The Powers of Death: Memory, Place and Eschatology in a Coptic Curse
This discussion takes as a case study three curses written in Coptic on mammalian rib bones, dating to the ninth or tenth century CE. These curses call upon the Powers of Death, psychagogues known from Christian literary texts, to remove the victim's soul, before adjuring the spirit of the dead...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Interlibrary Loan: | Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany) |
| Published: |
2021
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| In: |
Religion in the Roman empire
Year: 2021, Volume: 7, Issue: 1, Pages: 167-194 |
| Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains: | B
Egypt (Antiquity)
/ Coptic Church
/ Coptic language
/ Christian literature
/ Death
/ Curse
/ History 800-1000
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| IxTheo Classification: | CD Christianity and Culture CH Christianity and Society KBL Near East and North Africa KDF Orthodox Church NBQ Eschatology |
| Further subjects: | B
Lived Religion
B Papyrology B mediaeval Egypt B Egypt B Magic B Christian Literature B Curses B Late Antiquity B Bone B Hell |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (kostenfrei) |
| Summary: | This discussion takes as a case study three curses written in Coptic on mammalian rib bones, dating to the ninth or tenth century CE. These curses call upon the Powers of Death, psychagogues known from Christian literary texts, to remove the victim's soul, before adjuring the spirit of the dead person with whom the curses were deposited to make the victim suffer alongside it in hell. These manuscripts, known in one case to have been buried in a Pharaonic grave, demonstrate the ways in which Egyptian Christians re-constructed their 'pagan' past, and that their knowledge of this past could be used as a tool in the social conflicts which led to the production of written curses. |
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| ISSN: | 2199-4471 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Religion in the Roman empire
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1628/rre-2021-0012 |