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10. Soknebtynis-Kronos (with a small crocodile on his lap) and ithyphallic Min in Tebtynis. From Egyptian Religion, the Last Thousand Years: Studies Dedicated to the Memory of Jan Quaegebeur (OLA 84, Leuven, 1998), 244. Reproduced by permission of the editor.
Source publication
The first section of this article discusses traditional religion, looking at the Ancient Egyptian worldview, mummification and afterlife, and the role of the temples in economy and administration. The second section considers new developments in Egyptian religion such as listening gods, animal cults, Egyptian "saints", oracles, dreams, and katochê....
Citations
... Nach eigenen Untersuchungen schließt er sich jedoch der Interpretation Leydigs an, wonach es sich lediglich um eine Hornpapille handelt, die nicht mit den Wirbeln verbunden ist. Leider wird diese gleich wieder verworfene Idee, daß es sich um die Verschmelzung von Schwanzwirbeln handeln könnte, auch von neuzeitlichen Autoren immer wieder aufgeführt (Haas et al. 2005, Jackson 2010 (Shuker 2018) erinnert er in seinem Erscheinungsbild doch sehr an die ägyptischen Sphinxe (Clarysse 2011). Der römische Autor Claudius Aelianus (170 bis 222) hat den Schwanz des Mantikor in seinem Werk "De Natura Animalium" als tödliche Waffe bezeichnet. ...
Since the antiques there are rumours about a spine at the end of the lion's tail. Beyond speculations and mystical approaches there is a reality in the fact. The article reviews historical and recent research on the phenomenon. Conclusion is: there is a spine; but nobody knows waht it's for.
Egypt played a crucial role in the Roman Empire for seven centuries. It was wealthy and occupied a strategic position between the Mediterranean and Indian Ocean worlds, while its uniquely fertile lands helped to feed the imperial capitals at Rome and then Constantinople. The cultural and religious landscape of Egypt today owes much to developments during the Roman period, including in particular the forms taken by Egyptian Christianity. Moreover, we have an abundance of sources for its history during this time, especially because of the recovery of vast numbers of written texts giving an almost uniquely detailed picture of its society, economy, government, and culture. This book, the work of six historians and archaeologists from Egypt, the US, and the UK, provides students and a general audience with a readable new history of the period and includes many illustrations of art, archaeological sites, and documents, and quotations from primary sources.
The present paper focuses on healing rituals from Greco-Roman Egypt, where medicine and religion were inextricably linked to each other and further connected to the art of magic. In Pharaonic Egypt, healing magic was especially attributed to the priests who served a fearsome goddess named Sekhmet; although Sekhmet was associated with war and retribution, she was also believed to be able to avert plague and cure disease. It then comes as no surprise that the majority of healing spells or other types of iatromagical papyri dating from the Roman period are written in Demotic, following a long tradition of ancient Egyptian curative magic. The extant healing rituals written in Greek also show substantial Egyptian influence in both methodological structure and motifs, thus confirming the widely accepted assumption that many features of Greco-Egyptian magic were actually inherited from their ancient antecedents. What is particularly interesting about these texts is that, in many cases, they contain magical rites combined with basic elements of real medical treatment. Obviously, magic was not simply expected to serve as a substitute for medical cure, but was rather seen as a complementary treatment in order to balance the effect of fear, on the one hand, and the flame of hope, on the other.
Scholars have highlighted religious diversity in the Arsinoite nome (modern Fayum) in the Graeco-Roman period through consideration of Egyptian and Graeco-Roman deities worshiped in the region. The most popular cult in the Fayum district was that of the crocodile god Sobek or Souchos. Some economic, administrative, and religious aspects of the cult of Souchos and his local incarnations in the Fayum were points of research interest. Yet the festival of the god Souchos referred to in Greek papyri as Soucheia has not been covered so far. This paper attempts to reconstruct the Soucheia in the light of Greek papyrological evidence. The festival is only associated with the villages of Tebtynis and Soknopaiou Nesos, and appears as a joyful celebration with a banquet. The Soucheia reflects the complexity of religious life and practices in the Arsinoite nome, a highly Hellenised part of Egypt in Graeco-Roman times, being celebrated by Egyptian villagers, Greeks, and Persians of the epigone.
