The Akkadian series Maqlu, 'Burning', remains the most important magical text against witchcraft from Mesopotamia and perhaps from the entire ancient Near East. Maqlu is a nine-tablet work consisting of the text of almost 100 incantations and accompanying rituals directed against witches and witchcraft. The work prescribes a single complex ceremony and stands at the end of a complex literary and ceremonial development. Thus, Maqlu provides important information not only about the literary forms and cultural ideas of individual incantations, but also about larger ritual structures and thematic relations of complex ceremonies. This new edition of the standard text contains a synoptic edition of all manuscripts, a composite text in transliteration, an annotated transcription and translation.
"These were only minor remarks scribbled in the margins of an excellent and most welcome edition of Maqlu, a real monument. This book is the firm foundation on which future studies on Maqlu will be based." Marten Stol, NINO Leiden, Bibliotheca Orientalis lxxIII n Degrees 5-6, September-December 2016
- ISBN10 9004291709
- ISBN13 9789004291706
- Publish Date 5 October 2015
- Publish Status Active
- Imprint Brill
- Edition Annotated edition
- Format eBook
- Pages 424
- Language English