Ágnes Mihálykó Adam and Eve were the luckiest couple in the world: neither of them had a mother-in-law! Many of us would heartily agree with this joke – not just in our times, but also in antiquity. Yet, among the many harpies of mother-in-laws, few are as mean as the unnamed Coptic woman who castContinue reading “A Coptic Mother-in-Law’s Curse”
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The Powers of Hell: A Deadly Curse from Medieval Egypt
Korshi Dosoo Somewhere in Upper Egypt, around the tenth century CE, someone wanted to destroy a man named Haron. They took a pair of rib bones from a large animal, perhaps a cow or a camel, still wet with gristle, and they wrote a curse three times, on both sides of one rib, and oneContinue reading “The Powers of Hell: A Deadly Curse from Medieval Egypt”
Papyrus Stories 