Dear friends,
Thank you for supporting Interlinear Magic: An Anthology of the Greco-Egyptian Magical Papyri. What you have provided with your Kickstarter pledges is truly a blessing, in that it allows me to devote the lion’s share of my time and attention to making this book the best it can possibly be. I can’t sufficiently express how grateful I am for this opportunity!
This is the first of several status updates on the book’s progress. Below I will discuss the translations, the overall (re-)organization of the volume, and the remaining work to be done.
I am now done with all the base-level translations, including all the additional material that was added through stretch goals (a lot more than I was expecting!). This means that all the interlinear translation (Greek and English) are done and formatted, leaving some of the (much easier) English translations to be completed, although many of those are done as well. Once this second level of translations is complete, I should have a much more accurate estimate of the page count, but it looks like it will be well over 300 pages at this point.
Including all the additional stretch-goal material has also required revamping the organization of the book in order to group all the rituals together in the most logical way. The updated table of contents will be sent in the next update.
Most of the remaining writing (and research) at this point involves the introductory material, commentaries, and cross-references. Because most of this analysis is based on a close comparative reading of the individual ritual texts, this aspect of the work has become much more complicated since the material being compared has grown from 40 ritual texts to more than 70.
Am I saying there will be a delay with the book? Probably, but my goal is to still get a complete draft written before the end of December. Thus, I am not updating the delivery estimate at this point, but I will do that before the next update.
I will say that the sheer volume of “aha!” moments I have had in putting this book together has been extraordinary. The number of new findings I will be including in the book far surpasses what I originally thought to include. I am also commissioning additional artwork based on some of these findings. There will also be a website for the book (coming soon), where I will post regular updates (and excerpts) as the delivery date draws near.
Thanks again for your tremendous support! Please let me know if you have any questions.
Sincerely,
Brian P. Alt, PhD