Search Results

The Akkadian series Maqlû, 'Burning', remains the most important magical text against witchcraft from Mesopotamia and perhaps from the entire ancient Near East. Maqlû is a nine-tablet work consisting of the text of almost 100 incantations and accompanying rituals directed against witches and witchcraft. The work prescribes a single complex ceremony and stands at the end of a complex literary and ceremonial development. Thus, Maqlû provides important information not only about the literary forms and cultural ideas of individual incantations, but also about larger ritual structures and thematic relations of complex ceremonies. This new edition of the standard text contains a synoptic edition of all manuscripts, a composite text in transliteration, an annotated transcription and translation.

"These were only minor remarks scribbled in the margins of an excellent and most welcome edition of Maqlû, a real monument. This book is the firm foundation on which future studies on Maqlû will be based." Marten Stol, NINO Leiden, Bibliotheca Orientalis lxxIII n° 5-6, September-December 2016

This volume is about the history, literature, ritual, and thought associated with ancient Mesopotamian witchcraft.
With chapters on the changing forms and roles of witchcraft beliefs, the ritual function, form, and development of the Maqlû text (the most important ancient work on the subject), and the meaning of the Maqlû ceremony, as well as the ideology of the final version of the text. The volume significantly contributes to our understanding of the Maqlû text, and the reconstruction of the development of thought about witchcraft and magic in Mesopotamia.