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    Papyri copticae magicae = Coptic magical texts. Volume 1, Formularies
    (Walter de Gruyter GmbH, 2023) Dosoo, Korshi; Preininger, Markéta
    This volume is the first in a new series of editions of Coptic-language "magical" manuscripts from Egypt, written on papyrus, ostraca, parchment, and paper, and dating to between the fourth and twelfth centuries CE. Their texts attest to non-institutional rituals intended to bring about changes in the lives of those who used them - heal disease, curse enemies, bring about love or hatred, or see into the future. These manuscripts represent rich sources of information on daily life and lived religion of Egypt in the last centuries of Roman rule and the first centuries after the Arab conquest, giving us glimpses of the hopes and fears of people of this time, their conflicts and problems, and their vision of the human and superhuman worlds. This volume presents 37 new editions and descriptions of manuscripts, focusing on formularies or "handbooks", those texts containing instructions for the performance of rituals. Each of these is accompanied by a history of its acquisition, a material description, and presented with facing text and translations, tracings of accompanying images, and explanatory notes to aid in understanding the text
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    Tree of pearls : the extraordinary architectural patronage of the 13th-century Egyptian slave-Queen Shajar al-Durr
    (Oxford University Press, New York, NY, 2020) Ruggles, D. Fairchild
    The woman known as "Tree of Pearls," who ruled Egypt in the summer of 1250 was unusual in every way. A rare case of a woman ruler, her reign marked the shift from Ayyubid to Mamluk rule, and her architectural patronage of two building complexes changed the face of Cairo and had a lasting impact on Islamic architecture. Rising to power from slave origins, Tree of Pearls-her name in Arabic is Shajar al-Durr-used her wealth and power to add a tomb to the urban madrasa (college) that had been built by her husband, Sultan Salih, and with this innovation, madrasas and many other charitably endowed archite++654ctural complexes became commemorative monuments, a practice that remains widespread today. This was the first occasion in Cairo in which a secular patron's relationship to his architectural foundation was reified through the actual presence of his body. The tomb thus profoundly transformed the relationship between architecture and its patron, emphasizing and emblematizing his historical presence. Indeed, the characteristic domed skyline of Cairo that we see today is shaped by such domes that have kept the memory of their named patrons visible to the public eye. This dramatic transformation, in which architecture came to embody human identity, was made possible by the sultan-queen Shajar al-Durr, a woman who began her career as a mere slave-concubine.Her path-breaking patronage contradicts the prevailing assumption among historians of Islam that there was no distinctive female voice in art and architecture