Who Wrote the Incantation Bowls?

Abstract

The essence of this study is a travel through space and time in search of the female authors who wrote the incantation bowls as their profession. Incantation bowls are an archaeological find from Iraq and Western Iran - sizable clay, bowl-shaped amulets, with a magic formula spiraling along their inner walls. The formulae of the bowls are a corpus written of magical texts in Aramaic contemporary with the Babylonian Talmud, featuring Jewish motifs, into which literary, liturgical, and local cultural elements are woven. The bowl functions as a personal amulet, intended to better the future of its beneficiary by summoning heavenly forces and various supernatural entities. This unique phenomenon came to life all of a sudden around the 3rd century C.E. and died out just as abruptly in the 7th century, with the early Muslim conquests. The magic spiraling charm of the incantation bowls, almost never reveals the name of the authors who wrote the incantation formulae, and was responsible for exorcising demons, spirits and other supernatural entities. Fortunately, I detected a unique style which I label - "NOMINAL 1st PERSON STYLE" (NFP style). The Magic formulae written in NFP style, brought to light eight expert female authors who expressed themselves by incorporating their own names into the incantation formulae. Moreover, these women scribes relied on their own magical expertise, by shifting away from speaking in the name of God, to speaking in their own name and performing the magical act by themselves. These authors have also changed the essence of otherwise conventional formulae, by incorporating subversive elements into them. This study analyzes the literary production of the female authors who wrote the incantation bowls.