Materiality and Presence of Magical Signs between Antiquity and the Middle Ages (A03)

Throughout antiquity and the Middle Ages, magic was an important part both of everyday religious perceptions and of specialist knowledge. Belief in the power of signs and the objects that bore them constituted, along with ritual practice, magic’s area of influence. During the first phase of this subproject, emphasis was placed on magical signs and sequences of signs, and their relationship to material substrates; the second phase dealt in this context with protection from evil and communication with higher powers; in the third phase the focus will turn to practices employed for the purpose of winning favour and achieving justice.

DFG Programme Collaborative Research Centres

Subproject of SFB 933:  Material Text Cultures. Materiality and Presence of Writing in Non-Typographic Societies

Applicant Institution Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg

Project Heads Professorin Dr. Andrea Jördens; Professor Dr. Thomas Meier, until 6/2019; Professor Dr. Joachim Friedrich Quack