44 SUMMARIUM Washing, Defiling, and Burning: Commentationes Two Bilingual Anti-witchcraft Incantations M. RÖMER, Hauswirtschaft - Häuserwirtschaft - Gesamtwirtschaft: Daniel SCHWEMER "Ökonomie" im pharaonischen Ägypten 1-43 D. SCHWEMER, Washing, Defiling, and Burning: Two Bilingual Anti- witchcraft Incantations 44-68 St. M. MAUL, Die Lesung der Rubra DÜ.DU.BI und KID.KID.BI .... 69-80 Gernot Wilhelm zum 28. Januar 2010 Animadversiones The corpus of Sumerian anti-witchcraft incantations, whether accom- M. LIVERANI, The King in the Palace 81-91 panied by an Akkadian translation or not, is still small1, and the vast E. LUCCHESI, Identification de Strasbourg Copte 248 92-95 majority of incantations of this genre, like all witchcraft-specific incanta• tions of Maqlü, are composed in Akkadian2. Recensiones Two extensive Sumerian incantations of the Marduk-Ea type are attested already in Old Babylonian copies3, as is a short spell against a A. TAGGAR-COHEN, Hittite Priesthood. THeth 26 (D. SCHWEMER) . 96-105 witch followed by an usburruda ("to undo witchcraft") rubric4. A bilingual A. KUHRT, The Persian Empire: A Corpus of Sources (H. KOCH) . 105-111 incantation addressing Gira is known from a Late Old Babylonian (?) tab- N. SCHINDEL, Sylloge Nummorum Sasanidarum, Paris - Berlin - Wien let found at Susa; the hyninic introduction of the text praises the Fire-god Band III (H. KOCH) [ 111-117 as the one who burns warlock and witch, but the fragmentary State of the text does not reveal whether counter-acting witchcraft is the main concern Libri ad Directioner.i missi 118-120 of the composition as a whole5. 1 Within the framework of our collaboration on the Corpus of Mesopotamien Anti-witchcraft Rituals Tzvi Abusch has granted me access to his unpublished catalogue of anti-witchcraft rituals and his provisional editions of relevant texts. The work on this article has greatly benefitted from using these materials, and I would like to thank Tzvi for his generosity; any mistakes are mine alone. Thanks are also due to Mark Weeden for proofreading this article and to the Trustees of the British Museum for the permission to publish BM 40568 and 47451. 2 Some of these Akkadian incantations are very likely translated from or at least modeled on Sumerian texts; this is most easily recognized in texts that follow the pattern of the Marduk-Ea type; cf, e.g., BRM4, 18 // (see Abusch 2002: 12-13) or K 8079 r. col. l'-19' (Tallqvist 1895: II, 97). 3 Incipit hul-gäl igi nu-sa6 dumu ud sü-sü-ke4: Cavigneaux-Al-Rawi 1995: 19-46: Meturan A // Meturan B // CT 58, 79 // CT 44, 34 // UET 6/2, 149 (all OB mss.); Incipit hul-gäl igi hui dumu ha-lam-ma-ke4: Falkenstein 1939: 8-41, Geller 1989: 193- 205: PBS 1/2, 122 (OB, bilingual) // AfO 24, pl. II Rylands Box 24 P 28 (OB) // CBS 11933 (OB) // KUB 30, 1 (MB). "Incipit munus-us,rzu su bal-e-da: VS 17, 31, see Schwemer 2007b: 25-26, Geller 2008: 560-61. 5 MDP 57, 2 obv. I 33-34. In the lower half of obv. II and rev. III-IV Samas is addressed. It is yet unknown whether these passages represent a separate composition or continue the text of obv. I; the formatting of the tablet, as far as preserved, suggests the latter, though the contents is in favour of the former. Washing, Defiling, and Burning: Two Bilingual Anti-witchcraft Incantations 45 A limited number of Sumerian incantations against witchcraft are known from first millennium sources. K 1289 obv. 1 - rev. 7 // describes the witch's evil actions: she has tied her victim's tongue, she has blocked his mouth and has bound his limbs by means of a substitute figurine6. The fragment Th 1905-4-9, 93, a faithful Neo-Babylonian copy of an Old Babylonian original7, preserves a description of Marduk's ritual actions against warlock and witch: after their figurines have been maltreated, de- filed and presented before the Sun-god, the patient must wash over them for three days8. A few short Sumerian and bilingual incantations form part of large first millennium collections of usburruda texts, but all of them are so far only known from small fragments9. A Sumerian incantation against zikurudü, 'cutting-of-the-throat' magic, is quoted, possibly in füll, within a collection of therapies concerned with this form of witchcraft10. A few Sumerian incantations can also be found within texts addressing witchcraft performed by the victim's male adversary, the bei dabäbi, bei amäti or bei lemuttin; above all the bilingual incantation kür-kür bil (nakra aqallü) is used within this context12. A bilingual incantation of the Marduk-Ea type, preserved in a Late Babylonian manuscript, also targets exclusively the male sorcerer who has attacked the entrances and even the sanctuary of b Incipit munus-us,,-zu an-ta-lä-se alan bi-in-dim; the text was edited by Falkenstein 1939: 25-27. Abusch 2002: 13 fn. 29 (first published in Religion, Science, and Magic in Concert and Conflict, 1989) identifies further duplicates (K 2351+ rev. l'-15', K 15177+ obv. l'-12', K 10221 obv. 1 - rev. 5, Rm 2, 314 obv. l'-12', Sm 302 = AMT92/1 obv. II l'-8'; all but K 15177+ with Akkadian translation) and gives an overview of the ritual contexts within which the incantation is attested (recitation over drugs effective against witchcraft, zikurudü ther• apies); note that K 3293 (BAM 460) joins K 2351+ directly (cf. Schwemer 2007b: 16 fn. 41). 7 Note a-wi-lum in rev. 1, a-wi-lam in rev. 15 and the frequent use of -su (rather than -sü) for the suffixed possessive pronoun; also note that the Sumerian text is only partially translated, "a common feature of OB bilinguals" (Geller 1995-96: 247). 8 For the text, see Meek 1918-19: 141-42. * Sumerian or bilingual incantations with usburruda rubric are attested in 82-3-2, 103 (+) Sm 1960(+) 1. col. 4'-7', K 8162 + 10357(+) r. col. l'-7', 10'-U', K 6840: l'-7', BM 128037 obv. 4'-7', Si 17 obv. 1-7; cf. also K 8183: l'-3'. "' K 2351 + 3293 (BAM 460) + 5859 + 8184 + 10639 {AMT 13/4) obv. 19-20: EN i-ri pa-[a]h nam-tar i-ri-pa-ah nam-gal bir-bi[r (room for approximately seven signs)], 2-sü tanaddißuby ... " For the bei dabäbi as the stereotypical male agent of witchcraft, see Schwemer 2007b: 81-84, 127-31, 178 with further references. 12 This incantation is also used as a 'regulär' usburruda incantation and, in one casc. against zikurudü. For its attestations, see provisionally Schwemer 2007a: 43, cataloguc of duplicates to KAL 2, 13; a füll edition of all relevant texts will be given in the first volumc of (he Corpus of Mesopolamian Anli-wiichcraft Rituals. Further relevant texts include a shorl re• citation to be recited over drugs effective against the bei dabäbi {BAM 434 rev. V 25-26) and, ibid. rev. VI 17-27 // BAM 435 rev. VI 16'-9' (cf. also BAM V, p. xiii), the incantation sc ga me-cn se-ga-me-en, to be recited over a salve against zTru, zikurudü, dibalü and kadabbedü caused by the bei dabäbi. A short incantation in garbled Sumerian forms pari of the bei lemutti ritual STT 256 (rev. 1-4; ibid. 13-16: kür-kür bil). 46 Daniel Schwemer Washing, Defiling, and Burning: Two Bilingual Anti-witchcraft Incantations 47 Obv. the house13. Finally a bilingual incantation designed to protect a woman in labour from witchcraft deserves to be mentioned here14. Any substantial addition to this small group of texts is most welcome, and I would like to offer here editions of BM 47451, an unpublished, almost completely preserved bilingual usburruda incantation, and of BM 40568, a fragment of similar content that, as yet, had been published only in hand-copy and transliteration. Both texts are preserved in manuscripts from the Persian period, but are likely to originate in Old Babylonian times. The phraseology and motifs found in the texts once more illustrate the longevity of the ritual techniques employed by Babylonian experts to counter sorcery; they bear witness to the stability of the ideas, images and stereotypes associated with witchcraft and its agents in ancient Meso- potamia. 1. BM 47451 (81-11-3, 156) BM 47451, an almost completely preserved tablet inscribed in an ele• gant Late Babylonian hand, belongs to a group of scholarly tablets from Babylon written by a certain Sema'ya (or Ipra'ya?)15 who worked during the reign of Artaxerxes in the 5,h Century BC16. The tablet contains the text of only one incantation, which is classified as an usburruda incantation, a spell to undo witchcraft, by a rubric in rev. 32. The 'tag' ka inim ma usn-bür-ru-da-kam can be attached to any anti-witchcraft incanta• tion, but it also became, probably not before the first millennium, the title of an extensive, though still not very well known series collccting incanta• tions, rituals and prescriptions of this genre17. The usburruda rubric on the present tablet is followed by a catchline to another Sumerian incantation whose incipit is apparently here attested for the first time1*. The iact that no series name or tablet count aecompanies the catchline, may indicate that the tablet formed part of a non-canonical collection of incantations. The " YOS 11, 94; cf. Sefati-Klein 2002: 576 with fn. 48. 14 K 3025+ // K 879+, ed. Borger 1985: 14-18. 15 For the problems associated with the reading of the name, see the commentary on rev.