennamen: eine kritische Betrachtung. In Dils, Peter and Lutz Popko (eds), Zwischen Philologie und Lexikographie des Ägyptisch-Koptischen: Akten der Leipziger Abschlusstagung des Akademienprojekts “Altägyptisches Wörterbuch”, Leipzig; Stuttgart, 82-111.
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