Sunday, June 26, 2016

Spells...*!

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Two recently deciphered papyri were discovered and translated, dated to the third century. The spells are written in Greek, a language widely used in Egypt at the time.
Ancient, magical spells of love, subjugation and sex,  may sound like a "Game of Thrones" episode, but these evildoings are also found on two recently deciphered papyri from Egypt.
One spell invokes the gods to "burn the heart" of a woman until she loves the spell caster.  Another spell, targeted at a male, uses a series of magical words to "subject" him, forcing him to do whatever the caster wants.
The two spells were not targeted at a specific person, only need to insert the name of the person being targeted sort of like an ancient "Mad Libs."
Archaeologists Bernard Grenfell and Arthur Hunt discovered the spells in Oxyrhynchus, Egypt, more than 100 years ago, among a haul of hundreds of thousands of papyri.   Many of them are now owned by the Egypt Exploration Society and are housed and studied at the University of Oxford in England.
 Nothing new under the Sun.   Been used since. Just a thought.  

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