Description: In the course of the Hellenistic Period, a new form of private ritual emerged in Egypt. This type of ritual is today commonly called Greco-Egyptian magic. In its nature and form, it is Egyptian ritual in a Hellenistic guise. Yet it is radically more cosmopolitan, intercultural, and syncretistic in character than the earlier and foundational traditions of pharaonic Egypt and Classical Greece. Catering towards the Egyptian, Greek and Jewish inhabitants of the cities of Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt, Greco-Egyptian spells were believed to offer protection, healing, luck, love and occult knowledge. They offered means to deal with misfortune, competition, interpersonal conflict, in short, with the uncertainties of life. Its material culture consists of carved gems for protection and healing, inscribed lead tablets for cursing, gold and silver lamellae for health and good fortune, and extensive bilingual manuals – in Koine Greek, Demotic Egyptian and Old Coptic – with instructions on how to perform the rituals. In the Roman Period, such materials spread all over the Roman Empire and have been recovered from Britain to Luristan and from Germany to Nubia. In this presentation we will take a close look at the various types of Greco-Egyptian ritual and trace how Egyptian priests adapted their rituals to serve a Hellenized clientele.  

About the Speaker:  Jacco Dieleman holds his PhD in Egyptology from Leiden University, the Netherlands (2003). He currently works as Associate Professor of Egyptology at the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures of UCLA, where he teaches ancient Egyptian religion, literature, and language in all its phases and script forms. He is also co-founder and editor of the web-based UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology. During academic year 2010-11, he is a visiting research scholar at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, NYU. His research focuses on tracing continuity and innovation in Egyptian scribal traditions to follow changes in religious thought and cultural identity throughout pharaonic Egypt's long history. The sociolinguistic study of bilingualism and script varieties is always at the core of his projects. He is currently preparing for publication an edition of an Egyptian funerary liturgy that collects a number of temple rituals adapted for the burial of an otherwise unknown woman with the name Artemis. The manuscript, which is inscribed with incantations in Classical Egyptian written in the hieratic script and with instructions for use in Demotic, can be dated to the late Ptolemaic or early Roman Period. He also continues his work on the corpus of the so-called Demotic Magical Papyri to determine their nature and relationship to the Greek Magical Papyri.