Fellowship Report

I was a MagEIA fellow from October 2025 to September 2026. During that time, I first completed my project on the relationship between Coptic apocrypha, magic, and liturgy. This project focused on Coptic ritual texts that identify themselves as prayers, and are very much inspired by the content and structure of liturgical prayers such as the anaphora, but also feature elements usually regarded as magical (such as charakteres, voces magicae, and magical drawings), and include textual sections elaborating on characters and events from the biblical storyworld, such as the investiture of the Archangel Michael, and the birth and death of Christ. I finished writing and submitted two publications on that topic: a book chapter and a monograph, both of which will appear in 2026. I also presented the results of my research as an invited talk at Warsaw University on 20 November 2025 (Ewa Wipszycka Warsaw Late Antique Seminar). 

I then started working on a new project on the “vocabulary of healing” in Coptic medical-magical texts, examining the Greek and Arabic loanwords used for diseases, body parts, materia medica, and therapeutic actions, and questioning what this tells us about linguistic phenomena such as lexical borrowing and code-mixing, and about the influence of (ancient) Greek and (newer) Islamic practices and scientific knowledge in Late Antique and early Islamic Egypt. The MagEIA Centre was the ideal setting to conduct this research, particularly because of its interdisciplinary and collaborative nature. I presented my work twice during the Centre’s weekly seminars, where I received useful feedback and engaged in rich discussions with other fellows who work on similar materials in other languages and from other periods. The results from this project will be presented at the third MagEIA symposium in December 2026 and will be published as an article or book chapter. 

Finally, as a MagEIA fellow, I had the chance to meet new people, learn about other magical traditions during the weekly seminars, special lectures, and symposiums, and collaborate on other projects. In particular, I started working with the team of the associated DFG-project Corpus of Coptic Magical Formularies (CoMaF) on the edition and publication of Coptic magical manuscripts. I will continue working as a full member of the CoMaF project for the next two years.

I wish to thank the three PIs, Daniel Schwemer, Daniel Kölligan, and Martin Stadler, for this great opportunity, as well as all the fellows and other guests, for making this year a pleasant, edifying, and fruitful experience.  

Publications

• ‘Coptic Prayers and Amulets for Healing and Protection in Early Medieval Palimpsest Manuscripts’, in I. Garipzanov and C.P.S. Burridge (eds), Between Liturgy and Magic: Minuscule Texts and Intercessory Strategies in the Early Middle Ages (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2026) https://manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9781807071936/ 
• Apocrypha, Magic, Liturgy: The Multiple Identities of Coptic Prayers in Late Antique and Early Islamic Egypt (Studien und Texte zu Antike und Christentum; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2026) https://www.mohrsiebeck.com/buch/apocrypha-magic-liturgy-9783162005748/
• ‘The Vocabulary of Healing: Greek and Arabic Loanwords in Coptic Medical-Magical Texts’ (article or book chapter, in preparation)
• Papyri Copticae Magicae. Coptic Magical Texts, Volume 2 (with K. Dosoo and M. Preininger; Würzburg University Press, in preparation)