Sacred Texts · Egyptian Magic · Thebes · 2nd–3rd c. CE

The Leiden Papyrus

A working magician's handbook, torn in two at some point after its burial, its halves separated by decades and an ocean before scholars realised they belonged to the same book — spells for healing, visions, love and raising the dead, written in a hand that switched fluently between Egyptian and Greek.

A note on the name: "Leiden Papyrus" is not a single, unambiguous title — several distinct papyri housed at Leiden University share the name, including a separate alchemical text (Leyden Papyrus X, concerned with metallurgy and imitation gold, not spellcraft). This page concerns the specific magical handbook now known jointly as the Demotic Magical Papyrus of London and Leiden, its two halves split between two different national collections.

Section 01

A Book Split in Two

The papyrus was discovered at Thebes in Egypt in the early 19th century, part of a large cache of magical texts acquired by Jean d'Anastasi, an adventurer then serving as Swedish vice-consul in Alexandria. Anastasi sold much of his collection to the Dutch government in 1828, and this papyrus entered the Leiden Museum's holdings — but the manuscript had, at some earlier point, already been torn into two separate pieces. One portion remained with the Leiden collection; the other was later sold at a separate 1857 auction of further Anastasi material and acquired by the British Museum in London.

Scholars eventually recognised that the London and Leiden fragments were two halves of a single original document, and the text is now studied and published jointly as the Demotic Magical Papyrus of London and Leiden. Written in the 2nd or 3rd century CE, it is bilingual — combining Demotic Egyptian script with substantial passages of Greek — reflecting the genuinely mixed linguistic and religious world of Roman-era Egypt.

Section 02

What's Inside

Healing
Spells to Cure Disease
A substantial portion of the handbook addresses illness directly — practical remedies invoked through ritual formula rather than only herbal medicine.
Visionary
Spells to Obtain Visions
Techniques for inducing direct visionary experience or contact with divine and spirit entities — a genre shared closely with the broader Greek Magical Papyri corpus.
Erotic
Love & Attraction Magic
A significant number of spells are devoted to erotic and relationship magic — among the most commonly requested categories of magical service in the ancient world, then as now.
Necromantic
Spells to Raise the Dead
Ritual procedures for contacting or reanimating the deceased, reflecting Egyptian magical tradition's long-standing engagement with death and the afterlife.

The text invokes an unusually wide range of divine and spiritual figures — traditional Egyptian deities appear alongside entities drawn from Gnostic cosmology, including the Aeons of the Gnostic pleroma, a genuine and striking fusion of Pharaonic religious tradition with the newer Hellenistic-Gnostic spiritual currents circulating through Roman Egypt.

Section 03

A History of Rediscovery

2nd–3rd century CE
Composition
The handbook is compiled in Thebes, likely for use by a working ritual practitioner serving paying clients.
Early 19th century
Anastasi's Acquisition
Jean d'Anastasi acquires the already-divided papyrus, along with a substantial cache of related Greek and Demotic magical texts.
1828
Leiden Portion Sold
The Dutch government purchases the bulk of Anastasi's collection, including the Leiden half of the manuscript.
1857
London Portion Sold
The companion fragment is sold at a later Anastasi auction in Paris and acquired by the British Museum.
20th century
Scholarly Reunification
Egyptological scholarship identifies the London and Leiden fragments as a single original document, publishing them jointly as the Demotic Magical Papyrus of London and Leiden.
Section 04

The Legacy

Beyond its magical content, the papyrus holds genuine scholarly importance for a second reason entirely: it was a key document in helping 19th and 20th-century scholars decipher Demotic, the everyday cursive Egyptian script that had by this period largely displaced hieroglyphic and hieratic writing for practical use. Its bilingual Greek-Demotic passages provided valuable comparative material for reconstructing the Demotic language's grammar and vocabulary.

The text remains a cornerstone primary source for understanding how magic was actually practised in Roman Egypt — not as abstract theology but as a working trade, addressing the concrete, universal concerns of ordinary clients: sickness, love, ambition and death.

Essential Reading
F.Ll. Griffith and Herbert Thompson's early 20th-century edition, The Demotic Magical Papyrus of London and Leiden, remains a foundational scholarly translation and study of the text.
The Honest History
Popular references to "the Leiden Papyrus" frequently conflate several genuinely distinct manuscripts held at Leiden — this magical handbook, the separate alchemical Leyden Papyrus X, and other Demotic and Greek texts in the same collection. Precision about which specific papyrus is meant matters considerably.
Connections
The Leiden Papyrus connects to the Greek Magical Papyri (the broader corpus it belongs to), Hermeticism (the same Roman Egyptian religious environment), and Gnostic Gospels (the Aeon-invoking passages shared with this tradition).