In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

  • Ancient Cultures
  • Esther Eidinow and Richard Gordon

Our first issue explores primary materials from some of the earliest cultures to produce narrative evidence for notions of witchcraft. Svenja Nagel explores ancient Egyptian texts that date from c. 2700 BCE until c. 500 CE (Old Kingdom up to Late Antiquity), including narrative literature, religious texts (ritual manuscripts and magical spells), and historical and documentary texts recording real-life cases of the magical activities that appear in the first two types of text. Greta Van Buylaere interrogates cuneiform documents from ancient Mesopotamia—Sumer and Akkad, and later Babylonia and Assyria—from the second half of the third millennium BCE until the first century CE. Finally, Esther Eidinow analyzes a range of evidence for ritual practices, and the attitudes toward them, from ancient Greek culture in the Classical period (largely from the fifth to fourth century BCE), including magical texts, law court speeches, and medical treatises.

All three of these ancient cultures were steeped in magical activity, but—as these articles clearly demonstrate—they exhibit culturally specific perspectives. For example, in Egypt, the texts reveal that magical power was regarded as a gift to humankind by the gods; there were professional priests, who specialized in performing magical rites. In ancient Mesopotamia, much of the evidence relates to the work of one particular profession—the "exorcist" (in Akkadian, āšipu or mašmaššu). These rituals included liminal magic (changing the client or object from one status to another); defensive magic (removing or repelling evil); aggressive magic (providing the client with strength or attractiveness); and witchcraft (illegal or aggressive magic used against the client). Finally, in ancient Greek culture, the notion of magic was one that was just emerging during the fifth century BCE, and there are a number of [End Page 7] different scholarly theories, described by Eidinow, as to why this development occurred.

As these examples indicate, the identification of narratives about witchcraft is far from straightforward. These three papers support their individual approaches by drawing on evidence from later historical periods, eliciting key diachronic and cross-cultural characteristics and patterns (an approach described above in the Introduction to the special volume) that they then trace throughout their material. As a result, they each focus on a number of specific themes that will be discussed in more detail below: first, the identification of witchcraft; second, the role of gender and the closely related theme of the nature and location of power in the generation of narratives of witchcraft; and, finally, the contexts in which such narratives arise. This last theme introduces the final paper in the issue, by psychiatrist Quinton Deeley, which provides an overview of the findings of the three historical papers, and builds on them to suggest how an interdisciplinary approach that draws on psychological and biological models could support their analyses (and vice versa).

The first theme is the identification of witchcraft. In order to trace discourses of witchcraft, each of the historical papers focuses on evidence for the historical perceptions or categorizations of magical practices as illegal and aggressive. While such perceptions and categories are relatively obvious in the Greek and Mesopotamian sources, the Egyptian material presents more of a problem. As Nagel states at the beginning of her article, "there is in fact no such thing as 'witchcraft' in ancient Egypt throughout its entire history": there was neither specific terminology for it, nor written evidence of any kind that indicated criticism of particular practices or accusations relating to witchcraft. Indeed, private and even harmful magic against personal rivals or enemies was not necessarily condemned.

All three articles raise questions about the role of gender in the narratives that they examine, but in very different ways. Nagel's paper emphasizes how, in ancient Egyptian sources, the official practitioners of magic were usually men; in contrast with other cultures, the stereotyped figure of the female "witch" does not seem to have existed. The reason for this may be that, as Nagel argues, the magical narratives of ancient Egypt were clearly written by the elite class of high-ranking priests, in order to "contribute to a discourse about the identity, character, prestige, and power of this caste among their peers." Nevertheless...

pdf

Share