Ancient Fun Fact: A Real Egyptian Love Spell!

The ancient Egyptians weren't afraid to be, uhm, long-winded when it came to casting spells. Check this out--a real love spell found on a papyrus, from a man wanting a woman to fall in love with him.

It's a spell from the Greek period, around or before the time my novel's main character, Cleopatra Selene, lived in Egypt.

Also interesting: It's an appeal to the god ANUBIS, rather than the usual Isis.  Prepare yourself for a bit of, um, obsessive love (or lust, more like it). Here goes:

Anubis, god of the earth, underworld and heavens, dog dog dog, use all your strength and all your power on Tier (the woman in question), who was born by Sophia. Strip from her her pride, prudence and modesty, and bring her to me here, at my feet, languid with passion, at every hour of the day or night, dreaming of me ceaselessly, when she eats and when she drinks, when she works and even when she makes love, when she rests, when she dreams and when she is dreaming; when, tormented by you, she hastens, languisihing for me, wholeheartedly, her soul filled generosity, offering herself to me, and fulfills the duty of women towards men, serving to satisfy my lust and her own, never bored, without shame, rubbing her thigh against mine, her black down against my black down in the sweetest way! Yes, my master, bring me Tier, to whom Sophia gave birth.

Dude!

"Languid with passion!" "At every hour of the day or night..." "...languishing for me."

He's got it bad. But at least he thinks about her when he points out that it's her duty to satisfy her own lusts as well as his. 

Nevertheless, reciting the spell wasn't enough. Mr. Lovelorn also had to, at sunrise, drown a scarab beetle in the milk of a black cow, then cover it with sand and cloth and burn incense in front of it.  When it dried, he had to divide the bug in half with a bronze knife, cook it and then mash it with apple pips with either the magician's urine or sweat. Then he had to roll this fragrant mixture into a ball and plop it into wine. Oh, and one last thing--he had to make sure the woman he loved drank that wine.

Yeah. And we think match.com is weird.

Source: Magic and Mystery in Ancient Egypt, C. Jacq

Oh, Baby!

People often ask me what I found most surprising in researching Cleopatra for my upcoming book, CLEOPATRA RULES! They usually do so with a twinkle in their eye, hoping for some good juicy gossip on the supposed temptress queen.

Their eyes widen in surprise when I give them my answer: That Queen Cleopatra VII was the proud mother of four—yes, FOUR—children.

Most people don’t know that about our supposed sexpot queen. That’s because, thanks to Hollywood, people generally prefer to picture Cleo as a super-hot Elizabeth Taylor or Angelina Jolie.

Yet it could be argued that she relished her role as a mom of four. After all, she likened herself to Isis whose fertility resulted in Egypt’s first pharaoh, her son Horus. To the people of the Nile, a fertile queen boded well for fertile crops. She and her people likely saw her large family as specially blessed by the gods.

Now, keep in mind, we know only of the four children that survived childhood. She may have had others that didn’t make it. (Infant mortality, even in the glittering palaces of great queens, was sadly very high in the ancient world).

What happened to her kids after her death is another post. And, um, another upcoming book.

Art source: http://www.kamibloodart.com