Incantations and Anti-Witchcraft Texts from Ugarit

289 Pages·2014·20.76 MB·English

by  Gregorio del Olmo Lete

Gregorio del Olmo Lete
Incantations and Anti-Witchcraft Texts from Ugarit
With a contribution by Ignacio Márquez Rowe
Studies in Ancient
Near Eastern Records
General Editor:
Gonzalo Rubio
Editors:
Petra Goedegebuure, Amélie Kuhrt, Markus Hilgert,
Peter Machinist, Piotr Michalowski, Cécile Michel,
Beate Pongratz-Leisten, D.T. Potts, Kim Ryholt
Volume 4
Gregorio del Olmo Lete
Incantations and
Anti-Witchcraft Texts
from Ugarit
With a contribution by Ignacio Márquez Rowe
DE GRUYTER
ISBN978-1-61451-627-9
e-ISBN978-1-61451-492-3
ISSN2161-4415
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Prologue
The main texts gathered in this miscellany have been published, in a slightly
different form, in various occasional publications, mainly Festschriften pre-
sented to colleagues, which are not easily accessible.1 However, they form a
thematic unit and as such they were approached one by one from a unified
point of view, which amounted to a new overall interpretation. Therefore it
has seemed suitable to present them together in order to enhance the signifi-
canceofthistypeofmagicliteratureatUgarit,aliteraturesooverwhelmingly
present in the Mesopotamian world. The dependence of the Ugaritic texts on
this literature is clear in many a respect, but even so clearly differentiating
features are evident.2
A series of contrasted digital photographs have been provided in order
to facilitate the epigraphic control of those sometimes badly damaged and
fragmentarytexts.ThephotographsofUgaritictextsweretakenintheDamas-
cusNationalMuseumonthefirstdaysofMarch2011byprofessionalphotogra-
phers (Mr Fansa Saad and Mr Dibbo ed-Dibbo) under the author’s personal
supervision, who took advantage of this opportunity to collate the controver-
sialreadings.Thequalityofthesephotographsmeansthathand-copiesofthe
textsareunnecessary.Nevertheless,theyhavebeenincluded,andweremade
by my friend and colleague at the I.P.O.A., Prof. Lluis Feliu, an Assyriologist
whohasexperienceincopyingSumero-Akkadiantexts.Hiscopiesarefarbet-
terthanmine.TohimIexpressmysincerethanks.Incontrast,nohand-copies
of the Akkadian texts are provided, since the present circumstances do not
allowapersonalcollationofthetabletsandthephotographsarenotsatisfac-
toryenoughforthispurpose.3Thereadercanusetothehand-copiesprovided
by Nougayrol and Arnaud in their text editions.
The aim of this presentation is to provide a kind of monograph or hand-
book of the Ugaritic ritual magic incantations against impending dangers
1 See“Bibliography”fordetails.Allthesestudies,exceptthatofKTU1.178[RS92.2014],were
alreadydealtwithinCanaaniteReligion(1999/2004);thistreatmenthasnowbeensuperseded
bythisnewanalysisthatwillbesummarizedintheforthcomingthirdeditionofthiswork.
2 Theterm“conjuration”hasbeenavoidedinthiscontext,sinceinEnglishitseemstohave
a connotation of “summoning up a ghost”; see in this regard Scurlock, J. 1999:77, n. 49.
Instead,Spanish“conjuro”correspondstoEnglish“incantation”,asdoesGerman“Beschwö-
rung”.
3 ThephotographsofalltheAkkadiantextswereprovidedbythe“Maisondel’Orient”(Lyon)
andalsobytheDamascusMuseum.However,thoseoftabletsRS94.2178and94.2964arenot
published, respecting in this way the priory right of the forthcoming official edition of the
completesetofAkkadiantabletsfromtheRSseasons1994–2002.
vi Prologue
(mainlysnakebite)andanti-witchcrafttexts,placingalloftheminthegeneral
contextofancientNearEasternmagicliterature.Asanillustrativesupplement,
some additional articles and philological notes have also been provided, that
deal with aspects approaching those touched in the texts analysed. On the
contrary, the presentation of the divinatory and prophylactic texts, like KTU
1.114, has not been included, since they have all already been dealt with in
Canaanite Religion according to the liturgical texts of Ugarit4 and nothing sig-
nificantly new is available.
AsfortheAkkadianincantationtextsfromUgarit,Icompletelyagreewith
Clemens’ critical assessment of the “irrelevance” and “neglect” these have
experienced among the scholars who have dealt with this kind of literature.5
I have always been in favour of looking at Akkadian prototypes to obtain a
reliable understanding of the genre and my interpretation of KTU 1.96, put
forward in 1992, is a good example of this.6 It is true that I have never dealt
with those texts nor have included them in the corresponding section of
Canaanite Religion, as this work was limited to the consonantal texts. Never-
theless,Itookintoaccount,somewhatintensively,themostimportantofthem
in the latest revision of KTU 1.96.7
Consequently, I decided to complement the studies on the incantation
texts in alphabetic Ugaritic with those in Akkadian as well, in an attempt to
give a provisional response to Clemens’ complaint:
nocomprehensive studyofthe incantationsdiscoveredat RasShamraexists, although
theyrepresentwiththelettersandlegaldocumentsoneofthemostreadilycomparable
genresforwhichpublicationsexistinbothlanguages.Thus,theissueoftherelationship
between the Ug. and Ug.-Akk. documents of this genre has scarcely arisen. Due to the
contentofincantations,typicallyincludingbothmythologicalandritualmaterialinvary-
ingproportions,theexactextentandcompositionoftheUg.incantationcorpushasnever
been defined rigorously, which represents one precondition for such a comparison; as
a result, studies of such texts tend to be selective and to distribute them in different
publications.8
For the reading and interpretation of these texts, which is not directly within
mycompetence,9Iinitiallymadeuseofthenewedition(transcription,transla-
4 SeeDelOlmoLete,G.2014:290–304(“ReligionandMagic”).
5 SeeClemens,D.M.2001:577–605.
6 OnthepresenceoftheMesopotamiantraditionintheUgariticincantationtextsseeClem-
ens,D.M.2001:731,746–747.
7 SeeDelOlmoLete,G,2010a.
8 SeeClemens,D.M.2001:597–598,1114ff.
9 After following an Akkadian introductory course given by Prof. Karlheinz Deller (Rome,
1964),mypersonalstudyoftheAkkadiangrammarandsyllabaryallowsmetoreadtransliter-
atedtextsandtocheckthevariousvaluesofthecuneiformsigns.
Prologue vii
tion, commentary and hand copy) of the main Ug.-Akk. incantation texts (fif-
teeninnumber)publishedbyD.Arnaud.10Inmanyrespects,itisanimprove-
mentonthefirstpioneercollationsandhandcopiesprovidedbyJ.Nougayrol
in PRU III and Ugaritica V and VI. But besides that, I could not do without
taking a fresh look at these texts on the basis of the new set of photographs
kindly put at our disposal by Dr Valérie Matoïan, Director of the Maison de
l’Orient et de la Méditerranée (Mission de Ras Shamra-Ougarit) (texts from the
“La Maison d’Ourtenu”) and by Mme Muyassar Fattal Yabrudi, chief curator
of the epigraphic archives of the Damascus Museum (the rest of the texts),
since direct collation of the tablets is out of the question at the moment. The
task (first-hand transcription and translation with philological commentary)
wascarriedoutbymyfriendandcolleagueIgnacioMárquezRowe,researcher
in the Ancient Near East division of the CCHS/CSIC (Madrid), an internation-
allyrecognised expertinthe AkkadianofUgarit.Starting fromhistranslation
andtransliteration, thecontent ofthetexts wasset inthe generalperspective
of the Ugaritic incantation texts and practice.
In this connection, one thing becomes apparent: in spite of the manifold
correlations and lexical loans, the two sets of texts maintain a clear-cut inde-
pendentstructureandsetofmythologicalmotifs,aswellastheirownpanthe-
ons. We have not come across any Ugaritic consonantal text that could be
taken as a translation from a known Akkadian prototype. In this connection,
the role that these Akkadian texts could have played in Ugaritic religious
praxis (as was the case of the ritual texts in Hurrian) remains a debatable
issue.11
In any case, it is hoped that the combined presentation of all these texts
in this monograph will be useful for those interested in the subject.
Idonotwanttoclosetheseintroductoryremarkswithoutexpressingonce
again my deepest gratitude to my above-mentioned friends, Mme Yabroudi,
Dr Matoïan, Dr Márquez Rowe and Prof. Lluis Feliu, for their invaluable help
in the completion of this work. I am also indebted to the anonymous readers
for their valuable feedback. In this connection I must thank particularly the
SANEReditor,Prof.GonzaloRubio,whokindlyacceptedthebookintheseries
andhelpedmetocopewiththeeditorialrequirements.InhisturnDr.Watson
has carried out the reading and correction of the language of the original,
offering at the same time some very interesting insights for which all I feel
particularly indebted. Of course, any possible weakness in this regard is my
own responsibility.
10 SeeArnaud,D.2007.
11 SeeinthisconnectionClemens,D.M.2001:115.

Contents
Introduction: Magic and Witchcraft 1
The Ugaritic Gods and Magic 16
The Babylonian Incantation Texts from Ugarit 36
Dubious and Incorrectly Identified Ugaritic Incantation Texts 81
KTU 1.82: A Miscellaneous Incantation/Anti-Witchcraft Text against
Snakebite 109
KTU 1.96: An Incantation against the “Evil Eye” 129
KTU 1.96 Once Again 140
KTU 1.107: A Compendium of Incantations against Snakebite 157
KTU 1.169: A Compendium of Incantations against Word Sorcery 165
KTU 1.178: An Incantation against Snakebite for Personal Use 173
KTU 1.100: The Prototype Canonical Incantation Text 188
Conclusion: ỉl and ḥrn: Divine Power versus Magic 205
Bibliography 213
Indices 231
Handcopies
Plates