This article explores the similarities and differences between Babylonian incantation bowls and Graeco-Roman binding spells and ‘prayers for justice’. It does not intend to demonstrate a direct historical link between the two, but rather to examine the conceptual relations between magical texts and artefacts stemming from different cultures.
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D. Levene, Jewish Aramaic Curse Texts from Late-Antique Mesopotamia: May These Curses Go Out and Flee (Magical and Religious Literature of Late Antiquity, 2, Leiden: Brill, 2013).
H. Pognon, Inscriptions mandaïtes des coupes de Khouabir (Paris: Imprimerie nationale, 1898), bowls 21, 28, 29, 30; M. Lidzbarski (ed.), Ephemeris für semitische Epigraphik, vol. I (Giessen: J. Ricker [A. Töpelmann], 1902–1915, 3 vols) pp. 89–106, bowls I–IV; C.H. Gordon, ‘Aramaic and Mandaic Magic Bowls’, Archiv Orientální 9 (1937), pp. 84–106, bowl M (95–100); J.B. Segal, with a contribution by E.C.D. Hunter, Catalogue of the Aramaic and Mandaic Incantation Bowls in the British Museum (London: British Museum Press, 2000, henceforth CAMIB), bowls 090M, 091M, 092M, 093M, 094M, 095M, 096M, 097M, 103M.
Saar, ‘An Incantation Bowl’. Another artifact that may stem from an erotic context is a human skull inscribed in Aramaic deriving from late-antique Mesopotamia, whose text presumably demands that the target may eat and drink but not be satiated. Parallels for such requests appear in recipes for love magic from the Cairo Genizah. See D. Levene, ‘Calvariae Magicae: The Berlin, Philadelphia and Moussaieff Skulls’, Orientalia 75 (2006), pp. 359–379.
Levene, Jewish Aramaic Curse Texts, pp. 87–89. A possible judicial context for this bowl and the following two is suggested also by Levene on p. 6.
R. Kotansky, Greek Magical Amulets: The Inscribed Gold, Silver, Copper and Bronze Lamellae (Papyrologica Coloniensia, 22/1, Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1994), no. 24, pp. 97–100. I thank Christopher Faraone for bringing this item to my attention.
See the discussion in R.L. Gordon, ‘Gods, Guilt and Suffering: Psychological Aspects of Cursing in the North-Western Provinces of the Roman Empire’, Acta Classica Univ. Scient. Debrecen. 49 (2013), pp. 255–281 (267–269): ‘the instrumental religion of one party is the malign magic of the other party’ (269).
Versnel, ‘Beyond Cursing’, pp. 68–72. The term ‘prayers for revenge’ was traditionally applied to texts inscribed on stone (epitaphs) or papyrus, in which one or more individuals appealed to divine forces and asked them for retribution, often for a murder that remained unpunished by the earthly legal authorities. See the references in Versnel, ‘Prayers for Justice, East and West’, pp. 275–276, note 3.
Roughly one quarter, according to Gager, Curse Tablets, p. 78. On these aims see e.g. J.J. Winkler, ‘The Constraints of Eros’, in Faraone and Obbink (eds.), Magika Hiera, pp. 214–243; D.G. Martinez, P. Michigan XVI: A Greek Love Charm from Egypt (P. Mich. 757) (American Studies in Papyrology, 30, Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1991); C.A. Faraone, Ancient Greek Love Magic (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999), with an exhaustive bibliography; E. Eidinow, Oracles, Curses and Risk among the Ancient Greeks (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007) chapter 11.
See also the table in Levene, Jewish Aramaic Curse Texts, pp. 2–4.
Faraone, ‘The Agonistic Context’, p. 4. See also Versnel, ‘Writing Mortals and Reading Gods’, esp. pp. 60–62. Lead tablets are attested in the Greek world also as a letter writing medium. Approximately thirty lead letters dated to the Archaic and Classical periods have been uncovered in locations such as Attica, Olbia and Hermonassa. Some of them were rolled or folded, just like the binding tablets, and it seems that often they resulted from circumstances of crisis. For a discussion of these letters, including their resemblance to binding tablets, see E. Eidinow and C. Taylor, ‘Lead-Letter Days: Writing, Communication and Crisis in the Ancient Greek World’, ClQ 60 (2010), pp. 30–62 (esp. 42–46). See also P. Ceccarelli, Ancient Greek Letter Writing: A Cultural History (600BC – 150BC) (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013) pp. 47–53.
For which see E.G. Kagarow, Griechische Fluchtafeln (Eus Supplementa, 4, Lviv: Societas philologa polonorum, and Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1929) pp. 34–44.
Faraone, ‘The Agonistic Context’, pp. 6–8; C.A. Faraone and A. Kropp, ‘Inversion, Adversion and Perversion as Strategies in Latin Curse-Tablets’, in Gordon and Simón (eds.), Magical Practice in the Latin West, pp. 381–398. For examples from Jewish contexts see L. Blau, Das altjüdische Zauberwesen (Westmead: Gregg International Publishers, repr. 1970 [orig. pub. 1898]), pp. 85, 147–149; J. Naveh, ‘Lamp Inscriptions and Inverted Writing’, IEJ 38 (1988), pp. 36–43.
M. Guilmot, ‘Les Lettres aux morts dans l’Égypte ancienne’, Revue de l’histoire des religions 170 (1966), pp. 1–27 (1).
See the synopsis in Levene, Jewish Aramaic Curse Texts, p. 41.
G. Németh, ‘Audollent’s Demons’, Eirene 49 (2013), pp. 123–134, maintains that only 15% of the tablets recorded by Audollent contained drawings.
See e.g., F. Pomponio (ed.), Formule di maledizione della Mesopotamia preclassica (Testi del Vicino Oriente antico, 2, Brescia: Paideia Editrice, 1990); J. Assmann, ‘When Justice Fails: Jurisdiction and Imprecation in Ancient Egypt and the Near East’, Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 78 (1992), pp. 149–162.
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This article explores the similarities and differences between Babylonian incantation bowls and Graeco-Roman binding spells and ‘prayers for justice’. It does not intend to demonstrate a direct historical link between the two, but rather to examine the conceptual relations between magical texts and artefacts stemming from different cultures.
All Time | Past Year | Past 30 Days | |
---|---|---|---|
Abstract Views | 462 | 67 | 2 |
Full Text Views | 188 | 6 | 0 |
PDF Views & Downloads | 134 | 15 | 1 |