Martinez, David G.P. Michigan XVI: A Greek Love Charm from Egypt (P. Mich. 757)

Scholars Press, 1991. — 186 p. — (American studies in papyrology 30).American Studies in Papyrology is the flagship book series for the American Society of Papyrologists. Monographs in the series include not only editions of papyri and ostraca—literary, subliterary, and documentary; Greek, Coptic, and otherwise—but also the various histories that can be written from the study of papyrological texts.This volume consists of an edition of a third/fourth century CE love charm inscribed on a lead tablet, in which a certain Ailourion invokes the chthonic deities and spirits of the dead to bring him his beloved Kopria. The spell documents a multicultural pantheon of deities as well as a hierarchical structure of demonic beings including ghosts and “restless” spirits, such as those of the prematurely dead.