Recipes for Horrors

Result code in IS VaVaI

<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F67985955%3A_____%2F21%3A00582816" target="_blank" >RIV/67985955:_____/21:00582816 - isvavai.cz</a>

Result on the web

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DOI - Digital Object Identifier

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Result language

angličtina

Original language name

Recipes for Horrors

Original language description

The collection known as the Magical Greek Papyri contains many recipes for things like inks, ointments and charms. The ingredients these recipes contain, the way they are used, and the harmful and often violent goals they serve make them seem as if they were intended to occasion feelings of revulsion. Moreover, like the later and perhaps more familiar unguents associated with witchcraft, the ingredients, practices and aims associated with many Greco-Roman Egypt recipes seem to encode for various social and individual fears. In this paper, I examine one such recipe in detail, a recipe for a magic ink made of myrrh and blood, in order to bring out the sense in which such recipes can be said to be horrifying. To do this, I explore three questions concerning the recipe. First, what are the ingredients of the recipe? To answer this, I examine the particuar materials it employs, focusing on their associations and uses in magic and medical texts more generally. Second, what are the steps in the recipe? To answer this, I examine its performative aspects, incluiding the various rituals used in its preparation. Third, how was the product of the recipe used? I answer this question by examining the contexts in which the magic blood ink was used and what its use was suppoesd to effect. In each case, the paper focuses on the broader question of how and to what extent horror is a useful concept for elucidating the historical context of such recipes. This is accomplished by experimental replications in which different interpretations of the recipe are performed.

Czech name

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Czech description

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Type

O - Miscellaneous

CEP classification

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OECD FORD branch

60301 - Philosophy, History and Philosophy of science and technology

Project

<a href="/en/project/GM21-30494M" target="_blank" >GM21-30494M: Alchemies of Scent. Reconstructing the Practices of Ancient Greco-Egyptian Perfumery: An Experimental Approach to the History of Science</a><br>

Continuities

I - Institucionalni podpora na dlouhodoby koncepcni rozvoj vyzkumne organizace

Publication year

2021

Confidentiality

S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů