When grappling with the extremely uncertain world in which they lived, Byzantine people felt able to choose within a pluralistic mixture of practices and a distinctly diverse set of attitudes, theories, and methodologies. Thinking about ‘drugs’ in Byzantine magic thus involves an exploration of one small part of the fluid spectrum of possible responses that were open to people faced with ill health. Although modern scholars may once have considered these responses under such discrete headings as rational, spiritual, and magical, it is now widely recognised that such distinctions are not applicable. What constituted a drug for the Byzantines, how it was thought to work, and how it might be administered seem to have involved a considerably broader conceptual framework and range of practice than our own. Looking at specific examples of the use of ‘therapeutic substances’ in later Byzantine magic may help us understand this difference.

This chapter explores the relationship between medieval magic and religion. It considers the use of objects and material culture in ritual performances that may have been intended to heal, protect and transform the living and the dead. It examines three specific ritual technologies, with particular focus on medieval Scotland: the use of amulets; the deliberate burial or deposition of objects in sacred space; and the placing of objects with the medieval dead.

Chapter 4 demonstrates links back to Ramesside object preferences, and to precursors of Late Period object typologies. The material culture of everyday life and social practices of the people living at that time demonstrate the Third Intermediate Period as a distinctly defined cultural element within Egyptian society and Egyptology. There were changes in artefact usages and material culture, and implications for understanding characteristics of the object world of the period, and the lifecycles of the Third Intermediate Period population. The domestic material culture also demonstrates aspects of regionality in relation to the political fragmentation of the country. The ceramics of the period identify continuity or changes in storage, dining, and drinking cultures. Alongside ceramics, Chapter 4 also includes objects of personal adornment, tools, weapons, and re-used and salvaged stone. The artefacts and object-world of the settlements allow exploration of the social status of the population, their religious beliefs, the extent of elite emulation and self-sufficiency regarding elite object replication, the extent of object re-use and recycling, and the creation and availability of materials for object manufacture.