from: "Monsters and Demons in the Ancient and Medieval Worlds"
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Last week at the Library I was browsing through what I think of as the "occult" section. I'm not actually sure what the official label for this shelf is, but when taking a break from the ANE areas I drift over there sometimes and browse. I should love to have the time to read some of these works and I have an active imagination and a taste for approaching in so scholarly a manner as I'm able those subjects which might often receive disdain from the scholarly world. Vampires, magic, demons and what have you - This day while in the occult section I couldn't resist picking up a title (mentioned above) "Monsters and Demons in the Ancient and Medieval Worlds".
I was very surprised when reviewing the contents to see quite familiar names among the contributers- among which were not only E. Reiner but W.G Lambert! Certainly top ANE scholars. And in addition D. Hansen contributes an interesting article: Ive copied part of the Contents page below:
Erica Reiner Magic Figurines, Amulets, and Talismans....27
W.G. Lambert Gilgamesh in Literature and Art: The Second and First Millennia.....37
Donald P. Hansen The Fantastic World of Sumerian Art: Seal Impressions from Ancient Lagash.......53
But to continue with the relevant article, Reiner's, I sum her key comments on the matter of figurines in the following. We obtain a good overview of the
difficulties in this effort in this, (I've added my own highlights below.)
pg.
29"Our sources also fail us when we seek in them descriptions that match amulets or magic figurines. Apart from the Lamaštu amulets on which the demon is depicted in the same shape and with the same attributes as the Lamaštu incantations specify, correspondences between the descriptions of demons and monsters and their representations are
hard to find. Not even the representations of the monstrous creatures inscribed in a unique text last edited by Kocher
8 have to my knowledge yet been identified.
[
note 8: F. Kocher. "Der babylonishce Gotertypentext," Mitteilungen des Instituts fur Orientforschung 1 (1953) 51-107]
This text, known since 1894 and dubbed "
Gottentypentext" by its first editor Bezold, gives precise descriptions of half-human, half-animal figures, specifying not only their shapes and paraphernalia but even their postures. It also identifies each composite monster by name, usually by a name not known from other sources but occasionally by a name familiar from other texts, such as the
lahmu-creatures of the
apsú who belong to the retinue of the god Ea. Incidentally, the only seal that is referred to by its figural representation, in a letter from the Middle-Assyrian period [KAV 98:9, Oppenheim 1967, n. 85] is called "the seal of the
laḫmu."
.....
as we shall see, texts with instructions for drawing magical representations were neither written by accomplished artists nor did they presuppose artistic talent on the part of the magical expert. The numerous magic rituals (
namburbi,
Maqlû,
bīt mēsiri, etc.) that use figurines
hardly ever describe them. They simply direct the magic practitioner to fashion one or several
şalmu's. The term
şalmu can designate any figural representation, rock-relief or statue in the round, from life-size and larger-than-life-size to the smallest ornament worn as jewelry, and may even refer to the shape of a constellation. It is also the the term used to describe, for instance, the representation of the moon god Sin on the costly jasper cylinder seal Assurbanipal engraved, a fact reported by Nabonidus [VAB 4 286 x 35], though this representation, other texts tell us, may have simply been the lunar crescent. Alas, the word
şalmu does not seem to mean "amulet."
Since the purpose of the magic rituals is eventually to destroy the figurines, and with them the evil they represent, by burning or melting them, or throwing them into a river, or burying them in a deserted place, it would be strange indeed if such figurines had survived. In any case, it is the magic operation, the personification of the evil in a material form so that it can be disposed of, that lies at the core of these rituals, and
versimilitude to the evil demon is hardly a necessary factor. While some figurines mentioned in these texts can be identified with surviving representations, such as the mentioned Lamaštu or the famous Pazazu head, others cannot, whether it be the figurine of Gilgameš or figurines of evil demons known under generic names as the evil
utukku, the evil
alu, the evil
rābişu etc., not to speak of the figurine of an evil power simply called mimma lemnu "anything evil," whose features even the Babylonians may have been at a loss to specify.
In fact the texts are rather reluctant to provide descriptions and physical characteristics of such evil demons. On the contrary, they insist on the fact that the demons are featureless - they are like clouds, now amassing, now dissolving.
"Reiner thus concludes that regrettably, "the scholars who prescribed the fashioning of magic figurines and amulets apparently had no connection or contact with those craftsman and artists who engraved seals or reliefs. " While sometimes scribes did a drawing on a tablet (rare) there were "schematic or clumsy" and issued instructions for the drawing of these depictions elsewhere,
the drawings did not contain any appreciable features or do not add to our idea of the Mesopotamian vision of the demonic.
Still to come
: Continuing notes on the depiction of demons, and the use of figurines in magic ritual.