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A Babylonian Jewish Aramaic Magical Booklet from the Damascus Genizah 27*

7 and bring five needles; stick one ‫ואיתו חמיש מחטי דוץ חדא‬
8 in its heart and one in its navel and ‫בלביה וא' בשוריה וא' בתרתין‬

one in its two ‫עטמתיה וב' ב' ידיה‬
9 thighs, with its two hands

Folio 3b

1 on its knees right [to the left, and le]ft ‫על רוכביה ימין ]לסמול ו[ ֿסמול‬
(one) to right ‫לימין‬

2 and put it in a new67 vessel with its ‫ושידיה במנא חתא] רי[ ֿשיה‬
F6 ‫מתיי ושקיה‬

[hea]d below68 and its legs ‫לעילא וקבור בקברא חתא בר‬
67 F ‫א' יומא‬

3 above, and bury it in a fresh grave ‫ א]י[דר‬0–0 ‫או בר ב' יומי‬
which is one day old ‫אידר בוכאנא‬

4 or two days old. ʾ[Y]DR ʾYDR ‫באדא ביך קוא קז אגבא דאריא‬
BWKʾNʾ ‫רכינא‬

5 BʾDʾ BYK QWʾ QZ69 On the back of ‫והומיאנא דחרשי וחרש ֿתא‬
F86 ‫בחציי‬

a lion I ride 70‫מחי לי בשוקי יניק נפקאנא‬
F96
6 and the girdle of male sorcerers and
female sorceresses I have fastened to

7 my loins.70F71 I go out72 in the market
71F

places of infant(s),

65 Here and in the next two lines there is a hole in the parchment that was clearly present
before the scribe began writing his text.

66 For ‫היי‬, note that in early Babylonian manuscripts the form of the demonstrative
pronoun is ‫האיי‬, hāyi. See Morag, “Some Notes,” 66–7 (Hebrew).

67 Here and in the next line, ‫חתא = חדתא‬. Compare Th. Nöldeke, Compendious Syriac
Grammar (London: Williams and Norgate, 1904), 21.

68 We take ‫ מתיי‬as mittaii, equivalent to ‫מתחתאיי‬, “underneath.” For placing the
“voodoo doll” upside down, note, for example T-S Ar. 43.259: ‫ותאכד קדר גדידה‬
‫ותג'על פיהא גיר ותאכד' אלתמתאל ותכבה עלי ראסה פי אלקדר‬, “take a new cooking
pot and put lime in it and take the figurine and cast it upside-down into the pot.”

69 It is unclear whether this was once a coherent text or was always magic words.