Corpus of Mesopotamian anti-witchcraft rituals: text editions, lexical annotation and indexing, historical and literary analysis

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Daniel Schwemer
• Subject Area: Egyptology and Ancient Near Eastern Studies
• Term: from 2012 to 2018
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 216046777

In all periods of ancient Near Eastern history, witchcraft ('black magic') was regarded as a potential cause of physical and mental illnesses. The diagnosis of an affliction as witchcraft-induced implied that the assumption that the patient had been attacked and defiled by fellow humans with evil intention by means of illegal ritual practices or manipulated substances. 'Bewitchment' was not one single disease, but could manifest itself in the patient's body or in his environment in various forms. Numerous rituals, incantations and prescriptions as well as diagnostic texts provide information on the concepts and practices of ancient Mesopotamian magic and medicine. Among these texts - clay tablets inscribed in cuneiform script -, there is a large group of magical and medical texts that are concerned with the diagnosis and, more importantly, the therapy of illnesses that were diagnosed as witchcraft-induced. Most of the (mostly Akkadian, but also Sumerian) texts of this group come from collections of cuneiform tablets from 2nd and 1st millennium Babylonia and Assyria. The research project Corpus babylonischer Rituale und Beschwörungen gegen Schadenzauber (Corpus of Mesopotamian Anti-witchcraft Rituals) will provide a comprehensive critical edition (including translations and commentaries) of this text group which is of prime importance for the history of religion, magic and medicine of the ancient Near East and also contributes to the understanding of the social history and the history of ideas of the ancient Near East more generally. The text editions will be published as books, but will also be available as a web-based, open access, lexically annotated version.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants