Lectures
Coptic spells in the British Museum – Elisabeth R. O’Connell
info@museitorino.it
011 44 06 903
From Monday to Saturday from 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.
On Tuesday, June 16 at 6 PM, in collaboration with ACME (Amici e Collaboratori del Museo Egizio) we will host a lecture held by Elisabeth R. O'Connell: "Coptic spells in the British Museum: a multidisciplinary approach to the materiality of magical practice"
The Hay archive of Coptic manuscripts consists of seven fragmentary sheets of leather bearing spells for divination, protection, healing, personal advancement, cursing and the satisfaction of sexual desire. Purchased from the heir of the famous early Egyptologist and draftsman, Robert Hay (1799–1863), the manuscripts arrived at the British Museum in 1869. A new study prompted by the urgent conservation needs of the corpus has sought to provide a model integrated approach to the publication of ancient texts as archaeological objects. Employing a striking combination of ancient Egyptian, Graeco-Roman, biblical and extra-biblical motifs, their contents represent a Christian milieu making use of the mechanics of earlier ‘magical’ practice in a period in Egypt well after the arrival of Islam.
Dr. Elisabeth R. O'Connell is Byzantine World Curator at the British Museum. She has edited or co-edited five books, including Egypt: Faith after the pharaohs (2015), which accompanied the BM exhibition by the same name, Abydos in the First Millennium (2020), Egypt and empire: The formation of religious identity after Rome (2022). Most recently, she was co-curator of the British Museum’s Silk Roads exhibition and co-author of the accompanying book (2024). She has conducted fieldwork in Tunisia, Sudan and Egypt, where she co-directed a British Museum Expedition from 2009 to 2013. Elisabeth has been principal investigator for multiple major grants, and held a number of fellowships in the UK, USA and Egypt. She received her PhD from the University of California, Berkeley.
The lecture will take place in our Conference Room, admission is free with a reservation on Eventbrite. Click HERE to book your place.
The lecture will be broadcast via streaming on the Museum's YouTube channel.
The Hay archive of Coptic manuscripts consists of seven fragmentary sheets of leather bearing spells for divination, protection, healing, personal advancement, cursing and the satisfaction of sexual desire. Purchased from the heir of the famous early Egyptologist and draftsman, Robert Hay (1799–1863), the manuscripts arrived at the British Museum in 1869. A new study prompted by the urgent conservation needs of the corpus has sought to provide a model integrated approach to the publication of ancient texts as archaeological objects. Employing a striking combination of ancient Egyptian, Graeco-Roman, biblical and extra-biblical motifs, their contents represent a Christian milieu making use of the mechanics of earlier ‘magical’ practice in a period in Egypt well after the arrival of Islam.
Dr. Elisabeth R. O'Connell is Byzantine World Curator at the British Museum. She has edited or co-edited five books, including Egypt: Faith after the pharaohs (2015), which accompanied the BM exhibition by the same name, Abydos in the First Millennium (2020), Egypt and empire: The formation of religious identity after Rome (2022). Most recently, she was co-curator of the British Museum’s Silk Roads exhibition and co-author of the accompanying book (2024). She has conducted fieldwork in Tunisia, Sudan and Egypt, where she co-directed a British Museum Expedition from 2009 to 2013. Elisabeth has been principal investigator for multiple major grants, and held a number of fellowships in the UK, USA and Egypt. She received her PhD from the University of California, Berkeley.
The lecture will take place in our Conference Room, admission is free with a reservation on Eventbrite. Click HERE to book your place.
The lecture will be broadcast via streaming on the Museum's YouTube channel.
info@museitorino.it
011 44 06 903
From Monday to Saturday from 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.
