Research project
Magic in Deir el-Medina (MagiDeM)
MagiDeM investigates the manuscripts of magic and medicine from Deir el-Medina, connecting them with historical individuals to explore how knowledge circulated within the community, how it was transmitted, who had access to it, and who put it into practice.
- Duration
- 2026 - 2028
- Contact
- Nathalie Sojic
- Funding
-
European Union – Horizon Europe Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA), Postdoctoral Fellowship MagiDeM – Magic in Deir el-Medina: A Material, Textual and Socio-historical Study Grant Agreement No. 101273211
- Partners
Rijksmuseum van Oudheden (National Museum of Antiquities), Leiden
From manuscripts to people
Who possessed magical and medical knowledge in Deir el-Medina, how was it transmitted, and under what circumstances was it put into practice within this community?
MagiDeM addresses these questions through the exceptional evidence preserved from Deir el-Medina, the settlement that housed the craftsmen responsible for constructing and decorating the royal tombs in the Valley of the Kings during the New Kingdom (c. 1550–1070 BCE).
Thousands of texts and objects from the site provide unusually detailed evidence for the lives of its inhabitants. Among them are manuscripts and artefacts connected with magical and medico-magical practices: spells and remedies, amulets and other objects intended to protect, heal or influence people and events.
Deir el-Medina offers a rare opportunity to move from largely anonymous magical literature to the individuals and families who produced, owned and used it. The community is documented through a rich body of administrative, legal, literary and private texts, including some with recorded archaeological provenance, making it possible to place individual manuscripts and objects within the wider social networks of the village.
Tracing magical and medical knowledge
Ancient Egyptian magical texts have traditionally been studied primarily for their textual and religious content. Yet a manuscript is also an object. It was written by someone, on a particular support, for a particular purpose; it could be copied, stored, carried, reused or discarded.
MagiDeM therefore brings together three dimensions that are too often considered separately: texts, material objects and social context. By examining what manuscripts say alongside how they were produced and used, and by relating them to other archaeological and documentary evidence from Deir el-Medina, the project seeks to identify the individuals associated with them and to investigate how magical and medical knowledge circulated within the community, who had access to it, and how it was transmitted and put into practice.
Material and methods
MagiDeM combines textual, palaeographical, material and socio-historical analysis. The project studies magical and medico-magical manuscripts associated with Deir el-Medina alongside other written and archaeological evidence from the community.
Particular attention is paid to manuscripts as material artefacts: their writing supports, scripts, layout, traces of use and reuse, and other features that may reveal how they were produced and handled. These observations are combined with prosopographical and socio-historical evidence in order to identify, where possible, the individuals and social groups involved in the production, transmission, circulation and practical use of magical and medical knowledge.
Why Leiden?
Leiden provides an especially rich environment for a project combining Egyptology, manuscript studies and the study of ancient material culture. Hosted by the Faculty of Humanities and the Leiden Institute for Area Studies (LIAS), MagiDeM benefits from expertise in ancient societies, religions and written cultures, including approaches to manuscripts as textual and material objects and, more specifically, the socio-economic history of the Deir el-Medina community.
Leiden is also home to the Rijksmuseum van Oudheden (National Museum of Antiquities), whose internationally significant Egyptian collection includes material from Deir el-Medina. Collaboration with the museum contributes both to the research and to the project's engagement with wider audiences.
Research, teaching and public engagement
The project will result in scholarly publications and a digital resource bringing together evidence for magical and medico-magical practices at Deir el-Medina.
MagiDeM also contributes to research-based teaching at Leiden University through the development of the Master’s course Magical Papyri from Pharaonic to Late Antique Egypt (2026), the BA’s course Hieratic Palaeography (2027), and the Master’s seminar Documentary Texts from Deir el-Medina (2028), bringing the project’s research into the classroom.
Research findings will also be communicated beyond the academic community. A dedicated MagiDeM research blog will document research in progress and introduce texts, objects and research questions to a wider audience.
In collaboration with the Rijksmuseum van Oudheden, the project will also contribute to an exhibition presenting aspects of magic in ancient Egypt and the evidence preserved from Deir el-Medina.
Relevant links
- MagiDeM on CORDIS
- MagiDeM Research Blog (under construction)
- Rijksmuseum van Oudheden
Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor EACEA can be held responsible for them.