Prosopography of the Babylonian Magic Bowls

The main reason for compiling a database of personal names included in the Babylonian magic bowls is a desire to find out more about the individuals behind the magic. Who were the people that made use of magical texts and magical items? What can we say about their personal lives, as reflected in the articles of magic they left behind? There are several ways to approach these questions, and one of them is prosopography. The prosopographic database uploaded on the Southampton University website currently comprises names from almost all the magic bowls that have been published so far, be they Jewish Aramaic, Syriac or Mandaic texts. Since there is no full bibliography of the subject, there are likely to be some publications still missing from the database, yet these are probably few. The database covers all the major publications of magic bowls corpora (e.g. Montgomery 1913, Naveh and Shaked 1985 and 1993, Levene 2003, Müller-Kessler 2005), in addition to numerous articles that present several bowls (e.g. Gordon 1937 and 1941, Geller 1986), or only one or two bowls (e.g. Obermann 1940, Hunter 1994). Each item is significant, since every bowl that contains personal names may shed important light on the questions raised by the database. In addition to personal names originating in magic bowls, the database also includes a small number of names derived from lead and parchment amulets that appear to belong to approximately the same chronological and geographical frame as the incantation bowls. These items are clearly marked as distinct from the bowls, yet being a similar type of magical artifact, the personal names they contain were included in the database.

The database was originally built with the Microsoft Excel program. It has the appearance of a table containing 19 columns. With the exception of the first column, which contains the personal names mentioned in each bowl, and the column containing the family trees, all table columns contain information in English. The personal names, however, are listed in Hebrew script in the two aforementioned columns. When the bowl text was written in Syriac or Mandaic, and not in Jewish Aramaic, the names have been transliterated into Hebrew script. The decision to transliterate names from these dialects into Hebrew script relies on practical and technical considerations. An upcoming version of the database will also include the names in their original script, Syriac or Mandaic.

It is our hope that the prosopographic database will assist scholars who research incantation bowls in several ways. To begin with, it facilitates the restoration of partially preserved names, through a comparison with complete names found in the database. Thus, a scholar reading a new bowl on which a partially preserved name appears, may use the SEARCH function on the first column of the table, in order to find matches for the sequence of letters present on the new bowl. For instance, if a bowl text has preserved the sequence ”  ???פנדר???  ” as part of a personal name, a search of the database indicates this may be the name איצפנדרמיד   or איספנדרמיד  , found in several bowls, both as a female client name as well as a matronym. The same may be said for uncertain readings of personal names that have been preserved in full, as illustrated below. Secondly, the database enables to determine whether a specific person is mentioned in more than one bowl. This feature may be particularly useful for establishing a relation between several bowls, all of which mention the same names. Already at this stage the database has yielded a number of such instances. One example is found in two Mandaic bowls meant to protect a woman named Manahir daughter of Aspi (מאנאהיר פת אספיא  ) from demons, especially liliths. The first bowl, located in the Ashmolean Museum (inventory number 1931.473), was partially published by Cyrus Gordon in 1941. The second bowl is located in the Louvre (inventory number 11843 45M), and was published in 1986 by Matthias Delcor and Basile Aggoula. The later editors seem not to have been aware of Gordon’s publication, and their reading of the woman’s first name was not certain: they stated it may be Manahir or Manahuk daughter of Aspi. However, the database instantly indicates the correct reading of the name, as well as a connection between the two bowls, that were most likely written on behalf of the same client. A closer look, this time at the publications, enables one to see that the two bowls actually contain parallel texts. It is even possible that they were written by the same scribe, yet since Gordon’s publication does not contain a photo of the bowl, this cannot be currently ascertained. The database also raises interesting questions on the topics of gender, family size and inter-family relations. For instance, the number of male names mentioned in the bowls (most of whom are clients or clients’ children, and only few are adversaries) is only slightly larger than the number of female names. What may be deduced from this fact? Additionally, more than half of the items included in the database allow the reconstruction of family trees, starting with the names of a husband and wife and up to the names of a more extended family, including children and grandchildren. Which data may be inferred from such records? These issues and others may be addressed by scholars who investigate the social and cultural history of Babylonia in the Sassanian period, the time frame in which most of the magic bowls have been produced. It is our hope that the prosopographic database will assist them in their tasks.

Scholars who wish to use the information in this database are kindly requested to include a reference to website, and mention that the data was compiled by Dr. Ortal-Paz Saar as part of a BIRAX project conducted by Dr. Dan Levene and Prof. Gideon Bohak. For any questions, comments or suggestions please feel free to contact Ortal-Paz Saar: ortalsaa@post.tau.ac.il

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• Dan Levene