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A Babylonian Jewish Aramaic Magical Booklet from the Damascus Genizah 21*

3 his drop in NN, in the name of BYMH ‫נטופתיה בפ' ב פ' בשם‬
NṢṬWRYNW ‫בימה נצטורינו‬

4 ḤSPWṬ ʿYDNNʾ MSʿLYMṬS ‫חספוט עידננא מסעלימטס‬
‫לאפליטוס‬
LʾPLYṬWS
‫ מישחא שיהא‬0–0 ‫א א ס‬
5 A(men) A(men) S(ela). Precious3F738 oil, ‫משחא‬

precious ‫שיהא משחא סליקא‬
‫בדיסמין חרי‬
6 oil, oil b o iled39 in jasmine;3F9 40 noblemen
F38 ‫שפוי בצוריהון חרתא‬
‫בגנסקיהי גרגיתא‬
7 smeared04F41 it on their necks;
noblewomen, on their pudenda(?),4F142

contentious women

Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1964) 1:383, and G. Bohak, “The Magical Rotuli from the
Cairo Genizah,” in G. Bohak, Y. Harari, and S. Shaked. eds., Continuity and
Innovation in the Magical Tradition (Jerusalem Studies in Religion and Culture, 15;
Leiden: Brill, 2011), 321–40, at 333. ‫דולא‬, “bucket,” is also used as a euphemism for
the source of fecundity in a wedding poem in Jewish Palestinian Aramaic: ‫דולך לא‬
‫יחסר וטב תתבשר‬, “may your bucket not be lacking and may you be told good
(tidings),” published in M. Sokoloff and J. Yahalom, Jewish Palestinian Aramaic
Poetry From Late Antiquity (Jerusalem: Israel Academy of Science, 1999), 258, text
44*:8 (in Hebrew).

38 Compare E. S. Drower and R. Macuch, A Mandaic Dictionary (Oxford: Clarendon,
1965), 458 s.v. šušma, cited from miša anat šiha br šušma hiuara, “The oil you are,
precious, from white sesame” (CP no. 23).

39 Cf. Sokoloff, DJBA, p. 674: ‫ = ישחא שליקא‬butter. The text could also mean oil
boiled with jasmine.

40 For the use of jasmine oil, cf. ‫על מישחא דיסמין זמנין ז' רטין ושלח מיניך‬, “on
jasmine-oil, whisper seven times and remove your clothes” (T-S K 1.162, published in
P. Schäfer and S. Shaked [eds.], Magische Texte aus der Kairoer Geniza III
[Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1999], no. 61).

41 Derived from older ‫שפוהי‬. See M. Morgenstern, “Linguistic Notes on Magic Bowls in
the Moussaieff Collection,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 68
(2005): 349–67, at 363.