Renowned marine archaeologist Frank Goddio has unearthed (unwatered?) a controversial object which may link early Christianity to magickal pagan traditions. His team has found a bowl in the waters off Alexandria that is engraved with what they believe “could be the world’s first known reference to Christ”:
The full engraving on the bowl reads, “DIA CHRSTOU O GOISTAIS,” which has been interpreted by the excavation team to mean either, “by Christ the magician” or, “the magician by Christ.” “It could very well be a reference to Jesus Christ, in that he was once the primary exponent of white magic,” Goddio, co-founder of the Oxford Center of Maritime Archaeology, said.
…Both Goddio and Egyptologist David Fabre, a member of the European Institute of Submarine Archaeology, think a “magus” could have practiced fortune telling rituals using the bowl. The Book of Matthew refers to “wisemen,” or Magi, believed to have been prevalent in the ancient world.
According to Fabre, the bowl is also very similar to one depicted in two early Egyptian earthenware statuettes that are thought to show a soothsaying ritual.
“It has been known in Mesopotamia probably since the 3rd millennium B.C.,” Fabre said. “The soothsayer interprets the forms taken by the oil poured into a cup of water in an interpretation guided by manuals.” He added that the individual, or “medium,” then goes into a hallucinatory trance when studying the oil in the cup.
The finding is rather speculative at this point though, with the article quoting other scholars with completely different interpretations.
