Archaeology

Materia Magica by Andrew Wilburn

Materia Magica: The Archaeology of Magic in Roman Egypt, Cyprus, and Spain

Andrew Wilburn

Rights: World
For more info, contact Michael Kehoe at mkehoe@umich.edu

Although magic is an act involving both incantation and physical actions, scholars of antiquity have historically focused their research on depictions of magic in literature and on the written records of spells themselves. This tendency has resulted in a neglect of material artifacts and has created a skewed understanding of ancient magical practices, privileging elite, literate audiences over common individuals not present in the literary or epigraphic record.

Andrew Wilburn's Materia Magica is the first book to reconstruct ancient magical practices through the lens of surviving material evidence. His work focuses on case studies in three different parts of the Roman Empire. Rather than trying to present a universal reading of magical practice (impossible given the scant evidence), Wilburn seeks to illustrate, from an archaeological context, how such practices specifically manifested themselves in each environment, detailing the materials local practitioners used and where the artifacts have been found. This approach allows Wilburn to examine the ways in which magic functioned within individual communities.

Andrew Wilburn received his Ph.D in Classical Archaeology from the University of Michigan with a specialty in Roman Egypt, and he is currently Assistant Professor in the Department of Classics, Oberlin College. Several of his essays appeared in Villa of the Mysteries in Pompeii: Ancient Ritual, Modern Muse, edited by Elaine Gazda and published by the Kelsey Museum of Archaeology.

September 2008
288 pages