Recipes for Horrors

0582816 - FLÚ 2024 RIV eng A - Abstract
Coughlin, Sean
Recipes for Horrors.
[Medical Knowledge and its “Sitz im Leben”: Body and Horror in Antiquity. Kiel, 18.11.2021-20.11.2021]
Method of presentation: Zvaná přednáška
Event organizer: Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel
URL events: https://web.archive.org/web/20240118100135/http://www.cluster-roots.uni-kiel.de/en/fieldwork-and-activities/fieldwork-and-activities-archive/medical-knowledge-and-its-sitz-im-leben-body-and-horror-in-antiquity 
R&D Projects: GA ČR(CZ) GM21-30494M
Institutional support: RVO:67985955
Keywords : Magical Greek Papyri * Greco-Roman Egypt magic * ritual * magic ink recipes * myrrh and blood in magic * experimental replication of ancient recipes * magic and medicine in antiquity
OECD category: Philosophy, History and Philosophy of science and technology

The collection known as the Magical Greek Papyri contains many recipes for things like inks, ointments and charms. The ingredients these recipes contain, the way they are used, and the harmful and often violent goals they serve make them seem as if they were intended to occasion feelings of revulsion. Moreover, like the later and perhaps more familiar unguents associated with witchcraft, the ingredients, practices and aims associated with many Greco-Roman Egypt recipes seem to encode for various social and individual fears. In this paper, I examine one such recipe in detail, a recipe for a magic ink made of myrrh and blood, in order to bring out the sense in which such recipes can be said to be horrifying. To do this, I explore three questions concerning the recipe. First, what are the ingredients of the recipe? To answer this, I examine the particuar materials it employs, focusing on their associations and uses in magic and medical texts more generally. Second, what are the steps in the recipe? To answer this, I examine its performative aspects, incluiding the various rituals used in its preparation. Third, how was the product of the recipe used? I answer this question by examining the contexts in which the magic blood ink was used and what its use was suppoesd to effect. In each case, the paper focuses on the broader question of how and to what extent horror is a useful concept for elucidating the historical context of such recipes. This is accomplished by experimental replications in which different interpretations of the recipe are performed.
Permanent Link: https://hdl.handle.net/11104/0351614