Experimental Archaeology: The Eye Ointment in the London-Leiden Magical Papyrus

Welcome to my experimental study looking at the making of an ancient Egyptian eye ointment for better vision. The preparation of the ointment is described in a magical papyrus from Thebes dating to the late 2nd or early 3rd century.

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The ointment is used during a lamp divination in which a god will appear behind the lamp to answer whatever the practitioner asks about.

The instructions for the preparation of the ointment include a really weird part: An encrypted ingredient is supposed to turn into, careful, testicles and a penis. Since the encrypted ingredient is actually a plant, namely the Greek been, the rest of it doesn’t seem to make much sense.

An online search showed me that there was a discussion going on during the second century about a misconception of the bean in an older text: According to the Roman essayist Aulus Gellius some verses of the philosopher Empedocles of Akragas were misunderstood: When he counselled men to stay away from „beans“ it was meant symbolically, not literally, meaning to stay away from sexual excess. A little bit later Diogenes Laërtius, a biographer of Greek philosophers, claims that Aristotle pointed out the similarity of the bean to the testicle.

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It seems that, what the author of the ancient eye ointment describes might actually be the process of a bean sprouting.

And that is what I want to find out:

What happens if you follow these 1.700 years old instructions?

I started an experiment on August 19th 2022 and made an introuctory video in which I provide a new translation of the ancient Egyptian eye ointment preparations. If you prefer to read the text yourself you can find it here.

 

Images of the experimental set-up

The entire set-up consists of two clay pots with lids, three glasses with lids, fresh bean blossoms and beans. I got the blossoms from a friend who grows beans in her garden.

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The blossoms of fresh beans and beans.

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Three glasses filled with water. I put fresh bean blossoms in two of them and actual beans in the third one (middle).

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The „dark place“ to store the glasses for 20 days: My storage place for sewing stuff. To the left is cotton, the glasses will be stored there, wrapped in layers of cotton.

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Here are the three glasses in the cupboard and on the cotton.S-PMagLL_experimental-setup-day-1-2022-08-19_9 S-PMagLL_experimental-setup-day-1-2022-08-19_10

And here are the glasse wrapped in multiple layers of cotton.S-PMagLL_experimental-setup-day-1-2022-08-19_11 S-PMagLL_experimental-setup-day-1-2022-08-19_11a

And that’s the cupboard. it will be closed for 20 days now. I am really curious about what there will be on September 8th! 🙂

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