Ancient Egyptian Handbook of Spells Deciphered

by Owen Jarus, Live Science Contributor   |   November 20, 2014

Researchers have deciphered an ancient Egyptian handbook, revealing a series of invocations and spells.

Among other things, the "Handbook of Ritual Power," as researchers call the book, tells readers how to cast love spells, exorcise evil spirits and treat "black jaundice," a bacterial infection that is still around today and can be fatal.

The book is about 1,300 years old, and is written in Coptic, an Egyptian language. It is made of bound pages of parchment — a type of book that researchers call a codex.

"It is a complete 20-page parchment codex, containing the handbook of a ritual practitioner," write Malcolm Choat and Iain Gardner, who are professors in Australia at Macquarie University and the University of Sydney, respectively, in their book, "A Coptic Handbook of Ritual Power" (Brepols, 2014).

The ancient book "starts with a lengthy series of invocations that culminate with drawings and words of power," they write. "These are followed by a number of prescriptions or spells to cure possession by spirits and various ailments, or to bring success in love and business."

For instance, to subjugate someone, the codex says you have to say a magical formula over two nails, and then "drive them into his doorpost, one on the right side (and) one on the left."

Tales from the Nile

For centuries superstitions have been Egyptians’ daily companions, writes Mai Samih

There are three types of superstitions in Egypt. The first are the superstitions we have inherited from our ancestors, the ancient Egyptians. The second are the ones that have come from foreign conquests, even as far back as the Roman conquest in the first century BCE, and the third are modern superstitions that are the synthesis of ancient and more modern stories.

Among ancient Egyptian superstitions there are many that deal with children. For example, one says that a baby should not be bathed for the first two weeks after birth to protect him from the evil eye. Some people still hold this belief and dress their babies in worn-out clothes. Others go to extremes by putting earth on the cheeks of a newborn child to protect him from the evil eye or by drawing a small blue human hand on its head to prevent it from having cross eyes. This is still practised in some rural areas.

If a child is a girl, some superstitions hold that this means the parents will come into money. During the seboa, the celebration that takes place seven days after a child's birth as seven was a lucky number for the ancient Egyptians, a baby is shaken in a sieve to cleanse it from evil spirits. This is an originally ancient Egyptian tradition that has been practised by many Egyptians no matter what their religious background.