YBC: Highlights 126 (2024-02-29)

Created by: Wagensonner, Klaus

Incantations against the Tooth Worm and Scorpion Bites (YPM BC 018658, YBC 4593; Old Babylonian period (about 1900–1600 BC); 87 x 54 x 28 mm; clay)

This tablet contains at least three incantations and prescriptions, separated from each other by double rulings. The first rather short incantation is written in what seems to be Elamite (see Van Dijk 1982, 101). Spells in foreign languages such as Elamite or Subarian, even nonsensical texts (so-called abracadabra spells), are a common feature of Mesopotamian magic and medicine (compare No. 99). The spell is followed by the subscript “incantation against a worm.” As was still believed in the Middle Ages, toothache was considered to be caused by worms. The prescription that follows involves catching, dissecting, and cooking a frog. To heal the patient, the cooked frog is to be placed onto the affected tooth while the aforementioned spell is recited (Stol 2018). Two additional incantations on the tablet, less well preserved, deal with scorpion bites. The first is likewise accompanied by a ritual. The spell ends with the imprecation: “Go away! Let the youth be cured and let the scorpion die!” (lines 17–18). See it in the exhibition “Ancient Mesopotamia Speaks ... Highlights from the Yale Babylonian Collection” at the Peabody Museum of Natural History, New Haven, 6 April 2019 – 30 June 2020 CDLI entry: P274695

credit: Chirmanova, Irene; Wagensonner, Klaus
image credit: Wagensonner, Klaus