The Babylonian World (Routledge Worlds)

In every corner let them bless Gula,

who is supreme in spells and healing,

great is her medicine, Gula heals those who revere her.

By the command of (the goddess) Baba I will praise and call her name to

everyone,

when I go before her. Three times you will make him (the patient) recite it

(the incantation) and he (the patient) will bow down,

will drink this drug and bow down, and recite thusly:

‘I drank this healing drug of my goddess, and I

... am cured’. He says this three times and bows down.
... have him drink this drug (repeatedly) and he will get better.
(Geller 2004: 607)

NOTES

1 Interpreting urbatuin this context as a swarm or grasshopper, forming a cloud (urpatu), which
is the same play on words as the more standard word for locust, namely erbu(locust) and erpetu
(cloud).
2 Note lots of variant translations, some (Collins and Foster) treating irisˇmaraas abracadabra,
while Finkel attempts to translate ‘he irrigated the.. .’.
3 See also Foster 1993 : 847 and Küchler 1904 : 52 f.; and Michel 2004: 398.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Abusch, T. 1984 ‘Magical and Medical Texts: Further Joins and Duplicates’, Revue d’Assyriologie
78 , 93 – 94.
–––– 2002 Mesopotamian Witchcraft, toward a History and Understanding of Babylonian Witchcraft
Beliefs and Literature(Leiden).
Alster, B. 1991 ‘Incantation to Utu’, Acta Sumerologica 13 , 27 – 96.
Ambose, C. 2004 Mesopotamische Baurituale aus dem 1. Jahrtausend v. Chr. (Dresden).
Biggs, R. 1967 Ancient Mesopotamian Potency Incantations(Locust Valley).
Cadelli, D.S. 2000 Recherche sur la Médecine Mésopotamienne(unpub. Ph.D., University of Geneva).
Collins, T.J. 1999 Natural Illness in Babylonian Medical Incantations(unpub. Ph.D., University of
Chicago).
Cunningham, G. 1997 ‘Deliver Me from Evil’(Rome).
Farber, W. 1989 Schlaf, Kindchen, Schlaf! Mesopotamische Baby-Beschwörungen and -Rituale(Winona
Lake).
–––– 2004 = Idem., ‘How to Marry a Disease’, Magic and Rationality in Ancient Near Eastern and
Graeco-Roman Medicine, ed. H.F.J. Horstmanshoff and M. Stol (Leiden), 69 – 132.
Fincke, J. 2000 Augenleiden nach Keilschriftlichen Quellen(Wurzburg).
Finke, I.L. 1998 ‘A Study in Scarlet’, Festschrift für Rykle Borger zu Seinem 65. Geburtstag am 24.
Mai 1994. ed. S. Maul (Groningen), 85 – 106.
Foster, B. 1993 Before the Muses(Bethesda).
Geller, M.J. 1995 ‘Very Different Utu Incantations’, Acta Sumerologica 16 : 101 – 126.
–––– 1999 ‘Freud and Mesopotamian Magic’, Mesopotamian Magic: Textual, Historical, and
Interpretative Perspectives, ed. K. van der Toorn and T. Abusch (Groningen), 49 – 55.
–––– 2004 ‘Ancient Medicine: the Patient’s Perspective’, Journal of Nephrology 17 : 605 – 610.
Heeßel, N. 2000 Babylonisch-assyrische Diagnostik(Münster).
Küchler, F. 1904 Beiträge zur Kenntnis der Assyrisch-Babylonischen Medizin(Leipzig).

— M. J. Geller —