1As the second of a pair of contributions¹ to this volume, I am delighted to publish the second of the two parchment sheets discovered among the papers of Walter Ewing Crum in the archive of the Griffith Institute; a figural deposit depicting the demon Alpak produced as part of a malign magical practice.

Crum xxiii_2_2

2Inscribed with a tableau featuring an ‘axe-wielding demon chicken’ which has become affectionately known as “Crum’s Chicken”, the manuscript history of Crum xxiii_2_2 (fig. 1 & 2) is shared with that of Crum xxiii_2_1, the story of whose discovery among W. E. Crum’s papers housed in the archive of the Griffith Institute Archive has been told in my previous contribution. This light brown/dark cream parchment sheet, which has been well scraped (striations are still visible on the hair side), was cut into a quadrangle of roughly rectangular shape, although the bottom edge slopes diagonally upwards from left to right, before being inscribed on the flesh side. With the exception of some small signs of wear on the left, right, and bottom edges, and holes along the leftmost and centre vertical creases, the parchment is very well preserved. Crum xxiii_2_2 is less than half as high but almost as wide as Crum xxiii_2_1, 8.10-9.3 cm in height and 15.8 cm in width. When folded along its vertical creases it would have produced a package of 3.9-4 cm in width and 8.3-9.3cm in height – an oblong shape similar to Crum xxiii_2_1.² When folded along the traces of its horizontal creases it would have produced a package of 3.9-4 cm in width and 4.4-5 cm in height. Of a relatively dark brown colour, the ink used to inscribe Crum xxiii_2_2 is comparable to that used for Crum xxiii_2_1.³

3From the dark mirrored ink traces visible across the central vertical crease,⁴ it is clear that the parchment was first folded in half along that crease. However, further, yet fainter, mirrored ink traces evidence that the parchment was then unfolded and refolded from the left edge in towards that central vertical crease.⁵ Following this, the top-right corner was presumably folded in (in the shape of a scalene triangle) before this new right edge was then folded in towards the central vertical crease. It would then proceed that the new right and left edges were folded inwards towards the central vertical crease. However, it could also have been – given the lack of damage to, and cleanliness of, the rightmost vertical crease (as discernible especially from the verso) – that the leftmost fold was unfolded again, and the rightmost vertical zone was folded leftwards.⁶ However, given the slight horizontal creases discernible in the first, second, and fourth – from left – vertical zones, folding of the outer folds into the centre is more likely, because once the package was then folded forwards on its horizontal axis, it would produce a pattern of tighter horizontal folds in zones two, one, and four respectively, accounting for the patterned intensity of the horizontal creases. The folding, unfolding, and refolding of the parchment while the ink was still wet also provides a clear explanation for why a fingerprint was left printed in the top left-hand corner of the parchment.⁷ As suggested for Crum xxiii_2_1, the pattern of folding of Crum xxiii_2_2 would have produced a package that adheres to the millennia-old Egyptian tradition through which no single outer edge is exposed and thereby the ‘contents’ of the package are sealed within – a small oblong package that was then worn.

4According to the typology introduced in my previous contribution, Crum xxiii_2_2 is a figural amulet or deposit, by nature of the fact that its inscriptions do not encode semantic or syntactic elements in the same way as written language. The tableau inscribed consists of a composite, i.e. zoomorphic and anthropomorphic, figure, flanked by a column of predominantly letter-derived charaktēres (“characters”)⁸ on the left,⁹ and on the right two columns, the first of voces magicae (“magical names”)¹⁰ and the second of letter-derived charaktēres,¹¹ as well as two lines of further voces magicae underneath. These elements can be seen in the following ‘edition’ of the textual content of this manuscript:

5The figure itself has two three-pronged feet, terminating in rings, at the end of simple line-drawn, front-facing legs which connect to a front-facing, rounded body with a striated rim inscribed with the voces magicae above in 2/2-2/6. One anthropomorphic arm, also striated, extends from the right-hand side of the body and terminates in a three-fingered anthropomorphic hand holding the aforementioned ‘axe’, the shaft of which resembles an elongated and inverted ⲩ-derived charaktēr, terminating in rings. Atop the body extends a long neck upon which sits a zoomorphic head in profile, with two erect, triangular ears, a triangular snout extending from its right-hand side, and one circular eye.

6With regards to the dating of Crum xxiii_2_2, the palaeography and composition is close enough to that of Crum xxiii_2_1 to support a similar temporal frame for its production. The ductus of Crum xxiii_2_2 seems to be the same as Crum xxiii_2_1,³⁰ yet it should be noted that the variability within each manuscript is not inconsiderable,³¹ and thus the evidence is too limited in and of itself to argue with absolute certainty for the same copyist.³² The morphology of the figure itself resembles those found in Coptic magical texts and amulets³³ dating to between the 8th and 10th centuries CE, with a dating contemporary with that of the Deacon Iohannes in the (second half of the) 10th century seeming most favourable.

7Due to the fact that there is even less text on Crum xxiii_2_2 than Crum xxiii_2_1, it is almost impossible to utilise any aspects of Coptic grammar or orthography to inform on its potential provenance. There is, however, one important parallel that can be brought to bear on this question; the vox magica ⲁⲗⲡⲁⲕ inscribed on the body of the figure of Crum’s Chicken, variations of which feature three times in the column at its left: ⲁⲗⲡⲁⲕ⸍, ⲁ̅ⲗ̅ⲡ̅ⲉ̅ⲕ̅⸍, ⲁ̅ⲣ̅ⲡ̅ⲁ̅ⲕ̅⸗. P. Heid. Inv. Kopt. 408,³⁴ treated in greater detail below, features not only a figure of similar morphology to Crum’s Chicken, but it is also named ⲁ̅ⲣ̅ⲡ̅ⲁ̅ⲭ̅. Oscillation between ⲕ and ⲭ in the orthography of voces magicae, especially over time as parallel traditions of transmission emerge, is very common, while the three instances on Crum xxiii_2_2 written with ⲗ rather than ⲣ exhibit the Fayumic lambdacism. Although this only suggests that one scribe in the textual history of transmission of these orthographies was a Fayumic speaker, this does at least provide some information on the extent of potential geographical transmission.

Interpreting “Crum’s Chicken”

8Faced with the morphology of a figure which appeared at first sight – to a subjective modern observer – to resemble the chubby chickens of Aardman Animations Ltd.’s adventure Chicken Run, my own research began with few meaningful insights. Furthermore, lacking a provenance and any ‘readable’ text that might inform its production, deposition, and the desired outcome it was to bring about, any apparent function of Crum’s Chicken was not forthcoming. Thus, my first step was to study the form of Crum’s Chicken, to identify its diagnostic features which could then be compared with all extant figures exhibiting similar features. If similar diagnostic features were exhibited in figures whose accompanying rituals practices were known, e. g., through accompanying texts specifying their production, deposition, and beneficent or malign desired outcomes, similar contexts of production, deposition, as well as similar desired outcomes could be interpreted for Crum’s Chicken.

9For ease of reference, these diagnostic features have been tabulated as table 1. The nine to thirteen diagnostic features are: (1) the three-pronged front-facing feet/talons; (2) the front-facing (2a) rounded body, inscribed (2b), with a (2c) striated rim; (3) the anthropomorphic arm (3a) also striated, and a (4) hand wielding a weapon;³⁵ (5) the long neck upon which sits a (6) zoomorphic (mammalian or avian) head in profile with (7) one circular eye; (8) the two erect triangular ears upon the head and (9) the snout/beak extending from it. As these are the features diagnostic only to Crum’s Chicken, in many cases the figures compared below will exhibit some, but not all, of these features, or further features not exhibited by Crum’s Chicken.

10When considering the morphological variations between figures, and the diagnostic features they exhibit, the extent to which these are the result of a ‘Chinese whispers effect’ must also be considered; that is to say, where copyists reproduced images without completely understanding what they were supposed to depict, they introduced discontinuities between source and copy. After all, the sources collected in this study are isolated pieces of evidence often with generations or centuries between one another. By analogy to evolutionary processes, it would be much easier to visualise a common ancestor between humans and other hominids – who share a multitude of diagnostic features but a crucial number of diagnostic differences – if all intermediary stages were perfectly preserved to us. Thus, although any such approach that focuses on diagnostic features must proceed cautiously to prevent the identified diagnostic features from collapsing all examples into a model of ‘reasonable variation’, e.g., descending from the common ancestor of an ‘Ur-Chicken’, morphological variations from the diagnostic features of Crum’s Chicken will have to be evaluated against the tableaux and magical practices into which they are embedded, in order to identify whether the differences in the form of each figure are diagnostic of a different function.

11My second step was to identify and study all known – whether published or unpublished – Coptic, Greek, and Demotic magical texts which feature figures of any comparable morphology, i.e. exhibiting similar diagnostic features, in order to produce a veritable menagerie of figures as well as a “graphic reservoir” of their morphological features attested in Egypt from which a typology of transmission could be constructed. The tableaux in which these figures were embedded were also studied, from single figure tableaux like Crum’s Chicken to, double, triple, and quadruple figure tableaux, from the earliest attestations of figures exhibiting similar diagnostic features in Demotic and Greek – i.e. the donkey-headed Seth figures – to later attestations in Coptic magical texts – arranged chronologically.

12My third step was to study the magical texts and practices relating to the identified figures and their tableaux, their production, deposition, and the desired outcome intended by the practice of their accompanying ritual. From these conclusions, it was possible to ascertain whether Crum xxiii_2_2 was indeed a figural amulet for a beneficent desired outcome as I had always assumed, or a figural deposit for a malign purpose, and how the entire tableau was conceptualised as bringing about the desired outcome of the magical practice.

13A parallel to Crum’s Chicken in a – at that time unpublished – manuscript inscribed with two formulary recipes with malign desired outcomes became known to me shortly before the initial submission of this contribution.³⁶ As discussed below, while the form of the figure in the single figure tableau in P. Heid. Inv. Kopt. 408 is quite different, the parallel naming of that figure as “Arpakh” – one of five significant parallels in the text of that manuscript³⁷ –, led to several notable revisionist conclusions on Crum’s Chicken. This is because “Harpax” is both the name of the 28th decan who causes insomnia in the Greek Testament of Solomon as well as the name of a demon of avian form, the manifestation of shamelessness, in the Coptic version of the Cyprian Legend. Thus, my fourth step was to study “Arpakh/Harpax”, who is sometimes described as being avian in form, and therefore was depicted as such – as is perhaps the case in both P. Heid. Inv. Kopt. 408 and Crum xxiii_2_2 –, in both textual and figural traditions. Notable, then, is that the conclusions stemming from the parallel in P. Heid. Inv. Kopt. 408 and the study of “Arpakh/Harpax” in wider figural and textual traditions were nevertheless consistent with the findings of the earlier steps: figures sharing diagnostic features with Crum’s Chicken in the figural culture of magical texts in Demotic, Greek, and Coptic – from demonised donkeys to avianised demons – are found alongside magical texts which were practiced in order to bring about malign purposes, leading to the conclusion that Crum’s Chicken is a ritual deposit produced as part of one such malign magical practice, and one which perhaps even derives, at least in part, from a much older figural tradition.

14Producing a typology of diagnostic features, figures, and tableaux required studying sources from across the entire ca. 900 year-long transmission of figurae magicae, from the so-called Demotic and Greek magical papyri (PDM and PGM), dating principally the 2nd to 5th centuries, to the succeeding tradition of Coptic magical texts of principally the 6th to 11th centuries. What became clear was that one should not underestimate the capacity of copyists across temporal and spatial frames to reinterpret, misinterpret, or simply reproduce without understanding, a particular figure, its morphology, or the tableau to which it belongs. After all, this has been established with respect to the transmission of voces magicae³⁸ – for which the assumption had been for decades that their efficacy is inherent in an accurate vocalisation; that inconsistencies occurred among scribal transmission must therefore account for the hundreds of distinct voces magicae, dozens of which derive from the same etymology. Thus, while the miscopying or reinterpretation of voces magicae can result in orthographic variation,³⁹ similar changes in the morphology of figures due to their transmission over time and space would have produced morphological variation, but – as with voces magicae – not variation which should necessarily be understood as producing a change in how the figure was identified, or conceptualised as being efficacious. Thus, subjective interpretations of what a figure ‘looks like’ from the perspective of a modern observer, which either do not attempt interpretations from an emic perspective⁴⁰ through an appreciation of their context⁴¹ or instead tease out every slight difference between each figure and thereby divorce figures from their history of transmission, are in danger of failing to appreciate such a ‘Chinese whispers effect’.

15An illustrative example of an emic perspective can be found among illuminations in Coptic codices. For example, although the birds of M581, f. 2r are described as “doves” by the manuscript’s editor,⁴² when they appear later in the same codex they are in fact labelled as “falcons” (ⲛⲁϩⲱⲙ̣ⲉ̣ⲓ),⁴³ which in turn have morphologies that should then be compared with the “doves” (ϭⲉⲣⲁ̣ⲛ̣ⲡⲓ) of M596, f. 1v.⁴⁴ They thus demonstrate a wider tendency to depict a variety of birds without diagnostic morphological features to distinguish them. Such a tendency would clearly be complicated by the influence of a ‘Chinese whispers effect’, in which scribes who reproduced images without completely understanding what they were supposed to depict were not only unable to reproduce the images accurately, but were also unable to make clear the sometimes-limited diagnostic morphological features which these images exhibited. These two principal factors may go a considerable way to explaining why virtually every figure within the surviving Demotic-, Greek-, or Coptic-language magical texts is unique – sharing only certain diagnostic features, a “graphic vocabulary” within a broader “graphic reservoir” of possibilities. As a result, and as with the voces magicae, figures and their morphological features can only be meaningfully interpreted when we consider the content and purpose of the recipe within which they are embedded.⁴⁵

Demonised donkeys in the PDM and PGM

16Among the amulets, loose-leaves, and codices of the bilingual tradition that constituted the Graeco-Egyptian magical papyri,⁴⁶ certain diagnostic features of Crum’s Chicken: a front-facing form wielding a weapon; an anthropomorphic arm; a long neck; a zoomorphic head in profile with two standing-up ears and a snout, are found in depictions of Seth⁴⁷ or Seth-Typhon⁴⁸ as a donkey-headed anthropomorph.⁴⁹

17For Plutarch, in De Iside et Osiride, the association of Seth with “the most stupid of domesticated animals”, the donkey, stemmed from Seth’s role as ‘the obstructer’ of all things, while his associations with ‘the most savage’ of wild animals, the crocodile and hippopotamus, related to other aspects of his nature (371C). Yet, manifestations of Seth as a donkey-headed anthropomorph and Seth’s associations with a donkey are documented in different contexts since at least the Middle Kingdom,⁵⁰ while it has also been argued that the dog-, pig-, or donkey-like depictions on standards from the mace head of King Scorpion may attested Seth in such a manifestation at the dawn of Egyptian civilisation (ca. 32nd century BCE).⁵¹ Later in Egyptian history, Seth became demonised,⁵² while the donkey became “the symbol par excellence of the god Seth in Egyptian temple ritual throughout the Late and Greco-Roman period”.⁵³ These dual factors, the increasingly dominant malignant characteristics of Seth and his manifestation as a donkey, are also reflected by the fact that, during the 1st millennium BCE, the Seth animal⁵⁴ was rarely utilised as a hieroglyphic sign, and essentially disappeared from iconography, being replaced instead by a donkey stuck with a knife.⁵⁵

18Seth is the “red one” (dšr), a colour with malignant connotations, a tumultuous, ill-tempered, and violent deity. The characteristics of donkeys, as noisy and disagreeable animals, is reflected in its associations made with Seth. Many of these have been recently treated by N. Guilhou,⁵⁶ who highlighted the fact that the donkey’s characteristics of being clamorous and strident relates to Seth’s role in repelling the enemies of the Sun-god’s solar barque from his position at the prow. The noise made by donkeys relates to this role; one of Seth’s epithets is that of the “noise-/trouble-maker” (šd-ḫrw)⁵⁷, while another is the “braying donkey” (hjw/h(ꜣ)y).⁵⁸ In order to neutralise the malignant nature of this manifestation, the “braying donkey” is often described as bound, i.e. trussed, although in temple inscriptions of the Graeco-Roman Period, such as at Dendera and Philae, Seth in his manifestation as h(ꜣ)y is also described as being butchered/slaughtered. The ritualised impaling (wnp) of the donkey (nhs)⁵⁹ is another means through which yet another malignant manifestation⁶⁰ of Seth was neutralised.⁶¹

19Interaction with the animals associated with Seth did not only occur in inscriptions with a ritual function and temple or funerary context, however. The animal associations of Seth also explain the composition of a ritual deposit from Old Kingdom Saqqara in which donkey, pig, and dog bones were found, which may have been rendered harmless through their mutilation – perhaps as part of “a royal hunting ritual dedicated to the abolition of chaotic Typhonic beings” and thus the maintenance of ma’at.⁶² After all, the sacrifice of animals, including donkeys, which were regarded as manifestations of Seth, is well attested in Ancient Egypt.⁶³ Furthermore, the ritual utilisation of parts of Seth-related animals does not cease in the Pharaonic period, but continues to be attested in the Graeco-Egyptian magical papyri (GEMP). For example, PGM XIa. 1-40 is a Greek-language recipe to produce a theophany, so that the practitioner may ask the goddess to carry out whatever he requests. The text features a deity called “Mistress of the House” riding a donkey, her name a clear translation of Egyptian nb.t-ḥw.t “mistress of the enclosure”, i.e. the literal meaning of the name of Nephthys, characterised in certain traditions as the nominal partner of Seth.⁶⁴ In this practice, ritual instructions prescribe the manipulation of “Typhon’s skull”, i.e. the skull of a donkey, which is to be inscribed, while the tooth of a donkey features as an amulet. As will be apparent from certain examples treated below, numerous other instances of the retention of the manifestation of Seth as a donkey feature in the GEMP, and thus the manipulation of body parts of donkeys continues in the traditions of ritual practice as well.⁶⁵

20Returning to the figures which are the focus of this study, while inconsistencies exist between the different morphologies of Seth/Typhon/Seth-Typhon as a donkey-headed anthropomorph among the GEMP and contemporary Egyptian- and Greek-language sources, such inconsistencies are already attested among the centuries of transmission of similar composite morphologies within Egyptian figural culture,⁶⁶ i.e. in a context where the identity of the depicted deity is beyond question. For example, the morphological features diagnostic to certain Egyptian deities are not always unambiguous, with certain instances of anthropomorphic Anubis, who exhibits a mammalian head in profile (with equid and canid heads easily confusable), a long snout and two erect ears, upon a front-facing anthropomorphic body with legs and arms, sometimes wielding a weapon, being similar to those of Seth. Thus, when this morphology is taken out of its original context, the exact identification of a figure can become ambiguous. As a result, the examples presented below focus on the diagnostic features they share, in order to demonstrate a correspondence between the form of a figure, or the tableau in which it was embedded, and the desired outcome of the practice in which it was utilised, and whether – and if so how – it is identified/invoked in the accompanying magical text. This will not only inform upon the potential Vorlagen of Crum xxiii_2_2, but also on the desired outcome of the magical practice in which it was produced.

Anubis as a demonised jackal-headed anthropomorph in the Egyptian-language tradition (2nd century)

21The first figure to be treated is not that of Seth, but of Anubis, inscribed as part of a tableau beneath a Demotic recipe to make a named man lust after a named woman (fig. 3) from the unpublished P. Mich. Inv. 1444.⁶⁷ Anubis is depicted, as is typical, as a jackal-headed anthropomorph, wearing a kilt and – untypically – having shot an arrow into the torso of a figure exhibiting a wig, facial hair, breasts, and male genitals. More relevant here is the fact the figures have been drawn by utilising the traditional Egyptian canon of proportional style which would have been familiar from copying the vignettes of afterlife texts as well as temple scenes. Thus, there is nothing inherently ‘magical’ about the form of the figure, not least because there are close parallels to jackal-headed ‘demons’ in funerary contexts such as the jackal-headed bow-wielding anthropomorph depicted on the West side of the South Wall of the Tomb of Petubastis in the Dakhla Oasis.⁶⁸ Indeed, the primary reason for the treatment of this tableau here, in addition to the treatment of a similar tableau, below, is to highlight that the features diagnostic to a depiction of composite Seth and Anubis can be very similar. This both demonstrates the relatively generic “graphic reservoir” of morphological features in Egyptian tradition from which figures could draw, as well as that slight variations between these features should not necessarily be taken as diagnostic of a different figure being depicted. Yet, at the same time, this also demonstrates that a typology of diagnostic morphological features must proceed cautiously given that, particularly in the traditional Egyptian context, so many deities exhibited similar morphological features that it would be easy to collapse the veritable menagerie of deities into one superordinate category. In this example, Anubis exhibits eight of the diagnostic features of Crum’s Chicken.⁶⁹ Yet even though this is evidence that the depiction of weapon-wielding mammalian-headed anthropomorphs was transmitted into, and associated with, malign magical practices from the Roman Period, it must also be stressed that these diagnostic features are also shared with numerous other deities in Egyptian tradition.

22In P. Leiden I 384 verso⁷⁰ (TM 55954), a bilingual bookroll of the late 2nd or early 3rd century better known as PDM xii/PGM XII, a figure of Anubis is again attested in a malign magical practice in Demotic. An erotic recipe to “bring” the target to the client features ritual instructions to “[Write these] words (i.e. voces magicae) together with this figure on a new papyrus” (col. 1, l. 1-12 = PDM xii. 135-146/PGM XII 474-479). The figure (fig. 4), as in the preceding example, is that of Anubis, yet the five diagnostic features of Crum’s Chicken exhibited are only those most basic features expected.⁷¹ This is because the tableau into which Anubis is embedded depicts him attending to a mummy lying on a bier. Unlike the preceding example, for which there are figural parallels of jackal-headed demons, this tableau stems from the vignette central to Book of the Dead 151.⁷² No longer restricted to its original funerary context in afterlife texts, this tableau is also found in magical gems⁷³ – new contexts which demonstrate that the form of a tableau did not predicate its function in the ritual practices for which it was inscribed.

Seth as a demonised donkey-headed anthropomorph in the bilingual tradition (2nd and 3rd centuries)

23The aforementioned bilingual P. Leiden I 384 verso also features a “spell of separating (a) man from (?) his companion” (col. 4, l. 1-26 = PDM xii. 62-75/PGM XII. 449-452) in Demotic and Greek. As part of the ritual mechanics of this magical practice, the practitioner is instructed to inscribe and bury the tableau, the name of the target, the “Typhonic Logos” (a formula associated with Seth-Typhon),⁷⁴ as well as other names associated with Seth (ⲥⲏⲑ). The accompanying “donkey” (ꜥ[ꜣ]) is the donkey-headed anthropomorph of Seth, whose name is inscribed upon his chest⁷⁵ (fig. 5). Thus, the figure exhibits seven of the diagnostic features shared with Crum’s Chicken,⁷⁶ but – notably given the considerations of the preceding section – also with composites depictions of Anubis. Diagnostic differences between this figure and the preceding, however, are the mane of the donkey-headed Seth in this example, as compared to the wig worn by the jackal-headed figures in the preceding two examples.

24This unmistakable Seth is the first of many examples in this study of a typology of malign magical practices in which Seth is invoked by name, through the “Typhonic Logos”, or through his image, in order to access and manipulate his efficacy – laid down by the mythical precedents of his murder of Osiris – for the outcome desired by the (practitioner-) client.⁷⁷

25P. Louvre E 2391 (TM 64511) better known as PGM III, of the 3rd century, has been recently reappraised as not one but in fact two bilingual bookrolls compiled by two different scribes.⁷⁸ The first of these manuscripts features a composite recipe of several sections known as PGM III 1-164,⁷⁹ involving the production, from a cat, of a hesy, the “cat-faced god” or “the demon of the transfigured cat” of the invocation, who will then bring about the outcome desired by the practitioner (l. 3-58) – whether a binding spell against charioteers, sending dreams, an erotic recipe, or one for separation and enmity (l. 161-164).⁸⁰ Inscriptions are given to be written on three lamellae: voces magicae (many of which are Egyptian in etymology) are to be written on the 1st and 3rd lamella (l. 58-65), while the voces magicae of the second lamella are to be accompanied by an invocation and three anthropomorphs wielding flails, one of whom has a zoomorphic-head (l. 66-70). This latter figure, given the above and subsequent considerations, must be a depiction of the donkey-headed anthropomorph Seth-Typhon, with anthropomorphic legs in profile supporting a dressed front-facing torso, anthropomorphic arms in profile, wielding a flail and spear, and a long neck exhibiting a mane supporting a mammalian head also in profile, with two erect ears and a (curved) snout (fig. 6) – shared with the donkey-headed anthropomorph of Seth treated in the previous example. While the ears do not appear particularly long, and, unlike in the preceding example, taper to points, this slight morphological variation does not detract from the overall similarities – not least when a modern version of the ‘Chinese whispers effect’ is so aptly demonstrated by the shorter neck, snout, and rounder ears depicted in the copy of this figure in its most recent edition,⁸¹ which are not exhibited by the original. In addition, although it is unclear whether the “Typhonic Logos” (l. 71*-82*) that follows this figure, as well as the invocations (l. 71-94) in parallel columns, are also to be inscribed on this lamella, it is clear that this recipe invokes Seth-Typhon to “bring about for me the NN deed” (l. 90-91).

26Despite these considerations regarding the morphological features of the figure of Seth-Typhon, and the fact this recipe invokes Seth-Typhon, a selective focus on individual morphological features exhibited by this figure has produced a diverse history of treatments by different scholars. Although A. L. Delatte referred to it as “a figure with the head of a donkey”,⁸² and T. Hopfner as “Seth-Typhon as a donkey-headed man”,⁸³ K. Preisendanz initially referred to it as a “animal-(donkey-)head”,⁸⁴ but later changed his opinion, due to his reinterpretation of the donkey-headed anthropomorphs attested in the Sethianische Verfluchungstafeln, published by R. Wünsch, as horse-headed – a thesis deconstructed below. Meanwhile, C. Harrauer sought to argue that because the “Seth-Figure”, like its accompanying “Typhonic Logos”, was inscribed with darker ink, they were both later interpolations.⁸⁵ However, if this were indeed the case, all it would demonstrate is that these figures and voces magicae were not inscribed at the same time as the main text. Following Preisendanz’s later thesis, Harrauer concluded that “the god” should be identified as a “driver, as well as horse-headed (not with a donkey’s head, the ears are pointed and very short)”,⁸⁶ while suggesting that “over time, the donkey-headed Seth could have been adapted into a horse-demon for this specific purpose”.⁸⁷ In addition to providing no evidence for such an interpretation, Harrauer also does not appreciate that only one of four suggested utilisations of this practice is that of binding charioteers, upon which the “horse associations” rest. As noted above, the subjective observation of the shortness and sharpness of the ears is not significant enough to override the other diagnostic morphological features, which fall easily within a margin of morphological variation possible by each copyist. Another problematic appraisal is that presented by Martín Hernández, who stated that “the drawing identified with Seth must be re-interpreted. Other magical images of Seth with donkey face usually have longer ears and snout than in this drawing, and tend to look to the left in the papyri”, supported by the observation that “there are very few gemstones engraved with Seth”.⁸⁸ However, both these statements rely – in a circular fashion – on how one identifies the morphology of a donkey-headed anthropomorph.⁸⁹ Despite making reference to the invocation of Seth-Typhon and his figure, Martín-Hernández proceeded to argue that the invocation of the image of a “cat-faced god” must mean that it is this deity who is depicted “according to the ritual analogy of the magical text”.⁹⁰ However, as discussed above, the image of the cat-faced god invoked in the recipe is in fact the drowned cat turned hesy, which is both the image of, and itself has become, a deity by nature of its transfiguration through drowning and the accompanying ritual.⁹¹

27On balance, with no comparable attestations of, or identifications for, cat- or horse-headed deities, the most parsimonious explanation is that it is indeed the donkey-headed Seth who is represented in this example. As with the preceding examples, seven of the diagnostic features of Crum’s Chicken are exhibited.⁹²

Seth as a demonised donkey in the Greek-language tradition (3rd to 5th centuries)

28P. Oxy. LXXXII 5310 (TM 702435) is a 3rd century papyrus amulet, folded in antiquity, which is intended to relieve an individual named Plousios from shivering. Above this inscription, and surrounded by fives squares constituted of 3 × 3 arrangements of the vowel ⲁ, is a zoomorphic composite resembling Seth (fig. 7), which exhibits six of the diagnostic features of Crum’s Chicken.⁹³ The straight rather than curved snout, bent ears, and absence of a weapon, however, distinguish this figure from those preceding examples of the donkey-headed anthropomorph, Seth. Although the outcome of this practice is beneficent, it could be that this utilisation of Seth accesses his efficacy in order to defeat even more malign forces – perhaps comparable to the role that he played in traditional Egyptian religion in standing at the prow of the Sun-god’s night barque spearing Apophis, who sought to obstruct Rē’s journey, in the book of the Amduat.

29In a recipe treated by Gordon⁹⁴ as “a spell for allaying someone’s wrath” which had been “re-edited” into “a spell to subject another to one’s will” (l. 940-968) of the Greek-language 3rd century papyrus bookroll P. Lond. 121, better known as PGM VII (TM 60204), the practitioner is instructed to inscribe a clean papyrus (l. 940-941) with a “stela” and its accompanying “Typhonic Logos”. The invocation that follows is to various epithets, including “Seth who never grieved for your own brother” (l. 963-964) in order to “silence, subject, enslave him, NN, to him, NN” (l. 966-968). Although there are no ritual instructions to instruct what to do with the inscribed medium, given that this is a recipe to bind and subject someone, a robust assumption would be that it would be deposited somewhere relating to the target. The “stela” itself is significant because it has been appraised by Grumach as consisting of a box upon which two donkey heads sit,⁹⁵ deriving from figures from the 7th Hour of the nightly journey of the Sun-god Rē in Amduat, as well as the depiction in the 2nd Hour of Seth united with the falcon-headed Horus – the snake underneath this “stela” thereby deriving from Apophis, who is defeated in a nightly battle.⁹⁶ Thus, Grumach saw this tableau as “the double-headed coffin of Osiris”⁹⁷ and Gordon brought comparable evidence from Plutarch’s λάρναξ, the box in which Osiris was killed by Seth, to bear on this interpretation, although he understood the heads to be those of Anubis rather than Seth.⁹⁸ Since then, further parallels have been made known from Egyptian afterlife texts, with this “not easily identifiable object” being treated by H. Kockelmann, as an emblem or fetish comparable to stele-like emblems attested in shrines and Horus Cippi.⁹⁹ Hence, although Kockelmann was not forthcoming with a more exact interpretation, the utilisation and context of this tableau suggest a relationship to a funerary context, and therefore a manifestation of the coffin of Osiris. In line with the utilisation of the tableau of Anubis attending a mummy at the bier, this is another example of how a figure or tableau could be utilised in different functions, irrespective of its traditional functions, and without any alteration of the figure’s or tableau’s form. Whether these heads derive ultimately from those of donkeys (Seth) or of jackals (Anubis), both would represent deities depicted within, and thus utilised as part of, malign magical practices treated thus far. Thus, although this stela is not directly comparable to the figures already discussed, the presence of five diagnostic features shared with Crum’s Chicken is notable.¹⁰⁰ Decisive as to the identity of the active agent by which the practice was deemed efficacious, however, is the invocation of the “Typhonic Logos”.

30P. Oslo 1 1 (TM 64479), better known as PGM XXXVI, is a 4th century Greek-language bookroll.¹⁰¹ In its first recipe, for binding (l. 1-34) – which claims to work on everything – the practitioner is instructed to take a lead lamella and inscribe the figure (ζώδιον) depicted, along with the accompanying names, and deposit it near the target. The following invocation – “Come Typhon… he who killed his own brother” – is interspersed with extracts from the “Typhonic Logos” (l. 1-5). The presence of this logos, as well as the fact that the associated figure (fig. 8) shares numerous diagnostic features with the preceding examples, and is labelled multiple times “Sēth”, makes the identification of this figure is unambiguous. Furthermore, as with the preceding examples, this figure is to be inscribed, and Seth is to be invoked, as part of a malign magical practice. Interestingly, the figure diverges from those considered thus far, wielding a bundle of thunderbolts, and a head surmounted by what seems to be ‘hair’, a ‘crest’, or a headdress, and a stylisation of the curved snout into a point resembling a beak – notable given the snout/beak of Crum’s Chicken. This, perhaps understandably, led to at least one identification of this figure as a “cock-headed and serpent-footed Iao” which simply “bears the attribute of Seth”.¹⁰² However, even though this figure, and those following in the same manuscript, do exhibit similarities with the composite figure of Iao exhibited on many magical gems – to be considered shortly –, the figure exhibits almost all other diagnostic features of the Seths treated thus far, six of the diagnostic features of Crum’s Chicken,¹⁰³ and is again both labelled and embedded in a recipe invoking Seth(-Typhon).

31The 3rd recipe, of attraction (PGM XXXVI. 69-101), in this bookroll is also of malign intent, as it “attracts men to women and women to men and makes virgins rush out of their homes” (l. 69-71). The ritual instructions which follow are those to inscribe names and the figure (ζῴδιον) on pure papyrus with the blood of a donkey, the animal of Seth-Typhon (l. 71-75). The names are once again the “Typhonic Logos” and thus the figure (fig. 9) – presumably holding the female target of the recipe – between these names, sharing a majority of diagnostic features with the preceding examples, must be Seth. As with the preceding example, however, there are notable divergences from the donkey-headed anthropomorphs in the first example, including the fact that the Egyptian kilt is instead a pleated kilt more reminiscent of a Roman soldier, and that the torso may exhibit a breastplate. Furthermore, the flail he carries is reminiscent of that of the figure from PGM III.1 (fig. 6), and this figure again displays the stylised pointed snout and ‘hair’/‘crest’/headdress seen in the preceding example (fig. 8). With its open mouth and apparently ‘avian appearance’, Jordan’s appraisal of it as a “chicken-headed anthropoid” is perhaps unsurprising.¹⁰⁴ Yet, given the textual content of this practice, whether in the ritual instructions involving the blood of a donkey, or the invocation of the Typhonic Logos, a derivation from the composite figures of Seth is the most parsimonious explanation. Nevertheless, further research is certainly required regarding cross-fertilisation between the composite figure of the ‘avian’ Iao upon the magical gems and the Sethian figures, such as on this manuscript. Notable, then, are that six of the broad diagnostic features of Crum’s Chicken are exhibited by this figure.¹⁰⁵

32The final example from this same bookroll is PGM XXXVI.231-255, in which a lead lamella is to be inscribed with names and a figure (ζῴδιον), before being smeared with bat’s blood and rolled. Many of the voces magicae to be inscribed are etymologically Egyptian, but there is no “Typhonic Logos” nor invocation of Seth-Typhon. Yet, the figure (fig. 10) depicted shares several diagnostic features with the preceding examples, and exhibits seven/eight of the diagnostic features of Crum’s Chicken.¹⁰⁶ Furthermore, the mane is comparable with that of PDM xii (fig. 5), which is unambiguously Seth in derivation, while notable divergences, as with the preceding two examples, include the ‘hair’/‘crest’/headdress, inscribed nature of the kilt, and style of the flail wielded. Despite these divergences, the congruence of the desired outcome of this recipe with the preceding example is notable. Thus, although these features do not appear exactly diagnostic of a donkey-headed anthropomorph, given the unambiguous identifications of Seths in the preceding examples from this same manuscript, the second of which is suitably ambiguous, as well as other examples treated thus far, and below, the most parsimonious explanation is to retain this identification.

33P. Duk. Inv. 230 (TM 97160) is a 4th century lead lamella featuring an adjuration of a demon and voces magicae which include the “Typhonic Logos”, in order to “drive Tereous, whom Apia bore, to me, Didymos, whom Taipiam bore… until she comes to me” and “until I accomplish intercourse” – the realisation of a ritual similar to those described in PGM XXXVI.1-34 & 69-101.¹⁰⁷ The figure (fig. 11) accompanying this recipe is that of Seth, exhibiting all the diagnostic features of the preceding examples and eight of the diagnostic features of Crum’s Chicken.¹⁰⁸ Notable is that, like that of PGM III.1 (fig. 6), the ears are short and tapered, while the curved snout is also relatively short, the figure wields two weapons, like PDM xii (fig. 4), and a pleated kilt like that of a Roman soldier, as seen in PGM XXXVI.69-101 (fig. 9).

34P. Oxy. LXVIII 4673 (TM 101345 is a late 4th or early 5th century papyrus sheet, folded in antiquity, containing an erotic recipe, with an invocation to bring a target to a certain Helenus until their lips are joined together (l. 23-30). The figure (fig. 12) depicted shares essentially all of the diagnostic features of the preceding examples as well as eight of the diagnostic features of Crum’s Chicken.¹⁰⁹ Like the example from PGM XXXVI.69-101 (fig. 9), this figure also appears to be wearing a breastplate, and to wield a flail in one hand and a torch in the other. Hence, even though, as with the preceding example, Seth (-Typhon) is not invoked by name or his voces magicae in this recipe, the utilisation of his figure in an erotic recipe – a malign magical practice – in a papyrus that was evidently folded and therefore presumably deposited in antiquity, is comparable to that inscribed in PGM XXXVI.69-101 – an unambiguous Seth figure.

35The final example from the Greek-language tradition is P. Palau Rib. Inv. 3 (TM 63186), a papyrus amulet, folded in antiquity and dating broadly to the Roman Period, which is inscribed with an invented epithet of Seth; ϲμερδαλέοϲ ἠπύτηϲ θεόϲ, “terrible loud-voiced god”, an epithet relating to the tumultuous nature that led to his association with the donkey. These words are written one on top of the other in order to yield the acrostic “Sēth”. The figure (fig. 13) depicted shares all the diagnostic features of Seth, and exhibits eight of the diagnostic features of Crum’s Chicken.¹¹⁰ Unique among the donkey-headed anthropomorphs, this figure is armed with a bow and arrow, relating it more closely to Anubis the archer of P. Mich. Inv. 1444 (fig. 3) – and demonstrating further the cross-fertilisation which is likely to have occurred in the transmission of these figures. Without any further accompanying text, it is not possible to discern the exact desired outcome of the production of this figural amulet or deposit,¹¹¹ but given the dominance of depictions of Seth as part of malign magical practices, as well as the bow-wielding Anubis in the erotic recipe of P. Michigan Inv. 1444, a conflation of these two figures in a practice accompanying an erotic recipe, which was perhaps deposited at the door of the target, as in so many other erotic recipes, seems a viable hypothesis.

Seth as a demonised donkey in the Greek- and Latin-language tradition outside Egypt (4th century)

36It was at the end of the 19th century that R. Wünsch first compiled as a corpus the so-called Sethianische Verfluchungstafeln:¹¹² dozens of curse tablets written on lead which had been rolled or folded and often pierced,¹¹³ most of which date to the second half of the 4th century and were found in various locations across Rome. R. Wünsch interpreted the zoomorphic-headed anthropomorphic figures inscribed upon many of the tablets he published as depictions of the donkey-headed Seth-Typhon. Given that the target of these curse tablets is often a charioteer, however, this interpretation has – as with that of PGM III.1-164, presented above – since been contradicted, and the thesis of a horse-headed figure has become most prevalent.

37The flagship example of this thesis, and thus the one which sinks the fleet, is R. Wünsch n° 16,¹¹⁴ which was found on the Via Appia near the Porta San Sebastiano. This Greek-language curse targets Kardelos to become bedridden and suffer the penalty of an evil death through the invocation of angels and archangels in the underworld, using etymologically Egyptian voces magicae – most with direct funerary associations.¹¹⁵ The figures depicted include: a front-facing head upon the shoulders of a mummy¹¹⁶ appearing from what is, presumably, a coffin/sarcophagus, an anthropomorph exhibiting features familiar from almost every example cited in the previous section as diagnostic of Seth (fig. 14), and thereby eight of the diagnostic features of Crum’s Chicken,¹¹⁷ as well as two further front-facing anthropomorphic heads appearing from frames, flanking the central figure, while an anthropomorphic mummiform body bound by snakes lies underneath them all. Further examples from this corpus also resemble the figure central to this tableau, and thus exhibit many of the same diagnostic features.¹¹⁸ The interpretation of these examples relates directly to the flagship example of n° 16, and thus need not be considered individually here.

38From an Egyptological perspective, the identification of the central figure has proved unambiguous, while Grumach also suggested a derivation of the ‘heads upon frames’, which flank Seth, as two aspects of Serapis, i.e. Apis and Mnevis, which “recall by their form the heads on the coffin of Osiris in the Amduat”.¹¹⁹ This identification could certainly be supported by the textual content of the recipe itself, with Osiris, Apis, Mnevis, and other Egyptian deities invoked as voces magicae in their phonetically Egyptian, rather than Graecised, form, e. g. ⲟⲩⲥⲓⲣⲓ and not Ὄσιρις, etc.¹²⁰ Thus, (an) Egyptian Vorlage(n) must be placed at some juncture in the textual history of these tablets. These transliterations exhibit the pronunciation of a Lower Egyptian dialect, suggesting that the Vorlage(n) was/were compiled in the north of Egypt – an ideal place from which to transmit them throughout the Grecophone world.

39Due to the supposedly ambiguous morphology of the central figure of this tableau, however, and the fact that these tablets were intended to bind charioteers, the identification of Seth has been contradicted in favour of that of a house-headed figure, as has been seen with the figure of PGM III.1-164 (fig. 6) above. In the latter case, this appears to have occurred principally due to the short tapering ears, which are one of the only diagnostic features to distinguish depictions of donkeys and horses. Preisendanz, in a scornful assessment of Wünsch’s thesis,¹²¹ argued that because only n° 25 and n° 49 invoked Seth-Typhon – an issue which Wünsch had in fact already addressed by demonstrating the presence of other Sethian epithets¹²² –, the central figure of these tableaux could not be Seth. Instead, Preisendanz argued that he was “the charioteer of the circus”, “a patron of hell with the face of a horse”.¹²³ This ‘hunch’ was apparently justified by Preisendanz’s judgement that the head of these figures appeared to resemble a horse more closely than a donkey.¹²⁴ The only evidence¹²⁵ Preisendanz brought to bear on who such a horse-headed deity/demon would even be was one instance in which the moon goddess Selene is referred to as “horse-faced” (ἱπποπρόσωπος PGM IV. 2549). This is, however, hardly a clear parallel, comprising one reference – of which there are in fact two – from the Pistis Sophia, a ‘gnostic’ treatise attested by a late 4th century copy from Egypt,¹²⁶ of a “great horse-faced demon” which drags the souls of murderers around the world.¹²⁷ Preisendanz in fact concluded: “I cannot provide evidence for the correctness of my interpretation of the images” (emphasis my own) – although he was apparently unyielding that it was correct. Preisendanz subsequently undermined even further his otherwise staunch opposition to Wünsch’s interpretation by suggesting that the horse-headed demon could instead be Anubis¹²⁸ – an identification which could actually be possible given the example of P. Michigan Inv. 1444 (fig. 3) – Anubis in a malign magical practice –, treated above. Irrespective of this, decades later Preisendanz reiterated his staunch opposition to Wünsch’s thesis, by declaring that the identifications of Seth/donkey- or Anubis/jackal-heads “find, however, no support in the related curse texts and voces magicae” – a simply erroneous statement, as has been seen in numerous examples thus far.¹²⁹ Almost without exception, this thesis has been taken up by each subsequent scholar,¹³⁰ without reference to other examples,¹³¹ corroboration, or challenge.

40Notably, then, is that there is an unambiguous depiction of a horse’s head amongst Wünsch’s corpus; n° 49¹³² (fig. 15), which differs from the preceding examples due to its particularly long neck, relatively short and tapered ears, and – most importantly – its context not upon the shoulders of a weapon-wielding anthropomorph but on a triangular base.

41On balance, there are three principal considerations which deconstruct Preisendanz’s thesis. The first is that the interpretation of the figures was based on Preisendanz’s own subjective assessment of their morphologies, and not at all on any parallels in figural or textual culture,¹³³ whereas there are numerous examples of donkey-headed Seths exhibiting many of the diagnostic features of the figures from Wünsch’s corpus known from numerous other contexts. The second is that no horse-headed being is invoked in these texts,¹³⁴ while Seth is invoked by name and by epithet on numerous occasions, so that the hypothesis of a horse-headed being invoked as part of a binding recipe against charioteers is purely speculative.¹³⁵ The third is that Seth is directly associated with such malign magical practices in a host of other contexts, while the horse-headed demons in Pistis Sophia exist rather to punish sinners, and are only one example among a host of zoomorphic-headed demons.¹³⁶

42In my previous contribution I made the case, by extension of my thesis on “textual authority”, for “figural authority”. Thus, with respect to Wünsch’s Sethianische Verfluchungstafeln, the figural authority which they embody stems from parallels in textual and figural culture of the invocation and depiction of Seth (-Typhon) attested in numerous earlier and contemporary examples from Egypt. Although there is a consensus in certain quarters that the Greek-language handbooks extant from Roman Period Egypt were unique to that context, it is important to stress that once textual culture was translated into the Greek-language, both that textual culture and its accompanying figural culture could have been transmitted throughout the Grecophone world. Therefore, the appearance of applied texts on lead comparable in both textual and figural form and function with some of the practices preserved in Greek-language bookrolls presented above, as well as the fact that they contain etymologically Egyptian voces magicae, should not be surprising – nor should the fact that magical texts featuring a figure of Seth are also attested elsewhere in the Grecophone world.¹³⁷ Therefore, that the zoomorphic-headed anthropomorphic Seth could have been reinterpreted or misinterpreted in different cultural or temporal contexts is of course not only possible, but likely – not least given the overlapping roles of Anubis and Seth in examples treated above. Indeed, we should not assume that the length of a donkey’s ear was conceptualised as morphologically significant, or even diagnostic, to ancient observers, let alone that this would have been prioritised above all other features. These figures were not produced for the audience of modern scholars, and it could equally have been the case that – with the identity of the invoked deity unambiguous to a contemporary practitioner – adherence to particular morphological features was inconsequential. This does not mean, however, that modern scholars are at liberty to interpret figures as they choose, but neither does this mean that because the morphology is not exactly that which modern scholars would expect of a donkey, the intention or derivation of its morphology was not ultimately for or from Seth.

From the Graeco-Egyptian magical papyri to the Coptic magical text tradition – bridging the 3rd to 4th century divide

43Having identified many of the diagnostic features of Crum’s Chicken exhibited by figures deriving from depictions of Seth (-Typhon) in both the earlier Egyptian- and Greek-language traditions from within and outside of Egypt, how this tradition could have been transmitted between language traditions and across temporal and spatial frames must be considered. In the 2nd and 3rd centuries, a bilingual tradition emerged between various stages of the Egyptian-language, primarily Demotic, preserved in the so-called PDM and texts in the Greek-language of the so-called PGM. With the emergence of a standardised written Coptic idiom, by the 5th century magical texts are extant in both Coptic and Greek, with bilingual codices also known. Following the Arab conquest in the 7th century, Greek begins to obsolesce as a written language, and subsequently, from the 8th century, Arabic-Coptic bilingual magical texts are preserved, and continue to be so alongside monolingual Coptic magical texts until around the 11th century. Thus, traditions of translation reoccurred over the centuries, allowing for the transmission of textual, and its accompanying figural, culture to outlive the scripts and language (-stage)s in which they were originally written.¹³⁸ Consequently, these textual and figural cultures could also transcend – spatially – or outlive – temporally – the cultural contexts in which they were originally embedded, and from which they originally derived. These phenomena of transmitting traditions provide the background as to how many of the morphologies of the figures attested among magical texts of the Coptic and Islamic Period could be suggested to have derived from Vorlagen from the Roman Period, in addition to the considerable number of figural novelties introduced to the magical text tradition during this time as well.

Matching morphologies to Crum’s Chicken? Figures and their tableaux from the Coptic magical text tradition

44As I have demonstrated, the figure of Seth (-Typhon) was utilised almost exclusively in malign magical practices, i.e. curses, binding, separation, and erotic recipes. In the majority of those cases, the figure of Seth (-Typhon) was to be inscribed upon a medium which was then to be deposited in a place with a relationship to the target. Thus, in order to identify whether the purpose of Crum xxiii_2_2 was for it to be inscribed and deposited to target an individual as part of a malign magical practice, and thus that it was a figural deposit rather than a figural amulet,¹³⁹ the figures extant among the magical texts of the Coptic and Islamic Period which exhibit (some of) the diagnostic features of Crum’s Chicken will now be treated. This will firstly be typologically, by nature of the tableaux, i.e. single, double, triple, or quadruple figure, in which they are embedded, and subsequently chronologically, in order to demonstrate how morphological features common to many figures transcended different tableau compositions and thus desired outcomes of magical practices.

Comparable morphological features in single figure tableaux

45The first manuscript containing a comparable figure is that from the 6th/7th century P. Berlin ÄM 8323 (TM 108884), whose figure exhibits eight of the diagnostic features of Crum’s Chicken (fig. 16).¹⁴⁰ Notable also is the cross upon the torso, somewhat reminiscent of PGM XXXVI.69-101 (fig. 9) and P. Duk. Inv. 230 (fig. 11), and to a greater extent of P. Oxy. LXVIII 4673 (fig. 12) – suggesting transmission from the GEMP. A row of various letter-derived charaktēres is written at 90 degrees to this figure, and damage to the papyrus suggests it was folded at least into thirds, forming a roughly square package of just over 7 x 7 cm. While this figural manuscript has been interpreted as an applied text – a curse to be deposited or an amulet to be worn – there are no exact parallels to this image in surviving formularies, although the similarities between this example and the instructions to produce such in the GEMP examples cited above are striking. Therefore, even if this exact copy were a Vorlage to be copied, it appears that the function of this composition would have been as a figural deposit – rather than amulet –, the product of a malign magical practice.

46Another example of a contemporary applied text which could have been deposited or worn is the 6th/7th century P. Berlin ÄM 8315 (TM 107297). The limited nature of the preserved text, however, prevents a definitive interpretation,¹⁴¹ not least because the desired outcome of the recipe could be malign,¹⁴² or magico-medical.¹⁴³ Between two sections of charaktēres (whether letter-derived or otherwise) a figure (fig. 17), appearing avian in nature, is inscribed. Although exhibiting five/seven of the diagnostic features of Crum’s Chicken, the overall dissimilarities, and the uncertain function of the manuscript, prevent any clear associations of the figures.¹⁴⁴ Despite the fact that this figure represents a clear disjunction from the mammalian-headed anthropomorphs at the beginning of this section, this figure is considered here because it represents the earliest extant appearance of the stick-like legs, rounded body, and rounded head also found in Crum’s Chicken.

47P. Heid. Inv. Kopt. 408, a 10th/11th century paper sheet, provides important insight into the recipes which may have accompanied the production of certain figural deposits, while – as noted above – also providing the clearest extant parallel to Crum’s Chicken and five significant parallels in the text of its two recipes. Despite missing considerable sections, this manuscript preserves two malign magical practices, with ritual instructions (l. 1-6) followed by two invocations (l. 7-21; 22 verso), divided by a register line, which invoke named demons and relate to the theme of destruction.¹⁴⁵ This manuscript contains a figure named underneath as Arpakh – compare Alpak inscribed upon the belly of Crum’s Chicken –, which exhibits five of the diagnostic features of Crum’s Chicken, ¹⁴⁶as well as important dissimilarities¹⁴⁷ (fig. 18). Thus, this figure demonstrates that an ‘avianised’ morphology exhibiting Christian symbolism does not preclude its utilisation in a malign magical practice, and suggests that morphological variations between figures which feature as part of a similar tableau are not as significant as the composition of the tableau itself. The tableau of P. Heid. Inv. Kopt. 408 is, then, typologically similar to the earlier examples, yet contrasts with P. Berlin ÄM 8323 (fig. 16), whose figure exhibits numerous morphological similarities. Unlike that manuscript and Crum xxiii_2_2, however, this example – by nature of being a Vorlage – features the ritual instructions which describe the production of the ritual deposit and the invocations and commands which interact with the named and depicted demon, providing the efficacy of the magical practice.

48The relationship between the inscribed figure, named Arpakh, and the text that follows is made clear by the use of the orthographic variant Harpak (ϩ̅ⲁ̅ⲣ̅ⲡ̅ⲁ̅ⲕ̅) in the first section of invocations (l. 8, 17), to be compared with Alpak (ⲁⲗⲡⲁⲕ) and its variants in Crum xxiii_2_2 (2/2; 3/1, 6), and Khoubin (ⲭ̅ⲟ̅ⲩ̅ⲃ̅ⲓ̅ⲛ̅; l. 8, 10, 17), comparable to Khōbin (ⲭ̅ⲱ̅ⲃ̅ⲓ̅ⲛ̣̅) in Crum xxiii_2_2¹⁴⁸ (2/1) – among other parallels.¹⁴⁹ Surrounding the figure are further letter-derived charaktēres, while one large circle encloses the entire tableau. The nature of this line is clarified by the six lines of ritual instructions (ϭⲓ ⲛⲉⲣϩⲱⲃ) which accompany it.¹⁵⁰ They specify that an Aswan bowl is to be inscribed with menstrual blood and deposited it at/under the door of (presumably) the ritual’s target. Thus, the circle that encloses the tableau is likely to be understood as the circumference of the Aswan bowl which is to have the tableau within copied upon it. Crucial for understanding how this tableau, and the figure central to it, interacts with the invoked text is the following textual content. In the first section of invocations, Solomon speaks to Khoubin Harpak, asking him “What is your work” (l. 8), to which he replies “My work is destruction” (l. 9), and proceeds to enumerate all the evil things he has committed (l. 10-15), summarising that “I will bring every evil thing” (l. 15) through the power of various names (l. 16) because Khoubin Arpakh “is my name” and Ōrnethau (ⲱ̅ⲣ̅ⲛ̅ⲉ̅ⲑ̅ⲁ̅ⲩ̅) “is my name” (l. 17-18) – repeated in an abbreviated manner in the following two lines. The final invocations make it even less ambiguous that Khoubin Harpak is the active agent, telling us that “every evil thing which you will adjure me about them, I (always) [do them]” (l. 19). The name “Harpakh” and its variants likely derive from the Greek harpax (ἅρπαξ “robber/embezzler”),¹⁵¹ a name well suited to the depicted demon who serves as the agent of these the malign magical practices.

49Crucial to the further interpretation of this figure is the Greek Testament of Solomon, in which Harpax is named as the 28th decan, who causes insomnia (a malign endeavour) (13.22). In this text, Solomon invokes the name of the Lord Sabaōth in order to be able to question each decan “in turn as to what was its character” (73). Harpax is not described physically; he instead makes a brief speech: “I am called Harpax, and I send sleeplessness on men. If one writes ‘Kokphnēdismos’, and binds it round the temples, I at once retire” (98),¹⁵² with a variant changing the name to “Rhyx Hapax.”¹⁵³ A demon called Harpax (ϩⲁⲣⲡⲁⲝ)¹⁵⁴ is also encountered by the future Saint Cyprian of Antioch during his initiation as a magician in the Coptic version of the Cyprian Legend.¹⁵⁵ In one version, the text reads: “I saw the image of shamelessness, being the form of a bird called Harpax, the pupils of his eyes sunken into his head.”¹⁵⁶ Yet, in another version of the same composition, “the bird whose shape the demon takes is not “the one called Harpax”, but rather “the bird they call harpē”, presumably referring to the Greek ἅρπη”,¹⁵⁷ demonstrating that, in Coptic textual – and figural – culture, Harpax was not exclusively conceptualized in an avian form.

50Thus, it is clear that in the later textual tradition the demonic decan Harpax was conceptualised as principally an avian form. Therefore, although there are differences between the features of Harpax in P. Heid. Inv. Kopt. 408 and Crum’s Chicken, such as the absence of ears, or of an arm wielding a weapon, as well as the shorter neck in the former, these details – aside from the presumably avian head – were either not deemed diagnostic for the figure Harpax, or not significant enough to generate standardisation between depictions of this demonic decan. While Crum’s Chicken, to a modern observer, may appear to lack wings, the striations on the figure of P. Heid. Inv. Kopt. 408 could indeed represent them, given that – as recently established by K. Dosoo – such striations in the depictions of angels’ limbs likely depict wings.¹⁵⁸ Therefore, although the striations are enclosed upon the body of Crum’s Chicken, this could be simply a stylised representation of the separated flanks of striations exhibited by figure of P. Heid. Inv. Kopt. 408, and therefore depict enclosed wings – supplemented by an anthropomorphic, armed, arm.

51This highlights one of the key arguments of this study, that Crum’s Chicken is not simply a donkey-headed anthropomorph manipulated by the ‘Chinese whispers effect’, but rather the result of the transmission of certain morphological features common in the depictions of zoomorphic and composite demons in the figural culture accompanying Coptic magical texts which can also be traced back to the figural culture accompanying magical texts of the Roman Period. Thus, although Crum’s Chicken can be identified with Harpax from the Testament of Solomon and Cyprian Legend, it is nonetheless important to identify the source of the diagnostic features exhibited (given they are lacking in the extant textual sources), in order not only to identify, but also to explain the form of Crum’s Chicken among the veritable menagerie of zoomorphic composites that make up the figural culture accompanying Coptic magical texts. Thus, further parallels must be drawn upon to explain whence the morphological features exhibited in the Harpax of Crum’s Chicken, but not of P. Heid. Inv. Kopt. 408, could derive.

52The first of these remaining parallels in single figure tableaux is P. Heid. Inv. Kopt. 682 (TM 99576), a 10th century parchment sheet consisting of five sections, the first of which appears to be a malign magical practice including a tableau with a figure surrounded by charaktēres, exhibiting six/eight of the diagnostic features of Crum’s Chicken (fig. 19).¹⁵⁹ This tableau is inscribed alongside ritual instructions to write names on a shell from a muddy place, to wash it, and to give strife between a man and a woman, while the figure itself is to be inscribed upon paper and bound upon him (l. 7-10). Although the outcome is ambiguous, the reading could be a “fight with the man and woman” (ϯⲙⲛ ⲡϩⲟⲟⲩⲧ ⲙ̅ⲛⲥ̅ⲓ̅ⲙ̅ⲓ̅) (l. 8-9), relating again to a malign magical practice¹⁶⁰ – perhaps of separation.

53Page 10 of P. Heid. Inv. Kopt. 685 (TM 102074), a 10th century parchment codex containing numerous different recipes, however, is quite distinct in its desired outcome. This composition is a recipe for protection with the invocation “in the moment when NN son of NN wears your figure, you will be as you watch over him, all the days (of) his life” (10/8-11). This figure, exhibiting six/seven of the diagnostic features of Crum’s Chicken (fig. 20),¹⁶¹ is invoked to “drive them out from NN son of NN” (10/17-18) by the name Nassklnē (ⲛ̅ⲁ̅ⲥ̅ⲥ̅ⲕ̅ⲗ̅ⲛ̣̅ⲏ̅). How this figure was conceptualised as a beneficent helper can be discerned from the inscription ⲙⲁⲥⲃⲏⲛ “young swallow”,¹⁶² upon what appears to be a wing terminating in a ⲑ-derived charaktēr.

54P. Heid. Inv. Kopt. 680 (TM 102078), a 10th century parchment sheet, is a formulary Vorlage for a figural amulet, with three lines of charaktēres above a tableau depicting a central figure – labelled/named ⲍ̅ⲱ̅ⲙ̅ⲓ̅ⲍ̅ – flanked by ritual instructions. This figure exhibits only four/six of the diagnostic features of Crum’s Chicken (fig. 21).¹⁶³ Importantly, the invocation that follows invokes ⲡϫⲁϫ ⲛⲁⲗϭⲏⲛ, which could mean “the djinn (الجن‎‎ – al-ǧinn) sparrow” or “the djinn (الجن‎‎ – al- ǧinn) head (i.e. headed)”¹⁶⁴ (l. 10-11). Thus, this text, along with ⲙⲁⲥⲃⲏⲛ (fig. 20), provide rare examples of extant contemporary insights into how these figures were conceptualised by actually describing through their invocations the form of the figure depicted. Not so dissimilar from the preceding example, this practice is “concerning wellbeing” (l. 13), and the figure is invoked by its names, powers, amulets, and figures (ζῴδιον), “so that you will complete for me the spell (ἀπολογία)” (l. 17-19). Thus, when the image of this demon was worn as an amulet, it brought about wellbeing (l. 19-20).

55F1908.45.13 (fig. 22), an unpublished and unprovenanced parchment perhaps dating to the 8th/9th century and now in the Freer and Sackler Gallery collection,¹⁶⁵ depicts a figure – surrounded by charaktēres (letter-derived or otherwise) – exhibiting seven/nine of the diagnostic features of Crum’s Chicken,¹⁶⁶ among notable dissimilarities.¹⁶⁷ Although not directly paralleled, the striated, open wings depicted in this figure, however, resemble closely those against the body of Harpax in P. Heid. Inv. Kopt. 408 (fig. 18). This supports the hypothesis presented above that the striations enclosed upon the body of Crum’s Chicken could be a stylised representation of those in the parallel Harpax, in turn reflected in the striated, open wings in the Freer example. As is the case with Crum xxiii_2_2, the absence of any ‘readable’ text upon the Freer manuscript also demands that its interpretation derive from an analysis of all figures exhibiting similar diagnostic features.

56Before concluding on the single figure tableaux treated in this section, Naqlun N. 44/95,¹⁶⁸ an unpublished blade-shaped parchment fragment found inside the Hermitage n° 44, also requires comment because it preserves part of a figure whose traces exhibit six/seven of the diagnostic features of Crum’s Chicken.¹⁶⁹ Above that figure is a front-facing anthropomorph wearing a kilt with at least one anthropomorphic arm, above which at least two letter-derived charaktēres are depicted and between which sits an eight-pointed star (also exhibited by Crum xxiii_2_2), and voces magicae. Of the scant remains of text preserved, ⲛⲟϫϥ “cast him/it” is a likely reading – implying a malign magical practice. However, given the state of preservation of the manuscript, it is not possible to conclude about the composition of the tableau of which this partially preserved figure was part.

57Of the examples of single figure tableaux considered, it is clear that broadly similar morphological features are shared between their figures, and yet that there is also a clear dichotomy between those examples whose desired outcomes are malign, and those whose are beneficent. On balance, despite not sharing a majority of diagnostic features with that figure, the above analysis has demonstrated that the most likely parallel to Crum’s Chicken is the Harpax of P. Heid. Inv. Kopt. 408 (fig. 18). The figures’ distinct morphologies demonstrate not only that figures associated with particular names can diverge extensively due to stylised representations and the ‘Chinese whispers effect’ in the transmission of figural culture, but also that Crum xxiii_2_2 is most likely understood (as the two preceding examples) as a figural deposit, rather than a figural amulet.

Comparable morphological features in double, triple, and quadruple figure tableaux

58Having considered all the examples of comparable figures embedded within single figure tableaux, it is worth turning to those which exhibit morphological features shared with Crum’s Chicken, despite those figures being part of the significantly different compositions of double, triple, and quadruple figure tableaux. This is not only to highlight the transmission of comparable morphological features in those figures, and thus aid the interpretation of the significance of those features, but also to demonstrate that similar figures were embedded in malign magical practices, which in turn adds weight to the above conclusion that Crum xxiii_2_2 was a ritual deposit.

59The unpublished parchment sheet P. Strasbourg Kopt. 289,¹⁷⁰ either a formulary Vorlage with inscribed names or an applied text, features a double figure tableau (fig. 23). The first figure exhibits six/nine of the diagnostic features of Crum’s Chicken,¹⁷¹ diverging (like P. Heid. Inv. Kopt. 408, fig. 18) in exhibiting a cross on its head, and thus no ears, as well as no legs. Just as with P. Heid. Inv. Kopt. 408, the presence of a cross on the head of the figure does not prevent the figure being utilised in a malign magical practice, and therefore does not mean that that figure is beneficent.¹⁷² This is illustrated by the fact that a cross-headed sceptre, the ‘weapon of choice’ of monks, saints, angels, apostles, and prophets alike in Coptic figural culture,¹⁷³ is being driven down into the head of an anthropomorphic-headed, but quadratic-bodied, figure below. This composition is immediately reminiscent of the saint spearing the devil or other monstrous being in Christian iconography found both within and outside of Egypt.¹⁷⁴ This tableau is completed with a column of voces magicae inscribed to the figures’ right (as Crum xxiii_2_2) and extensive invocations to their left and below. Although the ink is quite faded, among invocations to the Holy Spirit and voces magicae, the discernible text calls upon the invoked powers to curse a man named Apoulase the son of Lisabeth. Thus, although the composition of this tableau is significantly dissimilar from the figures of P. Heid. Inv. Kopt. 408, P. Berlin ÄM 8323, and Crum xxiii_2_2, the morphological features exhibited by its armed protagonist and the malign outcome of its magical practice are particularly notable. Furthermore, it should be considered that if the protagonist figure of the tableau were to be inscribed on its own, i.e. as part of a single figure tableau, the composition of that tableau, and its figure, would suddenly look notably similar to those three figures.

60A second important example is O. Monts. Roca Inv. n° 1472 (TM 144245), a 6th/7th century ostracon inscribed with two figures (fig. 24), the better preserved rightmost of which exhibits six of the diagnostic features of Crum’s Chicken.¹⁷⁵ The significance of this example is not so much the morphology of the figures, but that the accompanying column of voces magicae derive in part from the “Typhonic Logos”, evidencing a transmission from the GEMP.¹⁷⁶ The ostracon includes traces of the word ⲟⲩⲙⲉⲥ[ⲧⲉ] ⲙⲉⲛ ⲟⲩ[…] “a hatred and an [estrangement(?)]” – missed in the edition princeps –,¹⁷⁷ which make certain that this ostracon is the figural deposit of a malign magical practice in the form of a separation recipe. The fact that the heads of these two figures face away from one another may be a representation of the desired separation envisaged by the practice.¹⁷⁸

61Dated to the 8th century by its first editors, but more likely to be later, P. Heid. Inv. Kopt. 500 + 501¹⁷⁹ (TM 102087) is a papyrus rotulus inscribed with a compilation of malign magical practices, divided into composite recipes by register lines¹⁸⁰ and comprising invocations in Coptic, ritual instructions in Arabic, and a veritable menagerie of composite figures¹⁸¹ – as well as charaktēres and voces magicae.

62Its first recipe, comprising sections one and two, features instructions to inscribe the figures (fig. 25), charaktēres, and voces magicae with menstrual blood on an Aswan bowl (l. 1) before burying it at the door of the targeted individual (l. 2), while the invocations that follow are so that “[ven]geance is in the midst of NN and NN and you (pl.) give them cries, w[a]r, strife, and their separation, quickly” (l. 17-20). The tableau to be inscribed consists of two figures, named Bakoukh and Bikēn, flanking a central figure.¹⁸² This tableau is notable not because it is similar to the composition of Crum xxiii_2_2, but because the two flanking figures exhibit 8/11 of the diagnostic features of Crum’s Chicken.¹⁸³ Importantly, and notable also in the next example, the flanking figures have their torsos inscribed with eight-pointed stars (like that underneath Crum’s Chicken), clearly corresponding in some way to a manifestation of efficacy in such malign magical practices. The figure standing between these is exclusively anthropomorphic, and appears to be grabbed by the flanking two, thus almost certainly presenting the targeting of the individual whose name is to be inserted into the recipe. As a result, the fact that the flanking two figures face away from each other likely reflects the desired outcome of the recipe – separation –, and the depicted demons are those bringing about this desired outcome.¹⁸⁴

63The second recipe, comprising section three, features instructions to inscribe the figures (fig. 26), charaktēres, and voces magicae with menstrual blood on a parchment (l. 25) before burying it somewhere (l. 27), while the invocations that follow, notably – to some of the voces magicae inscribed – are to “give peace (εἰρήνη) and desire (ⲟⲩⲱϣ) quickly and with haste through the power of this other dozen great names” (l. 36-38). Once again, the tableau is notable here not because it is similar to the composition of Crum xxiii_2_2, but because although the two figures central to the tableau are notably distinct in morphology from Crum’s Chicken, they exhibit seven of the diagnostic features of Crum’s Chicken.¹⁸⁵ Also notable, given that this practice is to bind two individuals together, is that the figures face each other, and between the snouts of these two figures an eight-pointed star is again inscribed.¹⁸⁶ As well as this star, a long stroke runs through and between two figures, intersecting a rhomboid which terminates at each point with an equilateral triangle above a triangle, and one point of which terminates in a ring.¹⁸⁷ Thus, the mechanics of binding and separation, in this example and the former, respectively, are not only similar functions in that one is the opposite of the other, they utilise figures whose forms are similar due to certain morphological features common to the “graphic reservoir” drawn from in the composition of tableaux for such malign magical practices.

64The fifth recipe, comprising section eight, is titled a “repugnance” (ⲃⲁⲥϩⲟ) and a “destruction” (ⲧⲁⲕⲟ), and features instructions to inscribe figures (fig. 27), charaktēres, and voces magicae with menstrual blood on a bowl before burying it at the door of the target (l. 81-82) in order to produce “separation for a daugh[ter from he]r father, a bride from her mother-in-law” (l. 91-99). Similar to the tableau of the first recipe, in this case two figures – named in Coptic Maroukh and Mastaroukh – flank a central figure, and all three face the same direction. The flanking figures exhibit essentially all 9/12 of the diagnostic features of Crum’s Chicken.¹⁸⁸ Once again, the innermost of the striated anthropomorphic arms grapples with the central figure, itself more anthropomorphic (at least in the morphology of its head, face, and legs), while also exhibiting a long neck and rounded body. There appears to have been confusion between the annotations of this tableau in Coptic, in which the central figure is labelled ⲇ̅ⲇ̅, i.e. “NN”, and in Arabic, in which the leftmost and rightmost figures are labelled “NN son of NN”, and “NN daughter of NN”, respectively. Therefore, it appears that the outer two figures (named in Coptic) were misunderstood, or reconceptualised, as the two targets themselves rather than as representing the ‘demons’ who would possess the two targets of the recipe in order to bring about “repugnance” between them and the “destruction” of their relationship.

65The eighth recipe, comprising sections 12 to 14, features instructions to inscribe the figures¹⁸⁹ (fig. 28), charaktēres, and voces magicae¹⁹⁰ on an Aswan bowl before burying it at the door of the target (l. 117-118) in what seems to be an erotic recipe.¹⁹¹ The figure central to the tableau (featuring six figures of three distinct typologies) justifies its inclusion in this section; indeed, Grumach argued that it had “an ass’s head and a falcon’s body”.¹⁹² Thus, unsurprisingly, this figure exhibits seven/nine of the diagnostic features of Crum’s Chicken.¹⁹³

66It is clear from the first two of the three examples from P. Heid. Inv. Kopt. 500 + 501 treated that a particular typology of tableaux, exhibiting similar forms, could be utilised for comparable functions – even if the figures in each tableau were not identical to one another. Thus, even though each of the figures, especially the first (fig. 25) and third (fig. 27) examples, exhibits the majority of the diagnostic features of Crum’s Chicken, the tableaux of which they are part do not resemble Crum xxiii_2_2, but rather each other. In short, from these examples it could be argued that the morphological variations between figures is not as important a distinction as the composition of the tableaux of which they are part. Despite the morphological variations between the figures of the first two tableaux treated, they are Vorlagen for figural deposits of a similar typological form and comparable function. These considerations suggest, as did the treatment of single figure tableaux above, that Crum xxiii_2_2 is the figural deposit of a malign magical practice.

67Exhibiting two tableaux comparable to the second example (fig. 26) and first and third examples (fig. 25 & 27) from P. Heid. Inv. Kopt. 500 + 501, respectively, is the 10th century blade-shaped parchment P. Louvre E 14.250 (TM 99997). This applied text is divided by register lines into five sections on the recto (three featuring invocations separated by two tableaux), with the text continuing onto the verso, and has the desired outcome of “instil[ling] hatred and estrangement” (l. 6-7 etc.) in the named targets. In the first tableau (fig. 29, left), the leftmost figure of the first register is inscribed Narakoui – listed among the voces magicae of the first section – and the rightmost Kouni. Those figures are notable because they exhibit seven/nine of the diagnostic features of Crum’s Chicken,¹⁹⁴ and have an elongated eight-pointed star between them.

68This double figure tableau is most likely to reflect the “before” state of the magical practice, which is then depicted in its “after” state in the following triple figure tableau.¹⁹⁵ In that tableau, two figures (fig. 29, right) are turned away from each other and flank a central anthropomorph. Unlike the first and third treated examples from P. Heid. Inv. Kopt. 500 + 501 (fig. 25 & 27), the central figure does not appear to depict the target.

69Instead, the male anthropomorph who has torn out his hair depicted on the verso seems to do so.¹⁹⁶ Again, the flanking figures exhibit 8/11 of the diagnostic features of Crum’s Chicken.¹⁹⁷ In addition, while the leftmost figure no longer exhibits legs, the rightmost has anthropomorphic legs and feet in profile, and both appear to be wearing kilts; the leftmost more trapezoid and the rightmost quadratic – perhaps harking back to the anthropomorphs wearing Roman or even Egyptian style kilts treated above.

70Further figures in double and triple figure tableaux exhibiting some of the diagnostic features are found in unpublished texts from the Montserrat collection,¹⁹⁸ but the final example to be considered here is P. Heid. Inv. Kopt. 681 (TM 99609), a 10th century parchment sheet whose second section contains a recipe to put hatred and strife in the face of the target “so that in the moment when I write your (pl.) names and figures (ⲥⲱϯⲟⲩⲛ) and amulets on the potsherd… you will blacken the face of NN” (l. 5-9). The third section provides instructions to “write with menstrual blood on the potsherd” (l. 1), comparable to several preceding practices – in particular P. Heid. Inv. Kopt. 408 and 500 + 501 –, and that this is to be buried at a crossroads after being burned (l. 3-4). The tableau of figures which precedes the second section depicts four figures (fig. 30): the first and third from left are front-facing anthropomorphic heads and faces rimmed with isosceles triangles; the second figure, labelled/named Baroukh, is an anthropomorph; while the fourth exhibits 8/11 of the diagnostic features of Crum’s Chicken.¹⁹⁹ In addition, another eight-pointed star sits below and between the second and fourth figures. Once again, despite differences in composition from Crum xxiii_2_2, the utilisation of a figure which is almost Crum’s Chicken in miniature within a tableau utilised in a malign magical practice is notable.

71On balance, these examples highlight the morphological features shared between Crum’s Chicken and many figures embedded within double, triple, and quadruple figure tableaux of significantly different composition, but which accompany unambiguously malign magical practices, and were (to be) inscribed as figural deposits as part of such practices. Whether through the persistence and transmission of the “Typhonic Logos” and its accompanying figures from the Roman Period (fig. 23 & 24), figures interacting with the eight-pointed star also exhibited on Crum xxiii_2_2 (fig. 26 & 29),²⁰⁰ or figures wielding weapons in anthropomorphic arms (fig. 23 & 29, right),²⁰¹ these tableaux demonstrate the consistencies between the morphological features drawn from the “graphic reservoir” of figural culture that were utilised in malign magical practices. Thus, the parallels suggest strongly that Crum xxiii_2_2 was a ritual deposit produced as part of a malign magical practice.

Crum’s Chicken through the lens of broader figural culture

72Having considered the principal precedent and contemporary morphologies of figures in magical texts which share any of the diagnostic features exhibited by Crum’s Chicken, there is a final sphere of figural culture to be considered, from which both malign and beneficent magical practice cannot be arbitrarily separated:²⁰² figural culture outside of the Coptic magical text tradition. Art and iconography in Late Antique Egypt, as has been demonstrated with respect to magical figures, exhibited a remarkable amount of standardisation and coherence over the centuries,²⁰³ and thus the examples of zoomorphic and anthropomorphic composites preserved in later murals may also have been broadly representative of earlier traditions.

73As introduced in my previous contribution, the “Christian Paintings from Tebtunis” demonstrate how contemporary church-going milieus may have been exposed to a rich figural culture of demons. In that study, C. C. Walters treated the photographs preserved of “a building containing Christian paintings” which “almost certainly formed part of a monastic complex” uncovered by Grenfell and Hunt in the Fayum during their excavations at the end of 19th century, the paintings themselves being dated to the “mid-10th century”.²⁰⁴ It is the depiction of “The Punishment of Sinners” that is of greatest interest here.²⁰⁵ Central to this tableau was “a gigantic winged figure”, “Lord Abbatōn the unrespecting angel of death”, who C. C. Walters describes as having a snake entwined around its waist with anthropomorphic hands but claw-like feet (not entirely dissimilar from the three-pronged feet of various figures treated above) and holding a rope from which hang the heads, torsos, and bodies of sinners. Accompanying the “Angel of Death”, at his left is a demon “which serves the Lord of Darkness”, “depicted as a creature with long ears and crocodile-like jaws”, who is “attending to a sinner whose hands are bound behind his back and whose feet are manacled”.²⁰⁶ That anthropomorphic figure is labelled as “the man who takes the wage of the labourers” and the demon appears to be trying to draw out the soul of the bound figure, as in the composition that follows (fig. 31). Although composed in a different canon of proportion, this demonic figure exhibits several morphological features comparable to the diagnostic features of Crum’s Chicken.²⁰⁷ This example, although within a tableau which is quite exceptional, may suggest that the morphology of demons depicted here took much from those depicted in the Coptic magical text tradition and described in Coptic textual culture.

74Elsewhere in the Abdimelech tableau, “the decan chewing the soul” (fig. 32) is depicted, about which C. C. Walters remarked, “the head of this decan is certainly asinine in appearance, and there can be little doubt that the artist has attempted to depict armour”. As with the preceding example, but in this case with its mouth, this ‘decan’ is forcing a woman to surrender her soul, depicted in the form of a baby.²⁰⁸ By designating this demonic figure as asinine, C. C. Walters highlights features shared with Crum’s Chicken.²⁰⁹ The body itself is otherwise anthropomorphic, and is striated all over in order to depict the armour described in the Apocalypse of Paul²¹⁰ and also in Revelations 9:1-10.²¹¹ By comparison, elsewhere in the tableau where sinners are receiving punishment, a naked man and naked woman are bound together and attacked by serpents, while before them stands a composite form comparable to the two described above. Comparable to fig. 31, this figure exhibits several features shared with Crum’s Chicken.²¹² Thus, this example, although from the same exceptional context, suggests commonalities in the morphologies of the demons depicted here with those depicted in the Coptic magical text tradition, and with those described in Coptic textual culture.

Where does that leave Crum’s Chicken?

75This study of the principal figures known to the author which share diagnostic features with Crum’s Chicken (tabulated as table 1) has demonstrated, among certain variation, the remarkable consistency of morphological features within the “graphic reservoir” of figural culture accompanying magical texts transmitted over a 900-year period from the beginning of the Roman Period to the obsolescence of magical practice in Coptic. Yet, although the persistence of certain morphological features is remarkable, the ability of these features to produce a diversity of figures – due to both innovation and the ‘Chinese whispers effect’²¹³ – has produced a corpus of sources whose tableaux are – in some cases – more uniform in their typology than the figures within them. Thus, it could be argued from this study, particularly with reference to the typologies of the tableaux considered,²¹⁴ that the form of some figures does not necessarily predicate their function, not least because the shared ancestor of a particular morphological feature can manifest differently across temporal frames, but also because the role a figure performed within the composition of a tableau is perhaps more significant than the morphology of that figure itself. This latter consideration would go some way to explaining why the figures attested in typologically similar tableaux regarding separation exhibit such variety.

76Building upon the considerations of my previous contribution, this study has also made the case for interpreting the constituent elements of a tableau not solely based upon the morphological features of their figures, but also with reference to precedent, contemporary, or subsequent parallels in figural and/or textual sources, which can support identifications by placing each source within a history of transmission. By doing so, the “figural authority” maintained and reified by the transmission of certain tableaux, figures, or their morphological features – explaining their persistence across temporal and spatial, and thereby linguistic and cultural frames – can inform how and why they were conceptualised as being efficacious.

77Of the single figure tableaux treated, the figure of P. Berlin ÄM 8323 (fig. 16) stands out as the most similar overall example in respect to the morphological features exhibited. As discussed above, however, it is not clear whether the manuscript itself was a figural amulet or a figural deposit. The identification of a relationship with the figure of P. Heid. Inv. Kopt. 408 was a breakthrough in the progress of this study, with that relationship suggesting strongly that Crum xxiii_2_2 was the ritual deposit of a malign magical practice. Thus, even though the figure’s (fig. 18) lack of arms and thereby weapon makes it significantly different from the figure of P. Berlin ÄM 8323 and Crum’s Chicken, its composition within a single figure tableau, and parallel between its name (Arpakh) and that of Crum’s Chicken (Alpak), are crucial for the interpretation of Crum’s Chicken. Consequently, these parallels also suggest a shared ancestry between the figures, their accompanying texts,²¹⁵ and thereby the practices for which the two compositions were produced. From that parallel, it seems likely that Crum’s Chicken was conceptualised as a depiction of the “robber/embezzler” (ἅρπαξ) – either the 28th decan, the manifestation of insomnia, described in the Testament of Solomon or the manifestation of shamelessness in an avian form described in the Coptic version of the Cyprian Legend –, and thus a demon of sometimes avian form.

78Of the double, triple, and quadruple figure tableaux treated, the armed figure of P. Strasbourg Kopt. 289 (fig. 23) – sharing certain morphological features with Crum’s Chicken – in its double figure tableau, depicting the desired outcome of the practice, i.e. the subjection of a target, also suggests that Crum xxiii_2_2 was the ritual deposit of a malign magical practice.²¹⁶ Bringing Crum’s Chicken into an analysis with broader figural culture from Egypt, it has been seen that certain morphological features are also shared between the figures of magical texts and the depictions of demons in murals in ecclesiastical and monastic contexts (fig. 31 & 32), as well as between how they are labelled/named in magical texts and how they are described in other types of Coptic textual culture.

79Crum’s Chicken is the figural manifestation of a being conceptualised, by analogy to its other names Arpak/Alpak/Alpek, in some traditions are being either predominantly or partly avian in form, but which was also clearly conceptualised as exhibiting morphological features shared with demons depicted and described in other contexts that were not predominantly or partly avian. This pseudo-anthropomorphic figure was armed, and the parallels studied suggest strongly that Crum’s Chicken was given visual form to depict and manipulate the efficacy of a demon who would target (an) individual(s) as part of a malign magical practice, either through the practice of an accompanying ritual, or through the inscription of the parchment itself. Its morphological features, and its associated voces magicae and charaktēres – particularly the common eight-pointed star –, paralleled in certain examples treated in this study, must have lent efficacy to this practice of binding or separating, catalysing its desired outcome. This parchment – as has been established by multiple parallels – would have been deposited in a place where the targeted individual(s) would be expected to show up (from a crossroads to their doorstep). This seems especially likely given that the names of the targeted individual(s) are not inscribed upon this single figure tableau, unlike the names of the targeted individuals upon the double and triple figure tableaux considered above, and therefore the act of targeting was not textual but spatial. If Crum xxiii_2_2 was not itself deposited, it would stand to reason that both Crum xxiii_2_1 and Crum xxiii_2_2 were instead both Vorlagen ready to be copied, or which had been prepared ready for distribution to clients.

80In sum, this study has sought to bring together the largest yet compiled corpus of figures from the GEMP and Coptic magical text tradition in order to illustrate that the figural manifestation of beings manipulated in magical practices were drawn from a “graphic reservoir” influenced by several streams of figural and textual input – from the morphological features depicted and labelled/named in magical texts, to those depicted and described in broader figural and textual culture from Egypt. By beginning in the Roman Period, this study intended not only to highlight potential routes of transmission between the figural culture in the magical tradition between the Roman and Islamic Period, but also whence the “figural authority” of these images may have stemmed – in the case of Crum’s Chicken, from ancestors (Seth-Typhon), through contemporaries (Harpax), and into descendants. Thus, although the thesis that the figural origins of Crum’s Chicken – and thereby some of its ancestors, contemporaries, and descendants – derive ultimately from depictions of Seth (-Typhon) may well prove contentious,²¹⁷ the collection of zoomorphic-headed anthropomorphs, often labelled as part of their inscription, armed with a weapon and utilised within a tableau²¹⁸ inscribed as part of malign magical practice, treated in this study provides exactly that large and coherent corpus of ancestors, contemporaries, and descendants. Thus, by tracing figural, and their accompanying textual, traditions across temporal, spatial – and thereby linguistic and cultural – frames, from the GEMP to the Coptic magical text tradition, the “graphic reservoir” from which the morphological features of Crum’s Chicken derive – even if that figure itself was reinterpreted over generations and centuries – suggest that it might well be the great great – ad infinitum – grandchild of the donkey-headed anthropomorph, Seth (-Typhon).