Ram’s horn – An Ancient Egyptian Herb and How to Use It

The author of this ancient Egyptian magical papyrus wrote down the Demotic (Egyptian) words for plants and minerals and then added their Greek terms. We don’t have ancient drawings of magico-medical plants, instead the plants were described, like in the following example.

Ram’s horn: Kephalekê is its name,
a herb which is like a wild fennel bush,
its leaf and its stem are incised in the manner of
the „Man loving plant“. You pound it when it is dry,
you sift it, you make it into dry powder, you put it
on any wound, it heals.
(pdm xiv / PGM XIV, verso col. 4, 10-15)

Kephaleke - Papyrus AMS 65, 2nd-3rd century (C) Rijksmuseum van Oudheden, Leiden.

Here you can see the transcription of the Demotic text and below it the original writing.

Kephaleke - Papyrus AMS 65, 2nd-3rd century (C) Rijksmuseum van Oudheden, Leiden. Drawing: Griffith, Thompson (1905)
Kephaleke – Papyrus AMS 65, 2nd/3rd century. (C) Rijksmuseum van Oudheden, Leiden.

Papyrus: The London-Leiden Magical Papyrus (pdm xiv / PGM XIV), 2nd/3rd century, Egypt, kept at the Rijksmuseum van Oudheden, Leiden, Netherlands.