Namburbi: How Mesopotamian Rituals Tried to Cancel Evil Omens Before They Came True
Ancient Mesopotamian divination is often described as if it were a system for predicting a fixed future. A lunar eclipse appears, a snake enters a…
Assyrian Religion
Lamashtu and Pazuzu: How Mesopotamian Demon Amulets Protected Mothers, Infants, and the Sick
Among the most arresting objects to survive from ancient Mesopotamia are tiny images of beings that look, to modern eyes, like nightmares made portable. A…
Maqlû: Burning, Witchcraft, and Ritual Justice in Ancient Mesopotamia
In the libraries of first-millennium Mesopotamia, magic was not a marginal curiosity kept apart from learned religion. It belonged to the technical knowledge of trained…