Daniel Schwemer

Tzvi Abusch

Mesopotamian anti-witchcraft rituals and prescriptions prescribe ceremonies and treatments for dispelling witchcraft, destroying the witch, and protecting and curing the patient. The Corpus of Mesopotamian Anti-witchcraft Rituals aims to present a reconstruction and critical editions of this body of texts.

Volume One

Corpus of Mesopotamian Anti-witchcraft Rituals

Male and Female Encounters and Other Issues

The Epic of Gilgamesh

John Huehnergard

Piotr Steinkeller

Lingering over Words: Studies in Ancient Near Eastern Literature in Honor of William L. Moran

A new reconstruction and translation of the Maqlû text The Akkadian series Maqlû, “Burning,” is one of the most significant and interesting magical texts from the Ancient Near East. The incantations and accompanying rituals are directed against witches and witchcraft and ctually represent a single complex ceremony. The ceremony was performed during a single night and into the following morning at the end of the month Abu (July/August), a time when spirits were thought to move back and forth between the netherworld and the world of the living. Features: English translation of approximately 100 incantations and rituals Annotated transcription Introduction places the series in historical context and shows how it is a product of a complex literary and ceremonial development.

The Witchcraft Series Maqlû

The deeds and struggles of Gilgamesh, legendary king of the city-state Uruk in the land of Sumer, have fascinated readers for millennia. They are preserved primarily in the Epic of Gilgamesh, one of the most well-known pieces of Mesopotamian literature. Studying the text draws us into an orbit that is engaging and thrilling, for it is a work of fantasy and legend that addresses some of the very existential issues with which contemporary readers still grapple. We experience the excitement of trying to penetrate the mind-set of another civilization, an ancient one—in this instance, a civilization that ultimately gave rise to our own. The studies gathered here all demonstrate Tzvi Abusch’s approach to ancient literature: to make use of the tools of literary, structural, and critical analysis in service of exploring the personal and psychological dimensions of the narration. The author focuses especially on the encounters between males and females in the story. The essays are not only instructive for understanding the Epic of Gilgamesh, they also serve as exemplary studies of ancient literature with a view to investigating streams of commonality between ancient times and ours

Encounters, Literary History, and Interpretation

Male and Female in the Epic of Gilgamesh

The Akkadian series Maqlû is the most important magical text against witchcraft from Mesopotamia. This new edition of the standard text contains a synoptic edition of all manuscripts, a composite text in transliteration, an annotated transcription and translation.

A Critical Edition

The Magical Ceremony Maqlû

Mesopotamian anti-witchcraft rituals and prescriptions prescribe ceremonies and treatments for dispelling witchcraft, destroying the witch, and protecting and curing the patient. The Corpus of Mesopotamian Anti-Witchcraft Rituals aims to present a reconstruction and critical editions of this body of texts.

Tzvi Abusch

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