Voodoo dolls in antiquity (1)

Text
The practice, well known throughout antiquity was to make an image of the person to be harmed by the wrath of the spirits of the dead and to bury it in a grave. In this way one’s personal enemy fell prey to the dead and to the gods of the underworld. Such a figurine from the Periclean era has been found in the Kerameikos cemetery at Athens. And the same practice was employed by the Babylonian witches. Thus the sick person complains: “You have handed figurines of me to a corpse,” “my image has been placed in a tomb”; “if figurines of a man have been entrusted to a dead man behind him,” the man will experience a loss of vitality. Magic countercharms are contained above all in the Maqlû collection (4.27-47).

Source (list of abbreviations)
Maqlû 4.27-47

Bibliography

Amar Annus

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