Symposium
The first international MagEIA symposium
Actors, Aggressors and Agency in Ancient Magical Texts
took place at the conference centre Burkardushaus in Würzburg, from 31 October to 2 November 2024.
You can find the abstracts of the papers presented at the symposium here.
Programme:
| Thursday 31 October | ||
| 14:00–15:15 Session 1 (ch. D. Schwemer) | ||
| 14:00 | Welcome address | |
| 14:15 | Christopher Faraone | 'And you, o holy chthonic gods, from below send a ghost into the light!' Aeschylus’ Persians 623-71 and the Longue Durée of Ancient Necromancy |
| 14:45 | Beatrice Baragli | Of Scapegoats, Birds, and the Rest: The King and All His Substitutes in the Mesopotamian Bīt rimki Ritual |
| 15:15–15:45 Coffee break | ||
| 15:45–16:45 Session 2 (ch. M. Stadler) | ||
| 15:45 | Daniel Kölligan | Structuring Actors in Magical Texts |
| 16:15 | Bernd-Christian Otto | CAS-E and MagEIA: Exploring Synchronicities between two Bavarian Centers for Advanced Studies |
| 18:15–21:00 Keynote Lecture and Reception (ch. D. Kölligan) | ||
| 18:15 | Gideon Bohak | Conceptualizing Magicians and Witches in the Ancient World |
| 19:30 | Reception | |
| Friday 1 November | ||
| 9:00–10:30 Session 3 (ch. J. Beltz) | ||
| 9:00 | Sara Chiarini | The Social Agency of Ancient Curse Tablets |
| 9:30 | Theresa Roth & Matthias Donners | Conceptualizations and Linguistic Representations of Antagonicity in (Gallo-)Roman Curse Tablets |
| 10:00 | Jessica Lamont | Early Greek Magic in Sicily: Divinities, the Dead, and Human Participants |
| 10:30–11:00 Coffee break | ||
| 11:00–12:30 Session 4 (ch. S. Nagel) | ||
| 11:00 | Rüdiger Schmitt | Witches as Actors in the Hebrew Bible: Mysogynic Polemics and/or Female Healers? |
| 11:30 | Charlotte Rose | Egyptian Women and their Gods vs. the Evil Dead and their Demons |
| 12:00 | Frank Simons | Get Them to Do the Easy Bits – The Division of Labour in Šurpu and Other Rituals |
| 12:30–14:30 Lunch break | ||
| 14:30–16:00 Session 5 (ch. S. Dalpedri) | ||
| 14:30 | Gaby Abou Samra | A New Syriac Manichaean Magical Bowl |
| 15:00 | Mersha A. Mengistie | Unlocking the Power of Words: The Codex as a Sacred Vessel in Ethiopian Magical Rituals |
| 15:30 | Dan Levene | The Ethiopic Lefafe Tsedeq, a Text and Object that is the Locus of Ritual Performance |
| 16:00–16:30 Coffee break | ||
| 16:30–18:00 Session 6 (ch. F. Simons) | ||
| 16:30 | Jon Beltz | "Be Adjured by Heaven, Be Adjured by Earth:” Oath Language in Mesopotamian Incantations |
| 17:00 | Susanne Töpfer | Magical Aspects in Some Temple Rituals for the Protection of Pharaoh from Tebtunis |
| 17:30 | Svenja Nagel | Pharaoh, Help Thyself! Empowering the King against Enemies and Dangers in the Pyramid Texts |
| 19:30 | Conference dinner | |
| Saturday 2 November | ||
| 9:30–10:30 Session 7 (ch. Ch. Rose) | ||
| 9:30 | Sofía Torallas Tovar | Dream requests in the magical formularies |
| 10:00 | Daniel Schwemer | Twin, Exorcist, and Ruler of the World. The Remarkable Career of a Valiant Doorkeeper |
| 10:30–11:00 Coffee break | ||
| 11:00–12:45 Session 8 (ch. G. Bohak) | ||
| 11:00 | Giulia Torri | Divine Intervention in Hittite ritual Practice |
| 11:30 | Martin Stadler | Actors, Aggressors, and Agency in the Horus Temple of Edfu: The North Wall of the Enclosure Wall |
| 12:00 | Concluding remarks and farewell | |
