Hedvig Győry: Mélanges offerts a Edith Varga „Le lotus qui sort de terre” (Bulletin du Musée Hongrois des Beaux-Arts Supplément 1. Budapest, 2001)
ATTILA MÁRTON FARKAS: A Magical Plaque from Budapest
concrete enemies, but it was applicable for all. In other words, this procedure was a general method or universal pattern, or: a "Universal Medicine". Basically "doing magic" in an ancient Egyptian thought-system meant "to annihilate the Enemy" whose existence meant Evil (or an evil force) itself. The motif of annihilating enemies, therefore, has a metaphorical sense: to repel or destroy all kind of bad things. 14 The Egyptians used the ritual form of "Annihilating the Enemy" as a method of repelling foreigners (nomad tribes, soldiers, hostile powers, the external enemies of Egyptians etc.), political opponents of the Pharaoh who personified the Egyptian State, individual enemies in private magic, dangerous or poisonous animals (crocodiles, snakes, scorpions), evil demons, sickness, diseases, evil speech or bad dreams. 15 Thus such procedures as magical healing or repelling of dangerous animals show the same system as the real execration rituals used against human opponents. The reason for this is the above mentioned symbolism, namely the concept of enemy, which means all bad things, their images impersonate these things and this symbolism is also embodied in the magical plaque. It is most likely that the limestone plaque was not a "special kind of amulet", but a magical instrument of "bewitching". They were instruments in sorcery, not so much meant "to protect", but "to curse". In this way, these objects might have been used not in protective, but exclusively in execration sorcery. Or, in other words, they might have been weapons for annihilating or bewitching individuals or personal human enemies. Thus, these finds can certainly be counted amongst such magical relics as broken red pottery, clay statuettes of "rebels " and other figurines or images of the enemy. Concerning this function of these relics of execration, we can draw some kind of parallel between the magical plaques and the above-mentioned "defixiones" from the Roman world, since the latter are small tablets and their main function was destruction or "bewitching" as well. Moreover, the cursing tablets from the Roman Period even had certain "sethian" elements. 16 The Egyptian magical limestone plaques might have a connection with the clay plaques in a New Kingdom execration rite from Giza which may be considered as the antecedents of our later small limestone plaques. These earlier pieces are not the 14 S. Schoske. Vernichtungsrituale, LA VI. cols. 1009-12; D. Wildung, Erschlagen der Feinde, LÀ II. cols. 14-17. 15 The so called "rebellion formula" on the broken pottery from the Middle Kingdom presents the general use of this pattern very well. See K. Sethe, Die Achtung feindlicher Fürsten, Völker und Dinge auf altägyptischen Tongefäßscherben des Mittleren Reiches, Berlin 1926. For discussion: G. Posener. Ächtungstexte, LÀ I. cols. 67-69. "' A. Audollent, Deftxionum Tabelláé, Paris 1904. Concerning the "sethian character" of the defixiones, see R. Wünsch, Sethianische Verfluchungstafeln aus Rom, Leipzig 1898.
