• Database updates,  The Kyprianos Database,  The Kyprianos Database

    Kyprianos Update (2 February 2024)

    After a big year preparing the first volume of the Papyri Copticae Magicae (PCM), we’ve finally had time to post a new update to the Kyprianos Database of Ancient Ritual Texts and Objects. As well as the usual corrections and updates, the contents of this update include: For anyone who would like to access the raw data, remember that the Manuscripts and Texts tables may be downloaded from the Database Help page (“About the Kyprianos Database”) in the form of CSV files.

  • Database updates

    Kyprianos Update (10 July 2022)

    We’ve just posted our latest update to the Kyprianos Database of Ancient Ritual Texts and Objects. The update includes: 36 new manuscript entries, bringing the total to 1059. These contain new Greek, Coptic, Demotic, and Aramaic manuscripts from Egypt and elsewhere dating to the first millennium CE. We are particularly grateful to Anne Sieberichs, who is currently responsible for entering manuscripts from a checklist of Aramaic incantation bowls prepared by Ortal-Paz Saar. We have also made several important corrections to previously uploaded entries. 28 new text entries, bringing the total to 206. These include: Two texts from P. Heid. Inv. Copt. 685 (M186), including the longest Coptic version of the famous Prayer of Mary…

  • Database updates

    Kyprianos Update (16 February 2022)

    We’ve just posted our first update of the year to the Kyprianos Database of Ancient Ritual Texts and Objects. The update includes: 12 new manuscript entries, bringing the total to 1023. These contain Greek and/or Coptic magical and liturgical texts from Egypt and other parts of the Roman Empire, including four new Coptic copies of the Jesus-Abgar correspondence (information kindly provided by Roxanne Bélanger-Sarrazin), and seven new Greek texts edited by Michael Zellmann-Rohrer, six of which are from the new volume of the Oxyrhynchus papyri. 9 new text entries, bringing the total to 178. Two texts from the codex P. Heid. Inv. 685, an exorcism of a female demon and a pair of…

  • Database updates

    Kyprianos Update (1 July 2021)

    We’ve just posted our latest update to the Kyprianos Database of Ancient Ritual Texts and Objects. As well as correcting some small mistakes in manuscript, text, and archive entries, the biggest change is that the texts entries now contains a field for tracings of the magical images and diagrams (called tableaux) which accompany them. You can see an example on the right, taken from F1908.45.12, a strange papyrus with no legible text, perhaps some kind of amulet. There are 19 tracings in the current update, and we’ll continue to add them to new texts with each forthcoming update. The update includes: 10 new manuscript entries, bringing the total to 921. These contain…

  • Database updates

    Kyprianos Update (28 May 2021)

    We’ve just posted our latest update to the Kyprianos Database of Ancient Ritual Texts and Objects. As well as correcting some small mistakes in manuscript, text, and archive entries, the update includes: 22 new manuscript entries, bringing the total to 911. These contain primarily Greek and/or Coptic magical texts from Egypt. 6 new text entries, bringing the total to 94. Among the texts we’ve chosen for this update are… the Hymn of Praise of the Archangel Michael, the longest surviving Coptic magical text, a fascinating long prayer for healing and protection from demons attributed to Michael himself. Our new edition is the first since the original German edition of 1966 to be based…