The Visual Sound of Symbols

This paper will explore how magical words — usually pronounceable but often unintelligible — along with sequences of vowels and consonants, were perceived both visually and aurally within the Graeco-Egyptian magical tradition. It will examine the imagery associated with these words and the sounds they evoke, focusing on the evolution of magical schematic formations from their initial appearances to later iterations. By historicizing the phenomenon of Greco-Egyptian voces magicae, the paper will investigate why authors and redactors of magical texts in the 3rd and 4th centuries consistently employed these formations, while also considering the factors that contributed to their gradual decline in Late Antiquity.