Paratextual signs in the medico-magical texts of the New Kingdom

This talk aims at describing the use of paratext in the medico-magical corpus of the New Kingdom (c. 1570-1069). The focus will be on hieratic texts written on papyri and ostraca. The first part will consist in typological considerations. From a formal point of view, paratextual notations will be grouped into three categories: (1) paratextual signs stricto sensu; (2) those that are not paratextual signs strictly speaking, as they are hieroglyphic signs, but that have to be understood as such; (3) the use of other visual means (red ink, size of the characters, blank spaces, …) to indicate that some elements are to be read as paratext. In the second part of the talk, we will define the functions (punctuation, emendation marks, layout marking, reading instructions, ...) and the uses of all these signs.