What Kind of Alchemy is Attested by Tenth-Century Coptic Manuscripts?

摘要

This article places the four extant Coptic alchemical manuscripts within thecontext of the tradition of Coptic scientific texts. One of the manuscripts isa palimpsest written over an erased literary text, apparently in the tenthcentury. The other three all come from the same library, and are unlikely tobe later than the mid-tenth century. Their vocabulary, form and contents areanalysed, and the wonderful "machine of the sages" is introduced. It isshown that the texts most likely depend on Arabic alchemical texts, becauseof the number of Arabic words left in transliteration, and their style. In thiscase, they are the earliest witnesses to Arabic alchemy.