Today I finalized the translation of PGM V, 304-369. It turned out that there are a number of seemingly smaller errors in previous translations but in total they have a major impact on the understanding of the original instruction. Especially the translation in Betz is misleading in several instances, when Smith adds his interpretations of Greek words in square brackets [].
This is a typical Greek instruction: It provides an overview of what has to be done at the beginning but then adds details throughout the text which can be confusing. And the language is very brief. This is not an elaborately formulated, detailed description of the ritual, instead it comes with abbreviations and – grammatically – incomplete clausal structures. And unusual writings of various words.
I have been trying to reconstruct the making of this artefact. It took me a while and a lot of head scratching, but I think I have finally figured it out. If you follow the text precisely and actually work with papyrus – a rather stiff material – then the crafting part is fundamentally simple and logical. It is different from previous suggestions, including the ones in the comments of yesterday’s post (thanks a lot for your wonderful comments, excellent topic for the next live hangout!) and it is clearly “pricking over” the magic signs, not “into” or “through” as Smith suggested.
One of the really nice things when working with high-res images is that you get to see the details, like all the little errors the scribe made and corrected, the abbreviations, the struggles with the ink and the pen, and of course: the beauty of the ancient handwriting.
I made a compilation for you to share a bit of the joy 🙂