Archaeological Views: Magical Cures for Crying Infants

Home > Magazines > BAR > March/April 2016

Magic rituals for soothing crying babies have survived from ancient Mesopotamia. Walter Farber has edited two Old Babylonian baby incantations of uncertain provenance and several Neo-Assyrian magical rituals on a tablet found at Nineveh.1 All the texts are in Akkadian dialects, and the tablet from Nineveh was part of the learning of the magical expert. New parents who suffer the stress-inducing, sleep-depriving effects of infant cries might like to know: Does this magic work? Most likely, the magical rituals were effective, but not for the reasons its practitioners may have imagined. Incantations often are attributed to one or more […]

Please join the BAS Library or become an All Access member of BAS to gain full access to this article and so much more.

Join the BAS Library!

Already a library member? Log in here.

Institution user? Log in with your IP address or Username

Endnotes

1. W. Farber, Schlaf, Kindchen, Schlaf!: Mesopotamische Baby-Beschwörungen und –Rituale (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1989).

2. Translation from Akkadian, edited by Farber, Schlaf, Kindchen, Schlaf!, pp. 34–36.

3. Translation from Akkadian, edited by Farber, Schlaf, Kindchen, Schlaf!, p. 98.