Thank you very much Julie. It was a lovely treat to discover these rolls in
the collection. Um, and as I commence, it's also important for me to acknowledge the
Gadigal people of the Eora nation as the traditional custodians of the land on
which I work and speak to you today. So I'm speaking to you today not as a
specialist in Ethiopian magic per se. I thought I should run through my
disciplinary sins to start. Or in fact a specialist on the Orthodox
Christianity, for that matter, of Ethiopia. But as a scholar of images. Of theories
about images and how they work, and as a scholar of what often gets called
'magical material culture'. So things like amulets, magical hand books. Those kinds
of things. From all periods. But especially from late antiquity and the
early medieval period. So I'll be having a bit of a natter about the role of
images and amulets and talismans more broadly. Bouncing off from these two very
compelling Ethiopian magic scrolls. I will of course also discuss what can
be known of these and Ethiopian traditions more generally. So firstly,
turning to the scrolls in Fisher's collection. So the slide's a little dark,
but as Julie has explained, there are two scrolls in the collection. The first is a
10 by 220 centimetre scroll which has two columns of text. And the
second is a 10 by a 133 centimetre scroll with a single
column of text. So they're long, okay. So it's one of the markable things about this
type of material culture. As you can see on the image, the one with the single
line of text is much darker. At least it's much darker at the very top of the
scroll which is where that image is taken from. And this is due to vellum or
parchment upon which it is written. So parchment if you haven't come across
it before, although I'm sure many of you have,
is a writing surface made from the skin of an animal. In this case, the scrolls
are thought to have been made from goat's skin. They were purchased by the
library. The WH and EM Dean fund in 1990, and notes accompanying the scrolls, um,
recount that they came to the London auction house from which they were
purchased via Beirut. They've been dated between 1820 and 1920.
Now that's quite a broad date span, but in relation to other scrolls which, with
more concise provenance in museums and libraries around the world, they
certainly look like they were produced in the 19th century. Although there are
traditions- and I'll get to this at the end of my talk today- there are
traditions of Christian ritual magic of which these can be considered a type and
of which these take their heritage to a certain degree. Um, that track back to late
antiquity in the Mediterranean and Egyptian region. The scrolls are long and
they've been stored rolled and I'm going to have more to say about that later. On
the parchment written in Ge'ez and I... which is the liturgical language of
Orthodox Christians in Ethiopia. And I'm not a reader of Ge'ez. Um, the point to
make about it is that it's not an everyday language, okay. So it's coming from
a particular liturgical context. What the text says or reproduces um, are prayers.
There are extracts from Christian texts. So for example there are incipits.
Extracts from the New Testament books. Matthew Mark Luke and John. And there's
some rather striking wonderful images. Particularly vibrant images of Archangel
Michael with a sword. So we'll see some of those as we go through today. And
design elements like knot work and pattern borders.
And you can just see- it's not the most elaborate pattern- but you can just see
on the edge here and under here some of that pattern work coming through. Now in
quite a different context, the scholar John Manley. When he's been thinking
about the borders on Roman mosaics from late antiquity um, and in fact following on
from the work of a rather famous anthropologist Alfred Gell, he considered
such borders and I quote "traps to ensnare and dissipate evil influences".
Traps to ensnare evil influences, end quote. So that's an important point
because it reminds us that when we look at these scrolls that our everyday
perception, the way that we look in general at most texts and books may
actually not be appropriate. Patterns that look like decoration to us might in
fact- in the now famous words of Alfred Gell-
indeed be demonic flypaper. So with this suggestion I'm moving into
the realm of the more specific iconographic content. But before doing
that, I need to take a few more minutes to make a couple more general notes
about the content of Ethiopian magic scrolls in particular, and what they were
used for.
The different names ascribed to these different types of scrolls in many
libraries and museum collections around the world tell us something about their
intent and use. They can be variously referred to as magic, prayer or healing
scrolls. The Fisher catalogue tells us that these particular scrolls are prayers
against evil or illnesses.That they are protective is also indicated by the
image of Archangel Michael found on the scrolls. One scroll- the thinner one- has
several images of Archangel Michael. One at the top. One around about the middle
and one at the end. Now Archangel Michael is quite a common
figure to find in Christian protective magic. Even from those earlier periods of
late antiquity. So who created them and how were they used? In regard to
Ethiopian healing scrolls in particular, Kristen Wundamulla Luna from the
Metropolitan Museum in New York tells us that they are made by Dabtaras
who she goes on to describe as I quote "unordained clerics of the
Ethiopian church". Now David Appleyard in his research
identifies that there's been usual for every church in Ethiopia to have several
Dabtaras associated with it. And that this is a role that's very particular to
the Ethiopian church. And that they hold several roles. So for him they hold
roles of administrator. He also describes them as scribes and as scholars and I
quote "uses their skills in preparing amulets and in traditional medicine and
divination" end quote. I'm going to come back to that amulet word a little bit
later today and what that's meant in terms of a class of material culture. But
before that a little more detail on what's known on the production in the
use of Ethiopian healing scrolls. Every aspect of their production can be
considered important and linked to their use. So for example many you recount that
an the animal whose skin is utilized to make the scroll would be involved in
a sacrificial ritual. After which its skin would then be prepared as parchment
and the scroll would then be formed. Scrolls could be made to match the
height of the patient. For what Wundermulla Luna delightfully calls and I
quote "head to toe spiritual protection". As she also notes, it appears that
scrolls can be especially created for an individual. Okay, so commissioned and
created for that particular person, but they can also- um, there's evidence of
re-purposing. So an individual's name is added to an already existing scroll. A
new patient added in. Now the scrolls are understood to draw evil spirits from the
afflicted person and to capture them. So from a certain perspective we can see
them or understand them as demon traps. To do this
they utilize those extracts from Christian books, prayers and images that
have already kind of mentioned. And the scrolls also would be worn around the
neck. Okay, so rolled quite tightly, put in a
little leather pouch and worn around the neck as a protective amulet. Or a
talisman.
Here's a lovely picture of Archangel Michael. From the scrolls.
Okay, so a few notes or a few words on amulets and talismans and charms. So
usually any object that's thought to be very powerful that was either carried or
worn by an individual could be considered an amulet. Depending upon the
culture, this can include objects from the
natural world, shells, bones, claws, feathers, all sorts of things. As well as
objects that have clearly been worked by humans. Carved precious and semi-precious
stones for example. Forms of jewelry. Objects of metalwork. So in general, the
efficacy of an amulet. That is, its power, was thought to operate through the
physical contact of the amulet with the wearer or its owner. It may be that the
object was thought inherently powerful or that the metaphysical power was
placed into the object via some kind of ritual process. To a certain extent the
terms 'amulet', 'talisman' and 'charm' are kind of interchangeable. Although it's more
common to see the term 'charm' used to- when they're discussing objects that
involve some kind of text. Some type of textual content. Now, such objects are
designed to aid or help an individual. This might be by giving or heightening a
particular quality. So for example, strength making them stronger. Giving
them strength. Or protecting them from an adversary. Now that might be another
human. But it could also be an animal. Okay, so it might protect them from bites
and stings. That kind of thing. Or of course importantly from particular types
of illness. And we know these from the many, many, many types of carved stone
amulets that we get from Pharonic Egypt. Although it's not on our agenda for
today, it is worth noting that many amulets could be made from transitory
or perishable material. So for example strings. There's records of string magic
,if you like, with knots tied into the string to bind demons. Or involve
processes that require the formula to be written on the person's body and then
they lick the formula off. Or, you know, a piece of papyrus or parchment or
something with the magic formula written on it and placed in liquid and then they
drink the liquid. Okay, so there's all different sorts of
rituals that take place around this kind of material culture. In terms of thinking
particularly about these Ethiopian scrolls,
I think the terminology 'prayer scroll' appeals to me when thinking about them
in their amulet form. Um, being when they're kind of being worn around the neck,
because we can think about them as a perpetual, a perpetual prayer in material
form. On continual prayer. Okay, so I think I also should say something about the
magic words scary not so scary. Over the past 20 years the scholarship on ancient
ritual practice has developed enormous ly. Pparticularly those commonly
classified as 'magical'. Which has led to a great re-evaluation of their influence
and role. Indeed there's an increasing tendency to abandon the term 'magic
altogether. It's seen as misleading, associated with ideas of being dodgy or
deviant, or clandestine, or heretical. This reevaluation of magical material culture
has been the result of many factors and not just the popularity of the Harry
Potter books. So firstly there's been an increased recognition and a more
holistic understanding of popular religious and social practices beyond a
traditional emphasis on textuality in the word and hierarchical church
structures. That is, there's been a shift in focus on to everyday religious
practice or what often gets called 'lived religion'.
Secondly there's been major developments in the history of medicine and science
together with the birth of a new discipline which has been known as the
academic study of Western Esotericism. Which have engendered a new focus on a
new - I should say academic- focus on what usually gets called 'folk' or 'alternate'
healing practices. And secondly, there's been substantial new finds which have
been accompanied by the development of big international publication processes
and also large databases. Um, and so for example after this talk you can go and
look up the Ethiopian Manuscript Imaging project if you'd like to see a lot more
examples of this type of scroll and actually scrolls from much earlier
periods are there as well. Therefore, rather than thinking about magical practices um as
being viewed as something that's peripheral and the provenance
of seditious individuals or small groups. Sex for example. Attention has turned to
the central role of community leaders, scientists, doctors, priests, scribes and
the identification even of workshops for the production of this ritual material
culture. Okay. So we can think about it also a circulating is a particular type
of commodity. That's been drawn together with evidence for its contribution to
wider societies. So, thinking about that this type of material cultures role in
issues of social harmony and inclusion, issues of competition and especially
particular attention paid to healing. Concepts of how the body is understood
and ancient healing practices. Of special note when we're thinking about Ethiopian
Scrolls and Coptic magic is the notable role of Clerics in producing and
administering this sort of material. In relationship to that normal and quite
general dichotomy between, say, religion and magic where the two things are seen
as different and discreet if you like.
Boundaries are porous and lived practice more messy than those neat divides
indicate. This is not to say, however, that these practices have been wholly
accepted or endorsed by established church authorities. Histories are much
more complex and even with regard to Ethiopian Scrolls, various degrees of
social and ecclesiastical prohibition and acceptance have been recorded. So my
final theme for my little natter today has to do with the presentation of
images. There's another glorious picture of Archangel Michael, and what I really
like about these images is that he's multi-armed. So we have two arms up here
fighting the demons and yet there are other arms down here holding kind of another sword. As I
mentioned previously in relationship to thinking about geometric designs, we need
to be careful of automatically bringing our contemporary scopic regimes - that is
our everyday ways of viewing things- to look at texts and images produced in
quite different cultural contexts. Like much ritual image culture, images in this
context have agency. That is, that they're attributed a liveliness or a capacity to
do stuff. They are magical. That is, they're imbued with the power whose
source is considered to be otherworldly or metaphysical. So they are not
illustrations or harmless diagrams. Now this is a very different way of thinking
about images. We might be familiar with images affecting us emotionally. Bringing
us joy or happiness or rapture or arrest. Looking at all those cat images online
in the middle of the day. Or peacefulness or something like that. But, it's a less
familiar idea that the idea that the images can either be -
one- ontological. That is that they can actually be the being. Okay. That is they're
not a picture of a particular spirit being um that it looks like, but it actually
is that being. Okay. The spirit being taking up residence or
is formed by the image. And secondly, that the images are capable of direct action
which affects the person or people directly. So for example they can heal an
illness. They can make them full of lust with love magic. I'll give an example of
that later. Or they can do much nastier things which I won't be talking about. So
in regard to the Ethiopian Scrolls, Wundermulla Luna particularly describes
them as a talismanic art. She recounts their use in healing process in which
they are unfurled and priests will recite prayers. However according to her,
the real action, that is, the healing action takes place between the images
and the demon causing the illness in the human. The portal for this exchange is
the eyes. The eyes of the Archangels on the scrolls which are sometimes
schematized to just the figure of the eye or even
the figure of the face, and the eyes of the humans through which the demon - which
is in this framework understood to cause the illness- is looking out. So the
demon's looking out through the eyes of the human and they meet the eyes of the
Archangel in the scroll. The figures on the scroll make the demon flee and as
Wundermulla Luna notes, I quote "this act of
reciprocal viewing is key to the healing act as invoking the names of God alone
will not cause the retreat of the demons" end quote. So these images are considered
powerful. The scrolls are not everyday objects but required to be treated with
care and respect. They are not simply the repository of ideas. Not that a book that
is simply a repository of ideas isn't a glorious thing anyway - but they're not
simply the repository of ideas or different kinds of texts but they are
amuletic. And so moving on, I'm going to finish my talk today by discussing an
example of another type of amuletic book that has been studied by Professor
Ian Gardner and myself here at the University. This is an example of a
Coptic ritual handbook. Now Ethiopian Christianity is also often called Coptic,
as it was in good part derived historically from the Egyptian Church.
Spreading south down the Red Sea coast to which it was linked administratively
until very recently, and also with which it shares various theological emphasis
and themes. But the Ethiopian Church of course is also its distinct tradition.
But with my colleague Ian Gardner, we have examined the Heidelberg collection of
amulets and handbooks in Coptic on parchment dating from the 10th century.
They were purchased by Carl Schmitt in 1930, 1933 in Cairo. Three of the pieces
are what we call 'single choir codices'. Commonly termed magical handbooks and
which contain lengthy invocations ritual in script, ritual instructions, lots of
different kinds of prescriptions. You must do this, do that, do this, and
wonderful, wonderful images. So this is one of the books from the Heidelberg
collection. The praise of Michael the Archangel,
and imagine Michael here with some rather funky looking demons at his side.
This is another one of the books in the Heidelberg collection. This is Mary and
the Book of Angels. I'm going to be talking to you- I'll leave the picture of
me area up for a minute because it's just so groovy to look- at but I'm
actually going to be talking to you about the third book, and we'll come to
that in the next slide. Which is known as the Erotic Spell of Cyprian of Antioch.
Its p.hide invoice copped 684. Okay. it's a book comprised of sixteen pages on
paper dated to the 11th century on paleographic grounds. Now part of the
Heidelberg papyrus collection. It was published by Billabel and Grohmann in
1934 with Greek and Arabic parallels, and an English translation appeared in 1994.
In a very accessible book if you're interested in this topic by Marvin Meyer
and Richard Smith, called Ancient Christian Magic. In this example, I'm
going to focus on the functionality of the magic book and what its material
state might be able to offer us in terms of understanding how it was used
ritually. The manuscript on paper is in fairly good condition for this kind of
thing, excepting two pages. Page 12- that's page 12- and the final page of the spell-
page 13. Okay and on page 13 we can see here an image. A much degraded image -which I'll
get back to in a minute - of Archangel Gabriel. Now when this book was closed
and stored, these two pages - page 12 and page 13 - would have contacted one another
okay so that's kind of an important point for the bit ...it's important
to note for the point that I'm about to make. The text of ritual instructions
which includes for example and I quote "fill her heart her soul her spirit and
her mind with burning desire and hot longing, with perturbation and
disturbance filling her from the toenails of her feet to the hair of her
head with desire, longing and lust" end quote. So.
Piece of love magic. It has that kind of text and there's also just above the
image, there's a list of ingredients given. Which are pretty typical of this
type of text to be involved in, you know, ritual okay. So these um, ingredients might
be selected for their fragrance or they're relaxing qualities. They might
otherwise be considered stimulants. Perhaps sometimes to promote altered
states of consciousness or associated with healing particular physical
ailments. Now just below that list is the image. Now considering the placement of
the ritual instructions in relationship to the image, Ian and I wondered whether
the degradation of the image on page 13 was caused by the repetitive rubbing or
ritual oiling of the image as part of the ritual invocation. And that perhaps
this action was understood to activate Gabriel. If one reads the title by the
images identifying the main figure which it often did- um, to activate Gabriel's
intercession or bidding to do the magician's intent. The damage to the
opposite page which I mentioned previously is primarily on the right
hand side. This uneven distribution is curious but perhaps can best be
explained by residual oil matter seeping onto that page when the book was closed
and stored. Nonetheless the wear on page 13 would indicate that the book and its
images had an active role to play in ritual invocation. From such a
perspective, the book is not something that is simply read even by select
specialists, but itself becomes a locus. An important factor in ritual activity.
Degradation of the image evidences that the ritualist, whose fingers were
presumably smeared with oils or various other types of ritual substances,
must have utilized the image on the, um, as part of the performance of the ritual.
Okay so they enacted something with it. Now of course how that happened is
unclear. For example, was the image actually pressed against the ritual
subject. One way or another, it seems that there must have been some sort of
tactile transference of efficacy from the page. So that the book is no longer
just instructions but is a player. it's an actant in the ritual process
itself. So thinking about how the power of the image or the power of Archangel
Gabriel was transferred, if you like, from the book itself, from the handbook to the
person or the object of the ritual. So by paying close attention to the
materiality of the object itself. So by really looking at the paper and what was
on it and it's state for example. Another much more expansive kind of materiality,
subtle materiality, becomes evident and it's one that underpins the logic of the
efficacy of the intent of magical objects. Okay so we're talking about um, the
way in which magic itself was assumed to be transferred. Okay. Um and these types of
readings therefore complicate approaching images are simply diagrams
or as decoration or some type of kind of empty aspect. Rather it sees images and
,in this case, the entire ritual hand books - and this is certainly the case
with our Ethiopian healing scrolls - as an agent. As something that has its own
liveliness. Perhaps even the spiritual being here, Archangel Gabriel, was
understood to be ontologically present in the image.
The main point of course, as with the Ethiopian Scrolls, is that the hand book
itself is both an actant in the ritual but also has intrinsically amuletic
qualities. These objects were understood to activate and mediate relations
between the physical world and indeed the physical bodies of humans, and the
metaphysical worlds of spirit beings and archangels. They were direct, if you like,
breach of that relationship. Thank you.
There was one with an eye...that one...is that an eye at the bottom of that image..what does it represent?
...I think that an eye, um, when I look at it but I think I'm not a
specialist in it. But I think that um, in particular because of what's been
recorded about the importance of eyes in this exchange of the relationship
between the demon and Archangel Michael, I think that's an eye.
Some of those um, other, other little eyes that you get in um Middle Eastern countries
so it's got the same sort of structure and everything, so I wondered was a part
of ..that's the...where I was looking at it from. Yeah, look there could be influence but I couldn't say, you know, absolutely but I'm
certainly that looks like an eye to me. Yeah, and these scrolls are of course drawing on lots of different, um,
cultural influences. So you know there are other scholars that work on the kind
of relationship to African traditional healing elements. So because I have a
stronger background in thinking about the material culture from late antiquity
of Egypt, that's kind of where I go. But other people see lots more different
cultural histories. Hi, um. I was just wondering within the context of a Christian framework
I've never thought, well considered, magic to have a place within Christianity. You're about
to get several lectures. Yeah, I'm a student of Jay's in Egyptian magic and religion. Yeah so I was
wondering what would have been the Orthodox Church's response to something
like a magical force within a religion that has notoriously been a little bit
against magic. Okay so, um, I just did to that and earlier on in my talk but so
the first thing to remember is different positions at different times and also
the whole idea that you know there may be a decree from a centralized church structure.
But the degree to which that's taken up on the ground in kind of remote
communities. Those kinds of things. So, we need to think about that. But certainly
the evidence of Coptic Egypt is that you actually have um, clerics with positions
within the church that are creating this material. Okay and so there's evidence
that it's been created within a monastic context. So this is why I was saying that
you know in general we tend to think about what gets called magic but often
times now referred to as a ritual power or some other word that doesn't
people quite so much. It gets magic over here and religion as being something
over here. That in fact the relationships between these bodies of knowledge or
what we think they might be are much more porous and much more complex and
much more fun than we tend to think about. Thank you so much. A
fascinating talk and as interested in later antiquity in the Coptic and
Orthodox Christian traditions, there's a strong apophatic or negative theology.
And I was wondering in the context of images which as you were talking about
have this ontological significance whether there is any qualms about
depicting divinities or higher beings. Okay so I should be... I'll be kind of.. when
I first started to talk about the images having a kind of ontological capacity,
certainly in some international forums, that idea meets with various forms of
agreement. Okay. Um, and I think that one of the important things to point out is
that although I would, I would teach an argument that images on healing scrolls
definitely are doing something in terms of an ontological presencing if you like.
Um, but I think partially in thinking about Late Antiquity,
one of the Ritualist specialties. One of the things they were trained to do was to
know actually how to read the different aspects of the handbook. So which part of
the handbook is um, is a being. Yeah? To put it more bluntly, and which part of it is actually an
instruction or a diagram. Okay, or something like that. So because
oftentimes, the texts have particular formulas and they'll say things like
this is the drawing that you must draw, okay. So it means you go over here and
you draw it here okay. So in terms of the apathatic tradition, I think we need to
think very carefully about the context of, in which these images are circulating,
and of course there may have been prohibitions about who could see them.
Okay, and who had access to them, and where they were kept. Um, but it's not the
same kind of iconoclastic traditions that you might be more familiar with. Um, and
also to think about these is much more everyday kinds of objects, okay. So they
they have a kind of special status and you might not walk around showing people,
you know, your amulet for example. You might just wear it closely on the body
or whatever and you might not even look at it yourself.
I mean, who knows? The ritual instructions by the person that's
produced for you might be just wear this. Don't look at it. Bury it in four
days time. You know. That kind of thing. Um, but there are much more... they're kind of -
I would say - tangential to that broader , um, images of beings. The other
thing I haven't talked about because I wasn't talking about the text- but there
are ritual names of deities and beings in these texts, and they're often written
in different kinds of scripts, and there are ciphers used. So there are, um, and if you
break a particular cipher you get a particular different story. Or you might
get a different name of a demon or a different name of an angel or something
like that. so even the content of the text really wasn't meant for everybody
to know. Okay. So there are different levels of reading and accessing. But
certainly in some of them you will get the names of demons and the names of
angels written in different colors as well to distinguish them. Um, and there are
arguments that these types of special signs which nobody knows what they are
are, so here's an example here. This type of ...there's another one here. There
are also interpretations that these could also be presencing a type of
metaphysical being or some type of spirit. Okay, so in this kind of geometric
form.
Hi. I have never pay attention to this year. I find it's very interesting and
my question is where is it was a multi-armed one I just see the two on
the top and didn't find in the middle and it did some like historical meaning
what's on the development of this. So in terms of multi- armed- ness, I don't know
of any particular historical long traditions of multi- armed-ness.
...except to say that it's quite common and and so it is about - well - it
can be about fighting things in all fronts. So, you know, you're able to manage
it. You know, absolutely protective. You know, everything's covered. It's not
uncommon to see images of both arc angels and demons being given multi arms.
And all sorts of extra appendages ...
I want to know whether people in this era
were even literate apart from the priests. So whether they could read this
or know what the imagery meant on the scrolls that they were given.
Okay, so certainly the vast majority of people wouldn't be literate, but they're
of course levels of society where there is literacy. So you would just think
about literacy in the Roman world and what you know of that you apply to this
context. So certainly they, it's not, um, rarified, dialects are not in the same
way that the Ethiopian Scrolls are written in a liturgical language. Yeah,
um, it's so you meet Coptic. So presumably they would, a illiterate person
would be able to read it. Any further questions?
Okay, that might be a good point to draw it to a close. Thank you very much.
you
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