Gatherings of Words: Notes on Books of Magic from Roman Egypt

Unlike modern depictions of magical books as inherently powerful objects, handbooks from Roman Egypt are practical guides that can be fruitfully explored by attention to their physical details. This study begins by contrasting this material dimension with iconic-sacred, semantic, and expressive-performative perspectives on manuscripts before exploring the production and circulation of handbooks, starting from their basic unit, the magical recipe, and discussing how these were built up into larger collections.