The Oracular Amuletic Decrees: Divine Protection and Prevention as Life Insurance

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Abstract

The Oracular Amuletic Decrees: Divine Protection and Prevention as Life Insurance The corpus of the so-called Oracular Amuletic Decrees (OAD) has been known since its first publication in 1960 by I.E.S. Edwards (Edwards 1960). Since then, further texts could be assigned to this corpus (Quack 1994, 5–8; Bohleke 1997; Fischer-Elfert 2015, 82–95, 203–219, 250–252; Koenig 2018) that dates to the beginning of the Third Intermediate Period based on palaeography and the onomasticon (Edwards 1960, xiii–xv; Koenig 1987). The texts are primarily but not exclusively made for children and contain spells or promises from various gods for the protection of the amulet owner. These spells describe threats as well as potentially dangerous situations from which the amulet owner is to be protected. Within the context of ancient Egyptian textual amulets, the OAD represent a special group. Similar in layout to late Ramesside private letters, they were worn around the neck as amulett, tightly rolled up and stowed in a container made of leather, wood or even metal. But unlike conventional amulets, which were mainly used curatively in specific crisis situations, and whose texts were usually invocations to various gods or powerful entities or invocations of dangerous powers (Dieleman 2011, 91–97), the OADs were used prophylactically. The oracle-giving gods guarantee the amulet owner legally binding protection against dangers that are described in detail (Quack 2022, 133). The amount of text alone requires a specific layout that differs from that of other textual amulets, and the formal language used in the texts is more reminiscent of legal contract forms than of religious-magical text corpora. The focus of the presentation will be to place the OAD with these specific characteristics into the history of textual amulets in pharaonic Egypt, to identify and evaluate the differences and similarities in layout, form, language and lexicon. Bibliography: Bohleke 1997: Brian Bohleke. An Oracular Amuletic Decree of Khonsu in the Cleveland Museum of Art. In: JEA 83 (1997), 155–167. Dieleman 2011: Jacco Dieleman. Scribal Practices in the Production of Magic Handbooks in Egypt. In: Gideon Bohak/Yuval Harari/Shaul Shaked (eds.). Coninuity and Innovation in the Magical Tradition. Jerusalem Studies in Religion and Culture 15. Leiden 2011, 85–118. Edwards 1960: I.E.S. Edwards. Hieratic Papyri in the British Museum. Fourth Series: Oracular Amuletic Decrees of the Late New Kingdom. 2 Vols. London 1960. Fischer-Elfert 2015: Hans-W. Fischer-Elfert. Magika Hieratika in Berlin, Hannover, Heidelberg und München. ÄOP 2. Berlin 2015 Koenig 1987: Yvan Koenig. Notes de transcription. In: Cahiers de Recherches de l’Institut de Papyrologie et d’Égyptologie de Lille 9 (1987), 31–32. Koenig 2018: Yvan Koenig. Un nouveau décret amulettique oraculaire Pap. IFAO H 40. In: BIFAO 118 (2018), 233–240. Quack 1994: Joachim Friedrich Quack. Die Lehren des Ani. Ein neuägyptischer Weisheitstext in seinem kulturellen Umfeld. OBO 141. Göttingen/Fribourg 1994. Quack 2022: Joachim Friedrich Quack. Altägyptische Amulette und Ihre Handhabung. ORA 31. Tübingen 2022.

Speakers from the University of Münster

Blöbaum, Anke Ilona

Centre for Eastern Mediterranean History and Culture (GKM)