Further Studies on Mesopotamian Witchcraft Beliefs and Literature - (Ancient Magic and Divination) by Tzvi Abusch (Hardcover)

About the Book

Further Studies on Mesopotamian Witchcraft offers a collection of studies of Akkadian incantations and rituals directed against witchcraft. Many of these essays offer solutions for literary and textual difficulties in these texts through analysis and reconstruction of their historical development.

Book Synopsis

Among the most important sources for understanding the cultures, religions, and systems of thought of ancient Mesopotamia is the large corpus of magical and medical texts directed against witchcraft. The most important of these texts is the Akkadian series Maqlû ("Burning").

This volume offers a collection of studies on Mesopotamian witchcraft and Maqlû written subsequent to the appearance of the author's 2002 collection of studies on witchcraft (Brill, 2002). Many of the studies reprinted here take a diachronic approach to individual incantations and rituals and attempt to solve textual difficulties using literary-critical and/or text-critical approaches.

About the Author

Tzvi Abusch, Ph.D. (1972), Harvard University, is Cohen Professor Emeritus of Assyriology and Ancient Near Eastern Religion at Brandeis University. His primary fields of publication are Mesopotamian religion and literature. Some of his early studies on Babylonian witchcraft are found in Mesopotamian Witchcraft (Brill, 2002). He is co-author of Corpus of Mesopotamian Anti-witchcraft Rituals (Brill, 2011-2020).