The two Jewish Aramaic sources that we have for the study of Babylonia in the Sasanian period are the Babylonian Talmud and magic bowls. The former is the extraordinary compilation of several centuries of thoughts and discussions of numerous rabbis. The Babylonian Talmud is a literary creation of encyclopaedic proportions that includes, apart from legal and religious law, much information about everyday Mesopotamian life in Late Antiquity. A sample of the kind of subject matter it contains are, descriptions of various forms of dwelling, their structure and building materials; descriptions of furniture, cooking utensils, various foods; types of clothing, their manufacture and trade; medical issues are dealt with, as are astrology and magic. Yet, its critical study is complicated by the fact that this is a document that experienced many stages of editing before it was finally redacted some time between the 6th and 7th century CE; with the earliest manuscripts available being medieval copies. On the other hand, the magic bowls, our other source of study in Jewish Aramaic for the same period, contain texts that were physically written at that time and had remained unread until very recently, when scholars first found, noticed and published them.

Even though the first magic bowls were published in the middle of the 19th century by Thomas Ellis¹, it was not until James A. Montgomery published a corpus of 42 bowls in 1913² that the standard for the critical study of these texts was set. To date there have been less than 300 Jewish Aramaic bowls that have been published, yet there are still a number of important collections that have not been fully published; the bowls in this book are from such a collection.

The magic bowl is in fact a type of amulet that is peculiar to Mesopotamia, and which was made for only a short time leading up to the seventh century when the practice completely ceased. Most of the known bowls are written in Jewish Aramaic and probably by Jews. Another smaller group, though by no means insignificant in numbers, are bowls that are written in Mandaic. In appreciably smaller numbers are bowls that were written in Manichaean Syriac and Pahlavi. The bowls are in themselves very common types of domestic earthenware utensils, the like of which were used for everyday domestic culinary purposes. What makes them special are the inscriptions and, in some cases, illustrations of bound demons and angels which were written and drawn inside them in a black ink. The most common form of writing these bowls was in a clockwise spiral, starting at the base of the inside of the bowl and working its way upwards to its rim. The incantation texts are generally dedicated to a particular individual, always cited with their mother’s name; sometimes other members of the client’s family and household members are also cited. These texts reflect a belief, that must have been common at the time, that humans share the world with an extensive host of supernatural beings, such as a wide variety of demons and goblins, spirits, angels and other beings, which were responsible, to a considerable extent, for human disease, misfortune and fate in general. The incantations consist of a variety of formula and use numerous magical names that were intended to bind gods, angels, and even demons, to act on behalf of the client in that realm that is beyond the reach of mortals. These powerful texts would clear the client’s body, house and property of the causes of ill fate and illness.

The client would commission the practitioner to write one or a number of bowls for his or her house, which would then be installed in several locations within it. These would be buried upside down, under the floor, in strategic places within the house; such as in its four corners, the bedroom, the living room, etc. There is very little information on whether any particular ritual accompanied the writing and installing of the bowls. It is, however, noteworthy that bowls written in Jewish Aramaic were not exclusively supplied to Jewish clients, a testament to which is the fact that the names of many of them are non-Jewish. Even more surprising is the fact that the deities of various faiths are commonly invoked together within a single text.

The importance of these texts is considerable, and they can, without exaggeration, be considered on a similar scale of significance as the Cairo Geniza. They contain a substantial amount of important new material from the period in which rabbinic Judaism was being consolidated. Although only humble amulets, these texts contain a great wealth of information on a variety of subjects. They provide an insight into popular belief and custom that is complementary to the highly edited, often cryptic information that we have in the Talmud³. The Aramaic language in which these texts are written is varied in terms of its dialects⁴, which include both formal and colloquial aspects, not to mention a wealth of previously unattested verbal and noun forms as well as new lexemes all together. The bowls also contain a wealth of mythical stories from the various religious cultures of Late Antiquity⁵, including early forms of liturgy⁶, mystical literature⁷ and Biblical textual material, which in some cases happen to be their earliest known forms. The names of clients within them, of which we have in some cases whole families, are also revealing in that they tell us of the religious and cultural affiliation of their bearers. This complex of information in its entirety provides a glimpse into a world of intimate intercultural exchange between communities that have otherwise come to be perceived quite often as completely separate entities with well-defined boundaries.

One reason for the diversity of this material is probably due to the fact that these magical texts were produced by practitioners whose repute went beyond their own community; as indeed the variety of clients mentioned within them clearly attests. Furthermore, the esoteric nature of magical practice meant that the inclusion of elements that were not strictly from within the boundaries of conventional religion, or at least its outward public manifestation, seems to have been passed unchecked. Thus we have many texts which display what appear to be syncretistic forms of religion, that are, at first glance at least, rather surprising.⁸

In my new book you will find examples of a variety of types of magic bowl texts. Texts for protection from supernatural enemies as well as living human ones. There are within the choice of texts presented a considerable amount of new material that relates to liturgy, mysticism, midrash and more. References that are all new and unique, and represent, in some cases, the earliest attestations of known literature. As for instance M108, which can be argued to be the earliest extract from the evening prayer known as the Hashkivenu. There are some fine examples of elaborate curses, such as M102 and M163, as well as examples of hitherto unknown demon divorce formulae, such as can be seen in M103 and M119. The in-depth commentary includes detailed analyses of the texts, probing the unusual language forms, turn of phrase and new words. It also such things as comparative studies of duplicates and syncretic tendencies, providing an unusual insight into the nature of the composition and transmission of these texts as well as a glimpse, through the hand that wrote these amulets, into the practice and thought of the sorcerers who composed and wrote them.

1 Thomas Ellis, chapter xxii, in Discoveries in the Ruins of Nineveh and Babylon., ed. A. H. Layard (London: John Murray, 1853).
2 James A. Montgomery, Aramaic Incantation Texts from Nippur, vol. III (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, The Museum, Publication of the Babylonian Section, 1913). The introduction of this book is still one of the best surveys of magic bowls.
3 For magic in the Talmud see L. Blau, Das Altjüdische Zauberwesen (Jahresbericht der Landes-Rabbineschule in Budapest für das Schuljahr 1897-88) (Strassburg: Trubner, 1898). For a more general survey of Jewish Magic see J. Trachtenberg, Jewish Magic and Superstition (New York: Atheneum, 1939; reprint, New York 1970).
4 For the discussions on the dialect variation see T. Harviainen, "Diglossia in Jewish Eastern Aramaic," Studia Orientalia 55:2 (1983): 3-19; H. Juusola, "Linguistic Peculiarities in the Aramaic Magic Bowl Texts," Studia Orientalia 86 (1999); C. Müller-Kessler, "Aramäische Koiné - Ein Beschwörungsformular aus Mesoppotamien," Baghdader Mitteilungen 29 (1998): 331-48; and C. Müller-Kessler and Theodore Kwasman, "A Unique Talmudic Aramaic Incantation Bowl," Journal of the American Oriental Society 120, no. 2 (2000): 159-65.
5 See Dan Levene, A Corpus of Magic Bowls, Incantation Texts in Jewish Aramaic from Late Antiquity (London: Kegan Paul Limited, forthcoming). and D. Levene, "'... And by the Name of Jesus...' an Unpublished Magic Bowl in Jewish Aramaic," JSQ 6, no. 4 (1999): 283-308.
6 See J. Naveh and S. Shaked, Magic Spells and Formulae (Jerusalem: The Magness Press, The Hebrew University, 1993), 22-31.
7 See S. Shaked, "'Peace Be Upon You Exalted Angels': On Hekhalot, Liturgy and Incantation Bowls," Jewish Studies Quarterly 2 (1995): 219-35.
8 See T. Harviainen, "Syncretistic and Confessional Features in Mesopotamian Incantation Bowls," Studia Orientalia, no. 70 (1993): 29-37.

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