NEWS: Heidelberg magic
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Egyptian magic shines in Germany
By Doaa Soliman - The Egyptian Gazette
Thursday, June 2, 2011 06:51:01 PM
HEIDELBERG - With a collection of ancient Egyptian amulets, ancient
texts in various languages and magical imagery and objects, 2,000
years of Egyptian magic are being on show now in the Museum of
Heidelberg University.
Once you enter the beautiful German city, the magic begins
with enchanting sceneries all around, however, stepping into the
museum area another sort of magic appears.
"This exhibition provides prospects on an issue of great
interest nowadays," Prof. Rodney Ast, Research and Teaching Associate
in the Institute of Papyrology, told The Egyptian Gazette during a
tour of the exhibition.
"We can see how the idea of magic intersected with love,
relations, medicine and even with things that are beyond or bigger
than human beings," he added.
The idea of 'Egyptian Magic through the Ages' started in a
class last summer about magic in ancient cultures. It took almost a
year to prepare for the exhibition in which preparation eight students
took part for the first time.
A decade-long-lost book of spells from ancient Egypt is the
focus of the joint exhibition that's organised by both the Institute
of Papyrology and the Institute of Egyptology at the University of
Heidelberg.
The valuable book that is called 'The Magical Book of Michael'
was lost after the end of Second World War and was only returned last
year, triggering the idea of this exhibition, according to Ast.
Magical objects, imagery and texts are exhibited in six
cabinets, each of which carries a distinctive theme. In the first
cabinet, different kinds of amulets, magical gems and texts for
'Protective Magic', which were used to fight evil spirits, are
displayed.
In another cabinet, a pharaonic statue is exhibited alongside
with a small model of a woman and a tuft of hair: this is the cabinet
for 'binding and lover-related magic'.
The texts show that these amulets and spells were used to
provide love-saturated relationships and to assure the love of the
partner through times and times.
"Love and healing, protection and loss have been for thousands
of years the recurring themes," explained the director of the
Institute of Papyrology, Prof. Andrea Joerdens, adding that the
exhibition gathered ancient Egyptian magical symbols with ancient Near
Eastern, Jewish and Christian symbols.
Then comes 'magic and medicine' cabinet, which shows some of
the ancient tools used in healing or preparing healing magical works.
It also shows part of an ancient Egyptian amulet that was used to
keep scorpions away and a modern illustration.
Another object is the evil eye that is said to dispel bad
spirits and keeps someone healthy. "This part describes how medicine
and magic have always been connected together over ages," Ast said,
adding that some of the objects and the texts were studied and
analysed by the institute's students while others were yet to be
understood.
The majority of texts in those departments are of ancient Coptic
Language, and hieroglyphics; yet, the next cabinet has the majority of
its texts in Arabic language. Its theme is 'imagery and text' and in
this cabinet we see a variety of Arabic amulets or the hegab as it's
called in Arabic.
It also includes some verses from Islam's Holy Qur'an that were
used in protective and preventive magic in more recent eras.
The majority of objects displayed in the exhibition are the
property of Heidelberg University. However, some special objects are
originally a property of the Heidelberg Museum and are just displayed
in the exhibition because of their direct relation to the theme.
This is just the case with the pharaonic Child's mummy
sarcophagus that had magical writings asking gods to save the spirit
of the child, which has a special cabinet for its own.
The final cabinet in the exhibition, which runs until June 13,
is the one that features texts from several magical books that cover
the span of 2,000 years from ancient pharaonic to Coptic, including
texts from the Magical Book of Michael.
"What fascinates me in this exhibition is that it shows us how
much similarities were there in the fears and desires among different
ancient cultures," said Ast, who has been working in excavations in
Egyptian oases for a while now. "It also shows us how similarly things
were handled through ages."
With its wide time span, rich collection of amulets and gems,
texts and imagery and magical objects, 'Egyptian Magic through the
Ages' provides an insight that overpasses geographical or physical
measurement and opens a door to a world, in which much more is yet to
be revealed.
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