Magic in Ancient Mesopotamia

Ancient Mesopotamia was a vast region in Western Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system which has become known as the ‘cradle of civilization’ due to the huge number of feats the culture achieved. Agriculture, animal herding, and domestication had developed there by 8000 years ago. 

Magick and religion for Ancient Mesopotamians were inseparable parts of the same whole, because both were seen as the link between the physical reality and the subtle spheres of existence.

It can be difficult to grasp Mesopotamian magic as a cultural concept. Steeped in the philosophical traditions of Western dualism, we often view magic in a binary relation to religion, yet no such distinction existed in Mesopotamia. For people living in ancient Iraq and the imperial peripheries in Syria, Anatolia, and Iran during the first millennium B.C., magic was a part of everyday life. Far from being considered irrational, it was the guiding principle by which Mesopotamians understood various natural phenomena and their positive and negative consequences. For example, celestial omens could reveal a king to be in imminent danger, or portend fortuitous circumstances in war. 

Magic could also be used to combat the negative actions of ghosts, demons, and human sorcerers, as well as protect against the curse that resulted from unknowingly committing a sin, and thus losing the favor of one’s personal god or goddess. The responsibilities of a Mesopotamian magician could come under the umbrella of a number of specialties that we might refer to as magical, scientific, medical, literary, and religious.

A deep insight into the Mesopotamian civilization has been gained from the hundreds of thousands of clay tablets inscribed with cuneiform, one of the earliest forms of writing, that they left.

Maqlú, which means ‘burning’, is a work composed around 700 BC spanning nine tablets. 

It details a ceremony which was supposed to thwart and drive away evil magic, protect the intended target from the bad magic, and weaken the person who was responsible for casting the malevolent spell or curse. The first eight tablets feature almost 100 incantations, and the ninth gives directions for the ritual. It is a work intended to aide an exorcist and his patient.

Maqlú, along with several other Mesopotamian texts, paint a picture of a society where magic was practiced both legitimately and openly, and illegitimately and maliciously.

It is implied that evil magic worked as the practitioners tricked the Gods into believing they were assisting a genuine need. The ritual in Maqlú was supposed to work by revealing the deception to the Gods so they would reverse what they had done to help the evil doer. But we can also build up a picture of a society in which ‘good’ magic was an everyday part of life for many people.

Although many people believed in or even practiced rudimentary magic, there were also professional magicians in ancient Mesopotamia. These professional magicians would have been specialists in a particular field of magic. Some would have been specialists in divination, while others would have been professional exorcists. As with some other ancient societies, many of those who worked in a field that was not fully understood were considered to be magicians; so scientists, doctors, and astronomers were placed alongside mystics and exorcists.

It was also possible to specialize within these fields. One set of mystics who specialized in a particular form of divination were the bārû, performed divination by consulting the livers of animals and also by observation of the flight of birds.

The liver was considered the source of the blood and hence the basis of life itself. The liver was divided into sections, with each section representing a particular deity.

(Picture: Divinatory livers, clay models for the training of soothsayers, in the Louvre).

Mesopotamian divination was not just divination, and not limited in development to a type of superstition, but was developed to the extent to which it was in fact a science.

One magical tradition which was quite widespread in Mesopotamia is that of the herbalist. Herbalists had access to long lists of plants which gave the names of plants, how they were to be prepared and what ailments they were to be used for and in what way. 

The herbalists did not only have to know his herbs but also when best to harvest them and had to observe the correct rituals when doing so. Also, there was a correct time when to administer the medicine to the patient. This timing was usually connected to celestial phenomena.

Ritual prescriptions included time and mode of harvesting, for example:

Look for a gourd which grows alone in the plain;

when the sun has gone down,

cover your head with a kerchief,

cover the gourd too,

draw a magic circle with flour around it,

and in the morning, before the sun comes out,

pull it up from its location,

take its root.

Often, the plant or its root may not be exposed to the sun or daylight at any time. The plant may also be addressed in speaking, asking it to give up its life or part of its substance for benign purposes.

Plants were seen to come in two varieties: male and female. This is not connected to any actual sex, but rather refers to potency, with 'male' usually referring to greater potency.

Plants growing in remote places such as on mountains may be seen as more potent than easily collectable plants. In addition, plants on mountains are nearer to the stars and thus more potent.

The role of stones in Babylonian magic is comparable to the role of herbs. Stones can have magical properties which are also collected on long lists.

In the Metropolitan Museum of Art  there is a cuneiform tablet with a list of 303 magical stones dating to mid- to late 1st millennium B.C. (picture left).

This multi-columned tablet contains a list of stones with their magical associations and medical purposes.

Stone, precious or not, could be used for figurines and statues who then had magical properties (e. g. guarding a place). Various metals such as gold and silver were also considered imbued with such properties. More often, however, stones were used for amulets on a piece of string or tendon (which in itself might be part of a charm) or could be tied onto the body with a strip of cloth, usually in the area which was supposed to benefit from the influence of the stone. Thus, a stone supposed to remedy stomach cramps might be worn in a bandage around the hips. Stones could be used as remedies and as prophylactic means.

Magnetite is known as a stone evoking the truth; he who carries it is obliged to speak nothing but the truth. Stones may be male and female just as herbs; this applies especially to the tone of colour, paler colours being female.

The power of the stones is supposed to be derived from the stars. Amulet stones are exposed to starlight over night to be 'charged'.

Two concepts are inseparable from all kinds of magic in Mesopotamian culture: the gods and the stars. All magic is connected to one, the other or both.

Magic rituals were often connected to the invocation of the gods who were likened to star constellations observed in the night sky, the planets, or the sun and moon. 

Anu, Enlil and Ea are represented by the whole sky, having their three regions staked out on the night sky the so-called Paths of Anu, Enlil and Ea respectively; Venus is Inanna / Ishtar in her female aspect as morning star and goddess of love, Mercury is the same god(dess) in her male aspect as evening star and god of war; Mars is the destroyer and god of pestilence Nergal; the Moon is Sin / Nanna, the sun is Shamash, and both are male gods; Marduk was Jupiter. The names for gods and planets can be used interchangeably.