Dosoo, KorshiNodar Domínguez, AlbertoSarischouli, Panagiota2025-05-052025-05-052024Dosoo K, Nodar A, Sarischouli P. Bilingual Scribes in Magical Formularies: The Cases of PGM/PDM XII (= GEMF 15) and XIV (= GEMF 16). Symbolae osloenses. 2024;98(1):137-68. DOI: 10.1080/00397679.2025.24547571502-7805http://hdl.handle.net/10230/70279This paper aims to offer a detailed palaeographical study of the stylistic peculiarities of the scribes involved in the copying of two bilingual magical formularies from the so-called Theban Magical Library. Our study concludes that both GEMF 15 and 16 were produced under the supervision of the same principal scribe-user who was probably trained in the tradition of the Egyptian temple priesthood, the only context in which the necessary knowledge of the Egyptian scripts (Demotic, Hieratic, Old Coptic) would have been available in the second century CE. This bilingual (Demotic/Greek) scribe appears to have copied the long Demotic sections of both manuscripts, and although he also wrote the short Greek sections integrated into the Demotic (either in-line or as glosses), he invited three further scribes – more highly trained in Greek – to copy the extensive Greek sections of both manuscripts.application/pdfeng© 2025 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial- NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent.info:eu-repo/semantics/articlehttp://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00397679.2025.2454757ThebesMagical handbooksBilingual scribesTemple scriptoriainfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess