KYP T-876

KYPRIANOS DATABASE OF ANCIENT RITUAL TEXTS

KYPRIANOS T876

Manuscript:	M9
Sigla:	P. Mich. Inv. 593
Text no. Position of the text within the manuscript.	15
Coptic Scriptorium:
Date:	401 – 700

Text position:	p. 7 ll. 10-12
Type of text:	Healing from pustules (magical, formulary)

Original title:	ⲉⲧⲃⲉ ⲧⲡⲓϣⲉ ⲛ̅ⲕⲱϩ̅ⲧ︦
Original title (translated):	For burning pustules
Conventional title:	For burning pustules (healing)

Language:	Egyptian (Coptic)
Dialect:	Sahidic (non-standard)
Script:	Coptic
Image:	https://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/i/image/image-idx?id=S-APIS-X-2601%5D593_1R.TIF

Text:	Translation:
p. 7 (→) 10. [preceding text] ⲉⲧⲃⲉ ⲧⲡⲓ- 11. ϣⲉ ⲛ̅ⲕⲱϩ̅ⲧ︦ ⟦.⟧ ⲧⲁⲩⲟⲥ ⲉϫⲛ︦ ⲟⲩ- 12. ⲏⲣⲡ̅ ⲛ̅ⲅⲛⲓϥⲧⲥ · [following text]	[10] For [11] burning pustules. Recite it over some [12] wine and spit it.

Tableau:
Tracing by:

Apparatus:

10-11. ⲡⲓϣⲉ ⲛ̅ⲕⲱϩ̅ⲧ︦ : translate “pishe of fire” Worrell : translate “the illness of burning (lungs)” Mirecki 1994 & 1999
12. ⲛ̅ⲅⲛⲓϥⲧⲥ : translate “inhale it” Worrell : translate “inhale it(s fumes)” Mirecki 1994 & 1999

Notes:

Parallel text: P. Mich. inv. 594 ro ll. 14-15 (KYP M15; KYP T918)

10–11. ⲡⲓϣⲉ cf. Crum CD 278b “a disease producing pustules”. For “burning pustules”, see C.Pharm.Copt. 32 (KYP M941) l. 215: ⲟⲩⲡⲁϣⲉ ⲉⲥϯ ϣⲁϩ ⲛ̅ⲕⲱϩ̅ⲧ̅ (“a pustulous disease which causes burning fire”). For pustules (ⲡⲁⲓϣⲉ) in other magical and pharmacological texts, see P. Mich. inv. 593 (KYP M9, T877), p. 7 ll. 12-14; P. Mich. inv. 594 (KYP M15, T918-919) ro ll. 14-16; C.Pharm.Copt. 11 (KYP M694), ro ll. 25, 28; C.Pharm.Copt. 21 (KYP M4030) kopt 838 l. 1; C.Pharm.Copt. 28 (KYP M643) p. 241 ll. 7, 10, p. 242 l. 25.
11. ⟦.⟧ There is a dark stain here; it is uncertain whether this is a deleted letter or not.
12. ⲏⲣⲡ̅ A rounded supralinear stroke has been corrected to a flat one by overwriting.
12. ⲛ̅ⲅⲛⲓϥⲧⲥ The meaning of this word is not clear; ⲛⲓϥⲉ usually means “to breathe, or to blow”, which would not, at first sight, seem to make sense in the context of wine. Worrell and Mirecki translate “inhale”, with Mirecki adding in brackets (“(it)s fumes”) to clarify the sense. This sense of ⲛⲓϥⲉ in the sense of inhalations does not seem to be otherwise attested, and, given that this seems to be for a skin disease, we would rather expect the wine to be applied to the skin, as in the following recipe. We follow here Dosoo (2021, 77), who suggests that it might mean “to spit”, following the use of the word to describe the action of snakes in spitting poison (Crum CD 239a); this would be similar to a practice attested in modern Ethiopia in which the healer takes a liquid in his or her mouth and spits it over the patient. The practice of spitting (ⲛⲉϫ ⲧⲁϥ) on wounds by “enchanters” (ⲣⲉϥⲙⲟⲩⲧⲉ) is attested in the Coptic version of the Canons of Saint Basil (Dosoo 2021, 53).

Bibliography:

Dosoo, Korshi. “Healing Traditions in Coptic Magical Texts”, Trends in Classics 13.1 (2021): 44–94.

Grons, Medizinische Rezepttexte in koptischer Sprache (C.Pharm.Copt.). Archiv für Papyrusforschung und verwandte Gebiete – Beiheft 56. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2025

Meyer, Marvin W., and Richard Smith. Ancient Christian Magic: Coptic Texts of Ritual Power. Princeton (New Jersey): Princeton University Press, 1999, p. 304–310, no. 133.

Mirecki, Paul. “The Coptic Wizard’s Hoard.” The Harvard Theological Review vol. 87 no. 4 (1994): 435–460.

Worrell, W. H. “A Coptic Wizard’s Hoard.” The American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures 46 no. 4 (1930): 239–262.

Editor:

EL’s transcript from Worrell (29/1/20); preliminary translation by KD (31/1/2020); KD, MPS, RBS (23/7/2026)

How to cite:

[Editor names]. "KYP T876: For burning pustules (healing)," Kyprianos Database of Ancient Ritual Texts and Objects, Korshi Dosoo, Markéta Preininger, & Roxanne Bélanger Sarrazin (principal editors), www.coptic-magic.phil.uni-wuerzburg.de/index.php/text/kyp-t-876. Accessed on 11/10/2026
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