Shaul Shaked

Joseph Naveh

It was a widespread practice in the area of Palestine, Syria and Asia Minor during the fourth to the seventh centuries of the current era to use talismans written on metal sheets in order to ward off the powers of evil, to heal people, or to gain the love of a person. The common Babylonian practice of the same period was to write incantation texts on earthenware bowls. This book contains the texts of all the legible amulets in Aramaic known today, as well as 13 hitherto unpublished bowls. The texts are proved with translations and commentaries, and a detailed glossary of all the words is given. The study of these incantations provides a glimpse into the religious feelings and practices of common people in the Talmudic period and enriches our knowledge of Palestinian and Babylonian Aramaic usage. This book contains a wealth of new material for the history of magic in the Near East, edited and interpreted with meticulous scholarship.

Aramaic Incantations of Late Antiquity

Amulets and Magic Bowls

Yuval Harari

Gideon Bohak

Islamic Africa is a peer-reviewed, multidisciplinary, academic journal published online and in print. Incorporating the journal Sudanic Africa, Islamic Africa publishes original research concerning Islam in Africa from the social sciences and the humanities, as well as primary source material and commentary essays related to Islamic Studies in Africa. The journal’s geographic scope includes the entire African continent and adjacent islands. Islamic Africa encourages intellectual excellence and seeks to promote scholarly interaction between Africa-based scholars and those located institutionally outside the continent.

Continuity and Innovation in the Magical Tradition

This book of essays deals with magical phenomena in Mesopotamian, Zoroastrian, Greek and Jewish cultures. The topics discussed include Mesopotamian magic, its impact on the Aramaic magic bowls, Jewish magical literature, magical gems, Zoroastrian omens, and methods of research.

Essays on the Practice of Magic in Antiquity

Officina Magica

Siam Bhayro

James Nathan Ford

This volume presents editions of fifty-five Jewish Babylonian Aramaic magic bowls from the Schøyen Collection, with accompanying introductions, translations, philological notes, photographs and indices. The themes covered are magical seals and signet-rings.

Jewish Babylonian Aramaic Bowls Volume Two

Aramaic Bowl Spells

This volume brings together thirteen studies by as many experts in the study of one or more ancient or medieval magical traditions, from ancient Mesopotamia and Pharaonic and Greco-Roman Egypt to the Greek world, Judaism, Christianity and Islam. It lays special emphasis on the recurrence of similar phenomena in magical texts as far apart as the Akkadian cuneiform tablets and an Arabic manuscript bought in Egypt in the late-twentieth century. Such similarities demonstrate to what extent many different cultures share a “magical logic” which is strikingly identical, and in particular they show the recurrence of certain phenomena when magical practices are transmitted in written form and often preserve, adopt and adapt much older textual units.

This volume presents editions of sixty-four Jewish Aramaic incantation bowls from the Schøyen Collection, with accompanying introductions, translations, philological notes, photographs and indices, relating to the magical divorce and the wonder-working sages ?anina ben Dosa and Joshua bar Pera?ia.

Shaul Shaked

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