Saturday, February 25, 2023

Materiality and Liminality in Aramaic incantation bowls

THE COPTIC MAGICAL PAPYRI BLOG: Materiality and Liminality in Incantation Bowls. A guest post by Anne Sieberichs.
In this post, I will illustrate the entanglements of the use of the incantation bowls and their text through the concept of liminality that is present in both the text and its use. More specifically, I will look at the placement of the bowls within thresholds, and how they served as a second wall providing protection inside against the non-protected outside, using bowl CAMIB 49A as an example.
The Aramaic incantation bowl CAMIB 49A (BM 135563) is housed in the British Museum, acquired in 1971. It appears not to have been scientifically excavated: the provenance is "said to be from." Caveat lector accordingly.

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