KYP T-918

KYPRIANOS DATABASE OF ANCIENT RITUAL TEXTS

KYPRIANOS T918

Manuscript:	M15
Sigla:	P. Mich. Inv. 599 + 594 + 603 + 596 + 598 + 597 + 595
Text no. Position of the text within the manuscript.	15
Coptic Scriptorium:
Date:	501 – 700

Text position:	p. 3 (P. Mich. Inv. 594, ro) ll. 14-15
Type of text:	Healing from pustules (magical, formulary)

Original title:
Original title (translated):
Conventional title:	For burning pustules (healing)

Language:	Egyptian (Coptic)
Dialect:	Sahidic (non-standard)
Script:	Coptic
Image:	http://quod.lib.umich.edu/a/apis/x-2616/599r.tif & http://quod.lib.umich.edu/a/apis/x-2616/599v.tif

Text:	Translation:
p. 3 (P. Mich. Inv. 594, ro) → 14. [preceding text] ⲉⲧⲃⲉ ⧹ⲧ⧸ⲡⲓ̈ϣⲉ 15. ⲛ̅ⲕⲱϩⲧ̅ ⲧⲁⲩⲟⲥ ⲉϫⲛ ⲟⲩⲏⲣⲡ ⲛⲅⲛⲓ̈ϥⲧⲥ̣ [following text]	[14] For burning pustules. [15] Recite it over some wine and spit it.

Tableau:
Tracing by:

Apparatus:

15. ⲛⲅⲛⲓ̈ϥⲧⲥ̣ second ⲛ corrected from ⲅ

Notes:

Parallel text: P. Mich. inv. 593, p. 7 ll. 10-12 (KYP M9, T876)

14. ⲡⲓ̈ϣⲉ 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.
15. ⲛⲅⲛⲓ̈ϥⲧⲥ̣ 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:

KD, MPS, RBS (23/7/2026)

How to cite:

[Editor names]. "KYP T918: 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-918. Accessed on 10/10/2026
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