Corpus of Mesopotamian anti-witchcraft rituals: text editions, lexical annotation and indexing, historical and literary analysis

在古代近东历史的所有时期，巫术（“黑魔法”）被认为是身体和精神疾病的潜在原因。对巫术引起的痛苦的诊断意味着假设病人受到了具有邪恶意图的人类同胞通过非法仪式或操纵物质的攻击和玷污。“蛊惑”并不是一种疾病，它可以以各种形式出现在病人的身体或者环境中。大量的仪式、咒语和处方以及诊断文本提供了有关古代美索不达米亚魔法和医学的概念和实践的信息。在这些文本--用楔形文字刻成的泥板--中，有大量的魔法和医学文本涉及诊断，更重要的是，涉及被诊断为巫术引起的疾病的治疗。这个群体的大部分（主要是阿卡德语，但也有苏美尔语）文本来自第二和第一千年巴比伦和亚述的楔形文字板。研究项目：《巴比伦礼仪与礼仪大全》（美索不达米亚反巫术仪式语料库）将提供一个全面的关键版本（包括翻译和评论）的这一文本组，这是首要的宗教史，古代近东的魔法和医学，也有助于了解古代近东的社会史和思想史更普遍地说。这些文本将作为书籍出版，但也将作为一个基于网络的，开放获取，词汇注释版本。

In all periods of ancient Near Eastern history, witchcraft ('black magic') was regarded as a potential cause of physical and mental illnesses. The diagnosis of an affliction as witchcraft-induced implied that the assumption that the patient had been attacked and defiled by fellow humans with evil intention by means of illegal ritual practices or manipulated substances. 'Bewitchment' was not one single disease, but could manifest itself in the patient's body or in his environment in various forms. Numerous rituals, incantations and prescriptions as well as diagnostic texts provide information on the concepts and practices of ancient Mesopotamian magic and medicine. Among these texts - clay tablets inscribed in cuneiform script -, there is a large group of magical and medical texts that are concerned with the diagnosis and, more importantly, the therapy of illnesses that were diagnosed as witchcraft-induced. Most of the (mostly Akkadian, but also Sumerian) texts of this group come from collections of cuneiform tablets from 2nd and 1st millennium Babylonia and Assyria. The research project Corpus babylonischer Rituale und Beschwörungen gegen Schadenzauber (Corpus of Mesopotamian Anti-witchcraft Rituals) will provide a comprehensive critical edition (including translations and commentaries) of this text group which is of prime importance for the history of religion, magic and medicine of the ancient Near East and also contributes to the understanding of the social history and the history of ideas of the ancient Near East more generally. The text editions will be published as books, but will also be available as a web-based, open access, lexically annotated version.