I’ve been working on this ritual instruction today and look at this: A beautiful correction of the popular divine name “Ablanathanalba”. This name occurs in numerous instructions and on even more artefacts, with a lot of variations in its spelling. The common spelling is Ablanathanalba. But here the scribe initially wrote “-abla” at the end, recognized the error, crossed out the letters and then added the correct spelling above the line.
It’s so human 🙂
And here the scribe added an alternative or additional sequence of divine names above the initial sequence. The individual names in the main text are separated by little points.
Take a look at the additional sequence at the bottom where the two red arrows are: The scribe added this sequence in brackets! I have never seen this before in an ancient papyrus and my initial thought was: Is that a forgery? But it’s not, PGM V was first mentioned in a publication in 1846 and it was added to the British Museum’s entries list between 1836 and 1840. Such an elaborate forgery wouldn’t have been possible at this time.
The divine names are mentioned in an “Oracle to Serapis”, invoking Zeus-Helios-Mithras-Sarapis, at the very beginning of the preserved codex.
