#sumerian magic

Hi there, and thank you for the kind words! I've really enjoyed the various interviews with Finkel on youtube myself.

I would like to say that this is a Sumerian blog - so I'll give you the translations in Sumerian rather than Akkadian cuneiform. If any Akkadianists in the notes also want to take a crack at this translation, feel free!

"Cosmos" is originally a Greek term, and doesn't have a perfect equivalent in Mesopotamian culture. I'd use anki 𒀭𒆠, which literally means "heaven and earth" but encompasses the known universe. So, with nin 𒎏 "lady", the phrase would be ninanki 𒎏𒀭𒆠 "lady of (the) universe."

Hell yeah, another Sumerian magic lover! I actually pulled out my notes for this one, because you're right. Sumerian sources are very hard to find because, well...they're so old.

Few written records on Sumerian magic have survived. Much of what we know comes from excavated clay figures and jewelry, most of which were protective. The Met has a lot of great articles about the ancient Sumerians.

But in terms of funerary rites and death spells, historians know quite a bit! The Sumerians believed that the dead should be consistently fed and nurtured. They had temporary spirit houses between the death and the funeral, extensive divination methods, and even funerary water pipes for their offerings.

The article "Soul Emplacements in Ancient Mesopotamian Funerary Rites" by JoAnn Scurlock details a lot of this. If you want to learn about afterlife beliefs and mythos, read Dina Katz's The Image of the Netherworld in Sumerian Sources. Dion Fortune's Through the Gates of Death has some info on Sumerian beliefs as well.

For first-hand accounts, we don't have a lot. The Maqlû tablets are the biggest, baddest, most well-known Akkadian magic source. Most of its contents are chants to guard one against malicious magic (often translated to "witchcraft").

Šumma ālu ina mēlê šakin are a serious of cuneiform tablets that list omens, along with some divination tips. It's harder to find online, but researchers have translated it.

Hello! I did some sleuthing and here's what I've found. The hulbazizi incantations are a set of inscriptions that are mostly in the Akkadian language, dating to later than the Sumerian period, though they often use Sumerian words (or sometimes nonsense Sumerian-like words) in amongst the Akkadian. They most often appear on amulets and protective charms rather than full-size tablets - here's one in the Schoyen collection. They're called that from the Sumerian words hul 𒅆𒌨 "evil" + zi 𒍣 "to destroy", in the passive form bazizi 𒁀𒍣𒍣 "it is destroyed", which is used as an incipit (first words) of some of them, but doesn't appear in every one. Check out Bácskay & Niederreiter 2022 for a bunch of examples. You may also be interested in van Dijk et. al. 1985 (full text from Yale here), which has a large number of incantation spells but unfortunately isn't searchable.

My twitch chat helped me out with our own translation of the phrase you requested, though I don't know of it appearing anywhere in the cuneiform corpus of course. "Deities" is dingirene 𒀭𒊑𒉈, and "to protect" is ngal 𒅅, in the form "may (they) protect (it)" appearing as hebngalene, which I believe would be 𒃶𒅁𒅅𒂊𒉈 in cuneiform. The word for "step, footstep" in Sumerian is the same as the word for "foot", ngiri 𒄊 - and the most Sumerian-ish way I'd translate the end of the phrase is simply as "all (shar) my (-ngu) footsteps", ngirisharngu 𒄊𒊹𒈬.

Hello! There are a couple ways I could interpret your question, so I've answered both below.

I've previously answered about Sumerian words for magic (ningak "doing-thing") and the magical arts (e.g. ningdimdimma). As far as I know there is no Mesopotamian concept of "magical energy", "life force" or "healing power" corresponding to either the original Polynesian/indigenous Pacific concept of mana or the subsequent usage of the term in Western cultures. I've seen some people use the term alad, though this means "male guardian spirit" rather than some pervasive life force.

Hello! If you're looking for a Sumerian word for magic I've previously answered on it (ningak is the word, along with a few others). You can also check out my Sumerian magic tag for all my posts on the topic.

I would interpret ashzi as something like "curse of breath" or "need/desire for breath", as in what someone who is choking or has respiratory illness feels. You may want to reverse the order to ziasha, which would mean something like "breath of a curse", "breath of need" or "life of a curse" - still not really a magic term but a little closer.

Ash rhymes (roughly) with "gosh!" or "Oshkosh". Zi is pronounced like the name of the letter Z in American English (so, not "zed"). There is no "zh" sound in Sumerian. For more on how to pronounce specific sounds in Sumerian, check out my video on the topic or my Sumerian phonology tag.