Officina Magica: Essays on the Practice of Magic in Antiquity by Shaul Shaked

Review by: Daniel R. Miller

Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 127, No. 1 (Jan. - Mar., 2007), pp. 109-110
Published by: American Oriental Society
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Brief Reviews 109
bibliography
lacks
many important
reference works in
both biblical and ancient Near Eastern studies. Note the
absence of numerous works
by
scholars such as L. C.
Allen,
A. A.
Anderson,
Y.
Avishur,
A.
Berlin,
J.
Braun,
W.
Brueggemann,
P.
Craigie,
M. J.
Dahood,
J. L.
Foster,
D. N.
Freedman,
D. M.
Howard,
O.
Keel,
H.-J.
Kraus,
T.
Longman,
P. D.
Miller,
S.
Mowinckel,
M.
O'Connor,
H.
Ringgren,
I.
Singer,
M. S.
Smith,
M. E.
T?te,
W. A.
VanGemeren,
W. G. E.
Watson,
C.
Westermann,
etc.
Psalms in
Community
is to be
praised
for
bringing
together
a
disparate group
of scholars and
offering
an
eclectic overview of the Psalms in the Jewish and
Christian
traditions,
but it
may
fall short in matters of
scholarly/classroom utility,
and it contributes almost
nothing
to the
study
of Psalms in the
liturgical
contexts
of the ancient Near East.
Kenneth C. Way
Cincinnati,
Ohio
the two
corpora, asserting
that the bowls
preserved only
"a scant few of the ancient
magical
traditions of Sumer
and Akkad"
(p. 70).
Antonio Panaino deals with the Iranian
sphere, spe
cifically
Zoroastrian culture. His
piece
is devoted
pri
marily
to terrestrial and astral
omina,
respectively
the
sighting
of snakes and the
appearance
of the moon.
(Divination
is
obviously
considered a form of
"magic"
by
the
author,
although
the mantic arts are not classi
fied as such
by
all
scholars.) Hagit
Amirav deals with a
"coercive"
(pp. 128,137)
incantation intended to facili
tate a male client's
securing
of a woman's affections.
The
spell
is written on a
papyrus
from the celebrated
archeological
site
Oxyrhynchus, Egypt. (Strangely,
the
papyrus
date is
variously given
as
"fourth-century"
[p. 125],
"between the late third
century
and mid-fourth
century
AD"
[p. 130],
and "late
fourth/early
fifth cen
tury" [p. 138].)
Simone Michel contributes an
expository
article on ancient and modern
magic gems,
of which she
has examined
nearly
three thousand
(p. 141). Designs
and
inscriptions
on these
objects
are not
reversed,
a clear
indication that
they
were
employed
as talismans and
amulets
(pp. 141-42).
She
argues, contrary
to the asser
tions of some other
scholars,
that no
magical gem
has
ever been used for
malignant purposes (p. 148).
Giuseppe
Veltri focuses on
magical recipes copied
after Masekhet Berakhot in the
Manuscript
Munich
Hebr. 95
(Paris, 1342), probably
from an earlier hand
book
(p. 257).
A number of these
recipes
are concerned
with the
manipulation
of
water,
and Veltri surmises that
the writer of the
Babylonian Gemara,
Shlomo ben Shim
shon,
has
sought
to
protect
this Bavli
manuscript magi
cally
from the
flooding besetting
Northern
Europe
at that
time
(p. 267)!
In a
very
dense
essay,
Klaus Hermann
analyzes
the
prayer
for
"attaining
a better
understanding
of the Torah with the aid of
magic-practices" (p. 175)
attributed to the
Geonic-period mystic
Rav Hamnuna the
Elder
(third/fourth century c.e.),
in
Tefillat
Hamnuna
Sava. He asserts that this text was intended
mainly
"to
create a
synthesis
between
Hekhalot,
magic, liturgy
and
. . .
Haggada" (p. 207).
Three contributors deal to
varying degrees
with texts
from the Cairo Geniza. Reimund Leicht's
paper
is dia
chronic in
nature,
as he considers what Geniza and Ash
kenazi
manuscripts
can tell scholars about the historical
development
of Jewish
magical
literature
(p. 215).
Steven Wasserstrom's
objective
is also historical: In
an
open-ended piece,
he
probes
issues to consider for
constructing
"a cultural and
religious history
of Geniza
magic" (p. 269).
Michael Swartz focuses on the
ques
tion of how
magical
rituals encode
signification (in
the semiotic
sense) through
their
"letters, words,
and
images,
and how
they anticipate
a
response
in kind on
the
part
of the
angels,
demons,
and
deity" (p. 235). Spe
cifically,
he considers
messages conveyed
via
blood,
the
wearing
of a
supernatural
name, and
adjuration (all
human communication with
supernatural entities),
and
divination
procedures (deity
to
human).
Officina M?gica: Essays
on the Practice
of Magic
in
Antiquity.
Edited
by
Shaul Shared. Institute of
Jewish Studies Studies in
Judaica,
vol. 4. Leiden:
Brill,
2005.
Pp.
x +
320,
illus. 149.
The
majority
of the
essays
in this volume
originated
in an international
symposium organized
in 1999
by
the Institute of Jewish Studies of
University College
London,
described
by
one
participant
as "concerned with
the
question
of how
magical
texts,
procedures,
uses,
amulets,
etc. work"
(p.
255 n.
1).
Two of the thirteen
pieces
have in fact
already
been
published
in a 2003
volume
(p. x),
while another is a translation of an
essay
previously published
in a
Hebrew-language journal
(p. 269).
Eleven contributions deal with
magical
texts and/or
materia
m?gica.
In the
opening essay,
editor Shaul
Shaked discusses nine Jewish Aramaic
magical
bowls
of
Babylonian provenience dating
to the end of the
Sasanian/late Talmudic
period
now in the
Sch0yen
Col
lection in Oslo and London. He
remarks,
inter
alia,
on
the
presence
thereon of some
prayer formulae,
of several
texts
belonging
to the
genre
of the Jewish
mystical
Hekhalot
literature,
and of two Mishnaic texts
(p. 3).
Joachim Oelsner discusses not
only magical
bowls
and
clay
tablets of southern
Mesopotamian provenience
but also
many
other
(non-magical)
texts
relating
to
the
Babylonian
cult. He concludes that "well into the
Parthian
period Babylonian
cults and culture were still
alive"
(p. 44)
but had almost
entirely
died out
by
the
Sasanian
period (p. 45).
Markham Geller
investigates
possible
influences from Sumerian-Akkadian
magical
texts in the later Jewish Aramaic
magical
bowls of
similarly Mesopotamian (Babylonian) provenience.
He
finds
many
more differences than similarities between
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110 Journal
of
the American Oriental
Society
121.1
(2007)
Two
essays
in the volume deal
chiefly
or
entirely
with theoretical issues
concerning
the
phenomenological
category
of
"magic." Rejecting
assertions that this term
should be abandoned in favor of other
terminology,
such as "ritual
power,"
Yuval Harari
proposes
"a
new,
quasi-ostensive
definition"
(p. 107)
of
magic.
His
pro
posal
of "an
ongoing learning
and
refining process
. . .
constituted
upon
as wide a
description
as
possible
of the
phenomena
we wish to denote
by
that term"
(p. 114)
is
a
promising approach.
Nevertheless,
he
espouses
the
unwarranted
position
that one must
distinguish
between
"religion"
and
"magic"
as
though they
were two discrete
phenomena.
Rather,
magic
should be considered one
component
within
religion,
a
species
of the
genus.
Harari's ultimate concern is "the
magic
of the Jews of
Palestine and its environs in
antiquity
and the
early
Middle
Ages" (p. 117),
and he
argues persuasively
that
for this
group
and this
period
"a Jewish
magic
text in its
clearest and most reduced sense is an
adjuration
text"
(p. 119). Finally,
Marcel
Sigrist presents
an
argument
for
seeing magic
as "an
integral part
of human
rationality"
(p. 296), certainly
a
legitimate
view. Like
Harari,
how
ever,
Sigrist
sees a need to demarcate
"religion"
from
"magic" (see, e.g., p. 305).
There are a few
spelling errors/typos (e.g., pp. 44,
62, 104,
111 n.
69,
194 n.
82, 207, 209, 257, 267)
and
other mistakes in the
prose (pp.
205, 295)
that
mildly
impede
the reader's
progress through
the volume. This
does
not, however,
detract
appreciably
from the rich
sampling
of
scholarship
within
Officina M?gica,
across
several different
domains,
on a textual
genre
and an
aspect
of human behavior that resist
easy interpretation.
Daniel R. Miller
Bishop's University
cial areas such as the Baharia
oasis,
Hierakonpolis,
el
Kab, Aswan,
and Aniba in Nubia. Also not
apparent
from the title is that the text addresses decorated tombs
of the
post-Amarna Dynasty
18
(just prior
to the Rames
side
age)
when there was considerable innovation and
testing
of new
styles
and themes.
The text is divided into two sections: a
survey
of the
development
of artistic
style(s),
and an
analysis
of these
artistic
styles.
It
begins
with a detailed
stylistic survey
of Theban tombs divided into those that
span
the end of
the Amarna
period
to the end of
Dynasty
18 and
Dy
nasty
19 and tombs of
Dynasty
20. Tombs are
assigned
dates
according
to what is known about the tomb
owner's career
(and
often much is
known), by
a
repre
sentation of a
king
or a reference to his
name,
and in
many
cases,
on much more
subjective stylistic
features.
Of the
thirty-four Dynasty
19 tombs
studied,
fourteen
are
assigned
to that time
period according
to their
style.
And of the
twenty-two
from the
following dynasty,
nearly
half
(twelve)
are dated
stylistically.
Hofmann
clearly
states what
aspects
of the
paintings suggest
a
particular
date. For
example,
in tombs of
Dynasty
19,
men's skin tends to be
red-brown,
while in the
following
dynasty,
it is
lighter,
almost
beige. Although
some
gen
eral trends can be
discerned,
doing
a diachronic
study
of tombs
employing samples
that are not
firmly
dated
creates some
methodological
difficulties.
The text is followed
by
two
appendixes.
The first is
devoted to work methods. This section of the book has
the most
easily
accessible
general
information about the
tombs,
with a valuable discussion of the
preparation
of
walls,
the
variety
of
types
of
relief,
guidelines
and
grids,
pigments,
and
pigment change
over time. The second
appendix
consists of an extensive set of tables
(nearly
a
quarter
of the entire
book)
that sort tombs
by
criteria
such as
technique (raised
relief
only,
combination of
raised and sunk
relief,
paint only, etc.),
colors
employed
for various
aspects
of the
paintings, clothing, wigs,
presence
or absence of
perfume
cones and their
shape,
hair
ornaments,
and
body type.
These are
helpful
for
dating
other
types
of
materials,
such as Ramesside
stelae. These
appendixes
are followed
by
indexes of
personal
names, tomb
numbers,
and
general
terms that
enable the reader to
dip
into the book for
specific
monuments.
I
occasionally
felt overwhelmed
by
this volume
because it tries to cover so much
ground.
The author
deals with
painted
as well as relief
decoration,
and she
compares private
tombs to other
private
tombs and to
stelae,
as well as to
contemporary royal
tombs and
monuments. Other sections deal with
architecture, styles
of
relief,
and how the work was done. It would have
been
very helpful
to include summaries of the
sections,
for much of the text consists of a detailed
description
of a
specific
tomb with remarks about its
stylistic
and
thematic
relationship
to
others,
but there are no overall
statements about how the tomb reflects
development.
The author herself
recognizes this,
commenting
that
Bilder im Wandel: Die Kunst der Ramessidisehen
Privatgr?ber. By
Eva Hofmann.
Theben,
vol. 17.
Mainz: Verlag Philipp von
Zabern,
2004.
Pp.
ix
+
217,
illus. 86.
One of the
glories
of ancient
Egyptian
civilization is
the incredible
ability
of its artists. One can
only
marvel
at their
output
and at their
technique.
A
large
number of
finely
decorated tombs were
produced
in the Ramesside
Period
(Dynasties
19-20,
ca. 1293-1070
B.c.),
with the
greatest
concentration in western Thebes. This
city
was
the theocratic and cultural center of the
country
for more
than five hundred
years,
and as a
result,
the tombs there
were decorated
by
the most
accomplished
artists.
Appro
priately,
since this volume is in the series
"Theben,"
the
majority
of the tombs under discussion are located in
that
region.
What is not
apparent
from the
title,
and a
valuable feature of the
work,
is the discussion of con
temporary
tombs at
Saqqara
in the north and in
pro
vin
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