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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

1. The Chronicle of Bone in Bugis historiography -- 2. The definition of the work -- 3. The manuscript -- 4. The choice of this version of the work -- 5. Principles of transcription -- 6. Principles of translation -- 7. The nature of the work -- 8. The date of the work and the problem of the end -- 9. Early Western-language comment on the events of the chronicle -- 10. Previous editions and published translations of the chronicle -- 11. Commentary on the chronicle -- Appendix 1: Other manuscript versions of the chronicle -- Appendix 2: Absolute reign dates -- Appendix 3: Placenames in the chronicle -- The Bugis Chronicle of Bone: English text -- The Bugis Chronicle of Bone: Bugis text.