Transforming the Dead in Graeco-Roman Egypt : The Spells of P. Louvre N. 3122 and P. Berlin P. 3162

Die Zeitschrift für Ägyptische Sprache und Altertumskunde ist das älteste Fachorgan der Ägyptologie. Seit 1863 publiziert sie Beiträge zu Sprache, Geschichte Literatur, Recht, Religion, Wissenschaft, Magie, Wirtschaft und Alltag und zur materiellen Kultur des antiken Ägypten, zu deren Rezeption sowie zur Geschichte der Ägyptologie. Die Beihefte bieten Monographien und Sammelbände aus demselben breiten Themenspektrum wie die Zeitschrift.

The Zeitschrift für ägyptische Sprache und Altertumskunde is the oldest professional journal in Egyptology. Since 1863 it has published articles on language, literature, history, law, religion, science, magic, the economy, everyday experience, and the material culture of ancient Egypt as well as the history of Egyptology. The Beihefte present monographs and anthologies on the same broad spectrum of issues covered by the journal.

The belief that dead people could assume non-human forms is attested in Egyptian texts of all periods, from the Old Kingdom down to Graeco-Roman times. It was thought that assuming such forms enhanced their freedom of movement and access to nourishment in the afterlife, as well as allowing them to join the entourages of different deities and participate in their worship. Spells referring to or enabling the deceased’s transformations occur in the Pyramid Texts, the Coffin Texts, and the Book of the Dead. But it is not until the Graeco-Roman Period that we find entire compositions devoted to this theme. Two of the most important are P. Louvre N. 3122 and P. Berlin P. 3162, both written in hieratic and dating to the 1st century AD. Both texts have been known to Egyptologists for more than a century, but neither is currently available in an up-to-date comprehensive edition. This book provides such an edition, including high-resolution images of the manuscripts, hieroglyphic transcriptions, translations, descriptions of their material aspects, studies of their owners, their titles, and their families, reconstructions of their context of usage, analyses of their orthography and grammar, and detailed commentaries on their contents.