Articles |
‘If You Appear as a Pig’: Another Incantation Bowl (Moussaieff 164)1
University of Southampton
As more Aramaic incantation bowls are being published the richness of this material in terms of it being a complement to other late antique and early medieval Jewish and non-Jewish Mesopotamian materials that we know of is being realized; Moussaieff 164 is such an example. This incantation is neatly structured and consists of six sections that include an introduction, two sections of adjurations to the demons to leave, two sections of conditional threats and a final section that consists of carefully chosen biblical verses. It includes interesting elements that can be cross-referenced with sections of liturgy, Hekhalot literature and Mishnaic and Talmudic literature. The imagery that is found within the threats to the demons is graphic and extraordinary. One of the most striking aspects of this text is the quote from mShevu. 4:13, an appropriation of oaths from the terrestrial legal sphere to that of the supernatural.
The content of this article is based on a paper that was presented in the EABS/SBL international meeting that was held at Groningen in the summer of 2004. I would like to thank Dr Shlomo Moussaieff for providing access to this bowl from his collection. I would also like to thank Prof. Mark Geller, Dr Gideon Bohak and Dr Siam Bhayro for their suggestions.
Signs used in the transliteration texts: (...) unclear characters; <...< reconstructed text; 
... characters written above the line. Signs for the translation: {...} gloss; italics uncertain translation; / alternative translation.
Abbreviations of Aramaic incantation texts: AIT# — J.A. Montgomery, Aramaic Incantation Texts from Nippur, vol. III (Philadelphia: 1913); Geller A-D — M.J. Geller, ‘Four Aramaic Incantation Bowls’, in G. Rendsburg (ed.), The Bible World. Essays in Honour of Cyrus H. Gordon (New York 1980), 47–60; Gordon 1–9 - C.H. Gordon, ‘Aramaic Incantation Bowls’, Orientalia 10 (1941), 116–41, 272–84, 339–60; N&Sh B1-27 — J. Naveh, and S. Shaked, ‘Amulets and Magic Bowls, Aramaic Incantations of Late Antiquity’, 2nd ed. (Jerusalem 1987) and J. Naveh and S. Shaked, Magic Spells and Formulae: Aramaic Incantations of Late Antiquity, (Jerusalem 1993); M# — D. Levene, A Corpus of Magic Bowls; Incantation Texts in Jewish Aramaic from Late Antiquity (London 2003).
Unless stated otherwise, all translations of the Old Testament are from: Tanakh, a New Translation of the Holy Scriptures According to the Traditional Hebrew Text (Philadelphia 1985), and Mishna translations from: H. Danby, The Mishnah (Oxford 1938).