Making an image (1)

Text
Some forms of black magic appear both in Greece and Mesopotamia. The “making of an image,” “taking saliva, hair, the hem of a robe, footprints” (Maqlû 1.131ff.) may represent some universal forms of magic. The “hem of the robe” is also used in the Pharmakeutria of Theocritus (2.53). There are also Akkadian love charms which use figurines. The Pharmakeutria refers specifically to a “foreigner from Assyria” who supplied a particularly potent substance (2.162). The text is Hellenistic, but already Plato describes the uncanny effect on the citizens of a town “when they catch sight of wax models outside a door or at a crossroads or on a tomb, perhaps that of their own parents” (Laws 933b). In the same way people in Babylon are frightened by “fabrications which show up,” indicating that “life has been cut” by someone. Countermagic is urgently necessary in such cases.

Sources (list of abbreviations) (source links will open in a new browser window)
Maqlû 1.131ff.
Plato, Laws 933b
Theocritus, Idylls 2.53
Theocritus, Idylls 2.162

Bibliography

Amar Annus

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