Startseite More than text: Approaching ritual papyri from Oxyrhynchus as inscribed objects
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More than text: Approaching ritual papyri from Oxyrhynchus as inscribed objects

  • Scott Possiel
Veröffentlicht/Copyright: 2. Dezember 2020
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Abstract

Although papyri serve as critical forms of evidence for the study of ritual in the late antique Mediterranean, much about their function and significance in ritual performance remains unknown. This paper investigates this dimension of ritual texts through an examination of three papyri from Oxyrhynchus (P.Oxy. 4242, 2833, and 5304) – a horoscope, a sortes collection, and a magical formulary. Pairing close readings with an object-centered approach to the study of ritual in the ancient world, this paper addresses the text of each papyrus as well as its visual and physical characteristics including size, columniation, layout, evidence of wear, and marginalia. This analysis illuminates not only the role of each papyrus within the practice of astrology, divination, or magic, but also its influence on ritual performance. By mediating the experience of ritual participants, these papyri exert object-agency. Therefore, this paper argues that such texts are not simply passive instruments consulted by practitioners but rather active participants and collaborators in the performance of ritual.

This article was first presented to the Society for Ancient Mediterranean Religions program unit at the Society for Biblical Literature Annual Meeting. I am grateful to Nancy Evans for organizing this panel and allowing me to participate. I also wish to thank David Frankfurter, Jennifer Knust, Jordan Conley, Andrew Henry, Alexis Felder, David Young, Chang Seon An, Elizabeth Schrader, and the anonymous reviewer for their generous feedback and insightful criticism on earlier versions of this project.

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Online erschienen: 2020-12-02

© 2020 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

Artikel in diesem Heft

  1. Titelseiten
  2. Titelseiten
  3. Articles
  4. Introduction
  5. Magic and Ritual
  6. Magic and Ritual
  7. Überlegungen zu einigen griechischen Wetterritualen
  8. And You Will Be Amazed: The Rhetoric of Authority in the Greek Magical Papyri
  9. Lawsuits with Headless Foes: A Greek Incantation Motif
  10. A Syntactic Approach to the Orphic Gold Leaves
  11. Materiality and Ancient Religion
  12. Materiality and Ancient Religion
  13. Accumulation, authority, and the cultural lives of objects: materiality and ancient religion
  14. Familiarity and Phenomenology in Greece: Accumulated Votives as Group-made Monuments
  15. The Cultural Biography of a Pilgrimage Token: From Hagiographical to Archaeological Evidence
  16. More than text: Approaching ritual papyri from Oxyrhynchus as inscribed objects
  17. Rethinking Orphic ‘Bookishness’: Text and Performance in Classical Mystery Religion
  18. Divine Names
  19. Divine Names
  20. Noms de dieux!” Gods at the borders
  21. Nommer les dieux hittites : au sujet de quelques épithètes divines
  22. Le culte de Zeus Brontôn : l’espace et la morphologie du dieu de l’orage dans la Phrygie d’époque romaine
  23. Séquences onomastiques divines à Ostie-Portus
  24. Myths of Origin
  25. Myths of Origin
  26. Ex arches: Looking Back at Greek Myths of Origin
  27. Typhoeus or Cosmic Regression (Theogony 821 – 880)
  28. Herakles and the Order of Zeus in Hesiod’s Theogony
  29. The Politics of Beginnings: Hesiod and the Assyrian Ideological Appropriation of Enuma Eliš
  30. Our Co(s)mic Origins: Theogonies in Greek Comedy
  31. At the Origins of Dionysus and Wine: Myths, Miracles, and Festivals
  32. Creation in the Poimandres and in Other Creation Stories
  33. The God Aion in a Mosaic from Nea Paphos (Cyprus) and Graeco-Phoenician Cosmogonies in the Roman East
  34. Ἀρχή and δῖνος: Vortices as Cosmogonic Powers and Cosmic Regulators. Study Case: The Whirling Lightning Bolt of Zeus
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