Materiality and Presence of Magical Signs between Antiquity and the Middle Ages
(A03)
Subject Area
Egyptology and Ancient Near Eastern Studies
Term
from 2011 to 2023
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 178035969
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