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A Babylonian Jewish Aramaic Magical Booklet from the Damascus Genizah 25*

Folio 2b ‫אה או ואי איפא ואיף פנת פנת‬
1 ʾH ʾW WʾY ʾYPʾ WʾYP PNT PNT ‫אנביא אפנת פנת ואף ואף אורף‬
2 ʾNBYʾ ʾPNT PNT WʾP WʾP ʾWRP ‫אורף ק' ע עפרא מתחות מיתא‬
3 ʾWRP. Say over dust from under a
‫ורמי בקמיעא ותלי בצפרא‬
corpse, 58 ‫ואפרחה‬
4 and put it in an amulet and hang it on
F75
a bird and let it fly
5 and say over it: Just as this bird ‫ואמר עליה כי היכי דפרחא‬
‫הדא‬
6 flutters, so shall the heart of (fem.)
NN flutter85F59 after '‫ציפרתא הכי ניפרח ליבה דפ ב‬
‫פ בתר‬
7 NN, A(men) A(men) S(ela). For love:
‫ לאהבה לי חן‬0 '‫פ ב פ א א' ס‬
I have love, it is mine60 ‫לי הוא‬
9F5
‫ מלאכיה קדישיא‬61‫ססגר מגמר‬
8 SSGR MGMR, holy angels who sit F06
‫דיתבין‬

58 For binding the text to a bird and letting it fly, see also the Genizah fragment Mosseri
Ia. 26.2, copied by Abraham ibn Yiju (probably during his stay in Aden) and
published in S. D. Goitein and Mordechai Akiva Friedman, India Book III: Abraham
ben Yijû, India Trader and Manufacturer (Jerusalem: Ben-Zvi, 2010) (Heb.), 421,
‫ותלי קמיעא בכרע]א[ דציפור ואפרח יתיה‬, “and bind the amulet to the leg of a bird and
let it fly,” (but in a recipe to cause a person to be exiled from his community). See
also R. Campbell Thompson, “The Folklore of Mossoul,” Proceedings of the Society
of Biblical Archaeology 1906, 76–86, 97–109; 1907, 165–74, 282–88, 323–31; 1908,
30–33, no. 23.

59 For the double meaning of ‫פרח‬, which cannot be rendered into English, see the
frequent appearance of ‫ פרח ליביה‬in the Babylonian Talmud, as well as ‫פרחיאל אפרח‬
'‫( לביה דפ'בפ' בתר פ'ב'פ‬T-S K 1.37, published in P. Schäfer and S. Shaked, eds.,
Magische Texte aus der Kairoer Geniza I [Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1994], no. 4).

60 Or LY ḤN LY HWʾ.

61 Cf. the angels ‫ סוסגר מכמר‬in the Horvat Rimmon erotic spell and its many parallels,
for which see Naveh-Shaked, Amulets and Magic Bowls, A10 (p. 84) and esp. Joseph
Naveh and Shaul Shaked, Magic Spells and Formulae: Aramaic Incantations of Late
Antiquity, Jerusalem: Magnes, 1993, G22, 1/9 (pp. 216, 219).