Sources of Evil: Studies in Mesopotamian Exorcistic Lore ed. by Greta van Buylaere et al. (review)

The present edited volume collects thirteen essays developed from papers given at the conference, "Sources of Evil: Complexity and Systematization, Differentiation and Interdependency in Mesopotamian Exorcistic Lore," held on April 15–17, 2015 at the University of Würzburg as part of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) project, Corpus babylonischer Rituale und Beschwörungen gegen Schadenzauber (2012–2018; Projektnummer 216046777). This project has resulted in several outputs that increasingly make Mesopotamian magical texts accessible to a broader readership. These outputs include the second volume of Tzvi Abusch and Daniel Schwemer's Corpus of Mesopotamian Anti-Witchcraft Rituals [CMAwR 2] (Ancient Magic and Divination [AMD] 8.2; Leiden: Brill, 2016) and an online, open access edition of the anti-witchcraft rituals published in those authors's CMAwR 1 (AMD 8.1; Leiden: Brill, 2011), available through the Open Richly Annotated Cuneiform Corpus (Oracc) platform at http://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/cmawro/corpus.

These anti-witchcraft rituals are the object of several contributions in the present volume (Mertens-Wagschal, Schwemer). Other essays treat different Sumerian and Akkadian cuneiform corpora including, to name a few, the incantatory compendia named after the demoness that is its primary concern, Lamaštu (George); Maqlû, "burning" (Abusch); and medical texts, including the compendium Muššu'u, "rubbing" (Böck). Newly edited primary texts appear throughout the volume, often in appendices—e.g. the possibly prophetic text of BM 36678 reverse (by Frahm, 41–42), the incantation Marduk apkal ilāni "Marduk, the expert of the gods" (by Panayotov, 211–15), and British Museum fragments of the incantatory compendium Zuburdabeda (by Jiménez, 336–44)—and sufficient bibliographic information is usually given so that interested readers can access texts recently edited in other volumes.

The six-page introduction summarizes the contributions, which follow in five thematic sections. The first of these, "Organizing Magical and Medical Knowledge," comprises discussions of two important cuneiform catalogue texts, the "Exorcist's Manual" and the "Aššur Medical Catalogue" (AMC).¹ Eckart Frahm argues that in the former text, the attribution to Esagil-kîn-apli in line 27 is a subscript to the long section I of the text and may be the historical source of this text (9–47). Ulrike Steinert suggests that the AMC catalogues texts constitutive of asûtu—simplistically, "medical" learning—while the Exorcist's Manual catalogues texts constitutive of āšiputu—sim plistically, "magical" learning—thus revealing parallel but overlapping healing disciplines (48–132).

The second section, "Agents of Evil and Causes of Illness," contains three essays with insights on particular agents of evil. Nils P. Heeßel shows that in non-medical texts, the phrase qāt + theonym, "the hand of X-god," is almost uniformly an agent producing negative results, though there are nevertheless intriguing exceptions (135–49). Andrew R. George demonstrates convincingly and concisely that the Sumerian name of the demoness Lamastu was "Kamadme" (150–57). Avigail Mertens-Wagschal reveals some outcomes of her exciting dissertation project, "Aggressive Magic in Mesopotamia" (University of Würzburg), such as her finding that lion and wolf similes are used in these texts to convey the fierce nature not only of incantation clients and opponents but also of abstract emotions (158–69).

The third section, "Repelling Evil with Rituals, Amulets, and Incantations," includes three essays that focus more on magical processes—both intra-and intertextual—than figures. Daniel Schwemer documents how some anti-witchcraft texts mobilize supernatural agents of evil against human agents of evil (173–91). Strahil V. Panayotov combines material, cultural, and lexical evidence to suggest that slots and holes in the sides of certain Assyrian house amulets were plugged with efficacious plant material; beautiful color photos of several amulet edges and plants are included (192–222). Tzvi Abusch presents options...