Offering courses and seminars on the Greco-Egyptian Magical Papyri and related texts.

The Greek Magical Papyri are a set of documents from Egypt during the Roman Period (30 BCE – 390 CE) first gathered into a single collection by the German scholar Karl Preisendanz (two volumes published in 1928 and 1931). That collection was published under the Latin title, Papyri Graecae Magicae, which is the source of the common abbreviation PGM. This collection was expanded and translated into English by a team of scholars in the 1980s under the title The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation (sometimes abbreviated GMPT).

The papyri (plural of papyrus) are written mostly in ancient Greek, with some forms of late written Egyptian (Demotic and Old Coptic). The bilingualism of many of the largest papyri probably indicate that they were documents used by Egyptian priests living under the rule of the Roman Empire, which used Greek as the administrative language in its eastern provinces. Prior to becoming a Roman province, Egypt was ruled for approximately 300 years by the Greek-speaking Ptolemaic Dynasty, named for Ptolemy I, one of Alexander the Great’s generals. Since written Egyptian was the closely guarded secret of the Egyptian priesthoods, it is likely that the ritual practitioners represented by the PGM were native Egyptians who had learned Greek, and therefore the PGM are often referred to as the Greco-Egyptian Magical Papyri.

GreekMagicalPapyri.com will offer a number of classes and seminars for those interested in the language and historical context of the PGM and related ancient sources. Please check out our course listing.