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)都被认为是导致身体和精神疾病的潜在原因。被诊断为巫术引起的痛苦意味着假定病人曾通过非法的仪式做法或操纵的物质，受到具有邪恶意图的人类同胞的攻击和玷污。“妖魔”不是一种单一的疾病，它可以以各种形式出现在患者的身体或环境中。许多仪式、咒语和处方以及诊断文本提供了关于古代美索不达米亚魔法和医学的概念和实践的信息。在这些用楔形文字铭刻的泥板中，有一大组神奇的和医学的文本，涉及诊断，更重要的是，关于被诊断为巫术诱发的疾病的治疗。这组文字的大部分(主要是阿卡迪亚语，但也有苏美尔语)来自公元2世纪和公元1世纪的巴比伦和亚述的楔形文字碑文集。研究项目语料库Babylonischer Rituale and Beschwörungen gegen Schadenzauber(美索不达米亚反巫术仪式语料库)将提供这一文本组的全面批评版本(包括翻译和评论)，这对于古代近东的宗教、魔法和医学史至关重要，也有助于更广泛地理解古代近东的社会史和思想史。文本版本将作为书籍出版，但也将作为基于网络的开放获取、词汇注释版本提供。

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.