Source books · Mesopotamian divination and magic
Mesopotamian Magic: Textual, Historical, and Interpretative Perspectives
How this book fits
- Traditions
- Mesopotamian divination and magic
- Role in the tradition
- Secondary source A study of the tradition from outside it: history, scholarship, anthropology or reference.
- Public attention
- Unmeasured No Wikidata entry could be matched to this book with confidence, so no attention label was assigned.
Read it
- NYU Ancient World Digital Library ↗ sites.dlib.nyu.edu checked October 20, 2026
In this study
Essays on exorcistic texts and practices in ancient Mesopotamia. The collection examines how incantations and rituals worked in their social, medical and religious settings.
JoAnn Scurlock's chapter, ‘Physician, Exorcist, Conjurer, Magician’ (pp. 69–79), tests the familiar division between a rational physician and a magical exorcist against the therapeutic texts. The evidence does not divide cleanly between those two roles.