Table Of ContentS t a t e A r c h iv e s o f A s s y r ia C u n e if o r m T e x t s
v o l u m e XI
TZVI A B U S C H
The Anti-witchcraft Series
A Student Edition and Selected Commentary
NEO-ASSYRIAN TEXT CORPUS PROJECT
PUBLICATIONS OF THE
FOUNDATION FOR FINNISH ASSYRIOLOGICAL RESEARCH
NO. 14
STATE ARCHIVES OF ASSYRIA CUNEIFORM TEXTS
VOLUME XI
State Archives of Assyria Cuneiform Texts (SAACT) is a series of text editions presenting
central pieces of Mesopotamian literature both in cuneiform and in transliteration, with
complete glossaries, name indexes and sign lists generated electronically from the
transliterations. The goal of the series is to eventually make the entire library of
Assurbanipal available in this format.
■a 3 $ A f t
© 2015 by the Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project, Helsinki
and the Foundation for Finnish Assyriological Research
All Rights Reserved
Published with the support of the
Foundation for
Finnish Assyriological Research
Set in Times
Typography and layout by Teemu Lipasti
Typesetting by Bronson Brown-deVost, Eric Harvey and Simo Parpola
The Assyrian Royal Seal emblem drawn by Dominique Collon from original
Seventh Century B.C. impressions (BM 84672 and 84677) in the British Museum
Cover: Cylinder seal from near Borsippa (ANE 134773), courtesy Trustees of the British
Museum
Printed in the USA and distributed by Eisenbrauns,
Winona Lake, Indiana 46590, USA
www .eisenbrauns .com
ISBN-10 952-10-1347-8 (Volume 11)
ISBN-13 978-952-10-1347-8 (Volume 11)
ISSN 1455-2345 (SAACT)
ISSN 1798-7431 (PFFAR)
STATE ARCHIVES OF ASSYRIA
CUNEIFORM TEXTS
VOLUME XI
The Anti-witchcraft Series
MAQLU
A STUDENT EDITION AND SELECTED COMMENTARY
By
Tzvi Abusch
THE NEO-ASSYRIAN TEXT CORPUS PROJECT
2 0 1 5
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
My edition of Maqlu has been in the works for a long time. I started studying
the tablets and fragments of Maqlu and searching for new texts around 1970 and
have pursued this endeavor, on and off, for many years. With few exceptions, I
have examined all the original tablets and/or their photographs.
I cannot emphasize strongly enough how much the edition has benefited from
the assistance and cooperation of a number of colleagues and institutions. The
reader interested in the details of my indebtedness should consult the preface to
my full scientific edition The Magical Ceremony Maqlu: A Critical Edition
(Ancient Magic and Divination 10; Leiden: Brill). All the same, here I would
mention by name those who made repeated contributions through identifications,
photographs, transliterations, and collations that they generously shared with me.
They are: the late Rykle Borger, Markham J. Geller, the late Wilfred G. Lambert,
Erie Leichty, Christopher Walker, and especially Daniel Schwemer. I must also
mention here the late Frederick W. Geers, among whose copies at the Oriental
Institute I identified some Maqlu fragments.
Maqlu tablets and fragments are found in a number of museums, and I express
my gratitude to the Middle East Department (formerly Western Asiatic
Antiquities) of the British Museum; the Vorderasiatisches Museum, Berlin; the
Oriental Institute, University of Chicago; the Babylonian Collection, University
of Pennsylvania; the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford; the Anadolu Medeniyetleri
Miizesi, Ankara; the Istanbul Arkeoloji Miizeleri, Istanbul.
I am indebted to and express my sincerest thanks to several graduate students
in the Bible and Ancient Near East program of Brandeis University who worked
with me on the SAACT edition and commentary of Maqlu. They are: Christopher
Anderson,1 Bronson Brown-deVost2 Molly DeMarco,3 Eric Harvey,4 Sung-Chun
Kim,5 and Robert McChesney.6 Their work was supported by the Theodore and
Jane Norman Awards for Faculty Scholarship of Brandeis University, the
1 Christopher Anderson turned my transliteration into ASCII so that the programs and fonts
created by the SAACT Project could produce the cuneiform text, glossary, and indices.
2 Bronson Brown-deVost inputted and reviewed the original transliteration that served as the
basis for the ASCII program, reviewed the introduction and proofread the glossary and indices
with me, and kept track of the many things that had to be included in the volume.
3 Molly DeMarco worked with me preparing lists of manuscripts, lists of published copies, and
a preliminary bibliography.
4 Eric Harvey worked with me revising and editing the commentary; he also formatted the
Introduction, the Commentary, and the Bibliographies in camera ready copy.
5 Sung-Chun Kim formatted the Concordance of Manuscripts, the Publication Information
regarding the published copies of Maqlu tablets, and the Bibliographies; he also reviewed all
the above for omissions and mistakes.
6 Robert McChesney proofread the text generated by the SAACT project: the transliteration,
the glossary-indices, and the sign list.
MAQLU
GTR/GSFR fund of the Department of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies, and the
graduate fellowship program. I thank Brandeis University for its support.
I thank Simo Parpola for inviting me to contribute an edition of Maqlu to
SAACT and for suggesting that I include summaries of some of my studies of the
text in the form of a commentary. Simo has provided prompt direction when
called upon and has invested a lot of time and effort in preparing the final version
of the transliteration, cuneiform text, and glossary and indices for publication. I
am grateful to him and to The Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project, Helsinki, for
their work on this volume.
My deep appreciation and sincere gratitude to all.
CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS......................................................................................v
INTRODUCTION..................................................................................................ix
ABBREVIATIONS............................................................................................xxxi
BIBLIOGRAPHY...................................................... xxxiv
CUNEIFORM TEXT...............................................................................................1
TRANSLITERATION ........................................................................................49
COMMENTARY ..................................................................................................99
GLOSSARY AND INDICES
Logograms and their Readings......................................................................177
Glossary.............................................................................................................179
Index of Names...............................................................................................200
SIGN LIST ...........................................................................................................203
INTRODUCTION
Maqlu
At the heart of this volume is a student edition of the Akkadian magical series and
ceremony Maqlu, “Burning.” This edition includes a computer-generated cuneiform
text, a transliteration, a detailed commentary, and computer-generated glossaries and
indices. The introduction itself contains information on the composition, its text, and
the SAACT edition, as well as a listing of the individual Maqlu manuscripts.
Before going into any further detail about this volume, I would say a few words of
introduction about the Maqlu composition itself.
Maqlu comprises eight tablets of incantations and a ritual tablet. In the main, the
incantations and rituals of Maqlu are directed against witches and witchcraft. The
incantation tablets record the text of almost one hundred incantations; in the ritual
tablet, these incantations are cited by their incipit, their opening line, and alongside
each citation appropriate ritual directions are prescribed. In fact, Maqlu is the longest
and most important of the Mesopotamian texts concerned with combating witchcraft.
Maqlu is a member of that branch of the Mesopotamian therapeutic literary
tradition that is directed against witchcraft. The anti-witchcraft corpus includes a
large body of very significant and interesting prayers, incantations, magical rituals,
and medical prescriptions. These magical and medical texts attribute misfortune and
ill-health to the machinations of a group of people designated as witches and
prescribe the means of combating the witch and witchcraft. They set out the various
ceremonies, devices, and treatments that are to be used to dispel witchcraft, to destroy
the witch (symbolically), and to protect and cure the patient.1
Generally speaking, select portions of incantations were originally recorded as an
aide-memoire, but eventually entire incantations were committed to writing, and
instructions regarding the time, place, and manner of ritual performance as well as
other types of information (particularly, an objective description of the problem, a
diagnosis, and a statement of purpose) were added. Thus, incantations are found in
various written contexts: 1) as part of rituals; 2) in short collections of incantations
(with some ritual instructions); 3) and in standardized scribal series. Some of these
series were collections, others prescribed complex lengthy ceremonies.
The Akkadian magical series Maqlu was long thought to be a random collection of
witchcraft materials. An important breakthrough in the understanding of the text came
with my discovery that it was a single complex ceremony. The ceremony was
performed during a single night and into the following morning at the end of the
1 For the anti-witchcraft corpus, see now Tzvi Abusch and Daniel Schwemer, Corpus of
Mesopotamian Anti-witchcraft Rituals, volume I (Ancient Magic and Divination 8/1; Leiden: Brill,
2011). Future volumes are in preparation.
