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Officina Magica: Essays on the Practice of Magic in Antiquity by Shaul Shaked

Review by: Daniel R. MillerJournal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 127, No. 1 (Jan. - Mar., 2007), pp. 109-110Published by: American Oriental SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20297237.

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Brief Reviews 109bibliography lacks many important reference works inboth biblical and ancient Near Eastern studies. Note theabsence of numerous works by scholars such as L. C.Allen, A. A. Anderson, Y. Avishur, A. Berlin, J.Braun,W. Brueggemann, P. Craigie, M. J.Dahood, J.L. Foster,D. N. Freedman, D. M. Howard, O. Keel, H.-J. Kraus,T. Longman, P. D. Miller, S. Mowinckel, M. O'Connor,H. Ringgren, I. Singer, M. S. Smith, M. E. T?te, W. A.VanGemeren, W. G. E. Watson, C. Westermann, etc.Psalms inCommunity is to be praised for bringingtogether a disparate group of scholars and offering aneclectic overview of the Psalms in the Jewish andChristian traditions, but itmay fall short inmatters ofscholarly/classroom utility, and it contributes almostnothing to the study of Psalms in the liturgical contextsof the ancient Near East.

Kenneth C. WayCincinnati, Ohio

the two corpora, asserting that thebowls preserved only"a scant few of the ancient magical traditions of Sumerand Akkad" (p. 70).Antonio Panaino deals with the Iranian sphere, specifically Zoroastrian culture. His piece is devoted primarily to terrestrial and astral omina, respectively thesighting of snakes and the appearance of themoon.(Divination is obviously considered a form of "magic"by the author, although themantic arts are not classified as such by all scholars.) Hagit Amirav deals with a"coercive" (pp. 128,137) incantation intended to facilitate a male client's securing of a woman's affections.The spell iswritten on a papyrus from the celebratedarcheological site Oxyrhynchus, Egypt. (Strangely, thepapyrus date is variously given as "fourth-century"[p. 125], "between the late thirdcentury and mid-fourthcentury AD" [p. 130], and "late fourth/early fifthcentury" [p. 138].) Simone Michel contributes an expositoryarticle on ancient and modern magic gems, of which shehas examined nearly three thousand (p. 141). Designsand inscriptions on these objects are not reversed, a clearindication that they were employed as talismans andamulets (pp. 141-42). She argues, contrary to the assertions of some other scholars, that no magical gem hasever been used formalignant purposes (p. 148).

Giuseppe Veltri focuses on magical recipes copiedafterMasekhet Berakhot in theManuscript MunichHebr. 95 (Paris, 1342), probably from an earlier handbook (p. 257). A number of these recipes are concernedwith themanipulation of water, and Veltri surmises thatthewriter of theBabylonian Gemara, Shlomo ben Shimshon, has sought toprotect this Bavli manuscript magically from the flooding besetting Northern Europe at thattime (p. 267) In a very dense essay, Klaus Hermannanalyzes theprayer for "attaining a better understandingof the Torah with the aid of magic-practices" (p. 175)attributed to theGeonic-period mystic Rav Hamnuna theElder (third/fourth century c.e.), in Tefillat HamnunaSava. He asserts that this textwas intended mainly "tocreate a synthesis between Hekhalot, magic, liturgyand . . .Haggada" (p. 207).Three contributors deal tovarying degrees with textsfrom theCairo Geniza. Reimund Leicht's paper is diachronic innature, as he considers what Geniza and Ashkenazi manuscripts can tell scholars about the historicaldevelopment of Jewish magical literature (p. 215).Steven Wasserstrom's objective is also historical: Inan open-ended piece, he probes issues to consider forconstructing "a cultural and religious history of Genizamagic" (p. 269). Michael Swartz focuses on the question of how magical rituals encode signification (inthe semiotic sense) through their "letters, words, andimages, and how they anticipate a response in kind onthepart of the angels, demons, and deity" (p. 235). Specifically, he considers messages conveyed via blood,thewearing of a supernatural name, and adjuration (allhuman communication with supernatural entities), anddivination procedures (deity tohuman).

Officina M?gica: Essays on thePractice ofMagic inAntiquity. Edited by Shaul Shared. Institute ofJewish Studies Studies in Judaica, vol. 4. Leiden:Brill, 2005. Pp. x + 320, illus. 149.The majority of the essays in this volume originatedin an international symposium organized in 1999 bythe Institute of Jewish Studies of University College

London, described by one participant as "concerned withthe question of how magical texts, procedures, uses,amulets, etc. work" (p. 255 n. 1). Two of the thirteenpieces have in fact already been published in a 2003volume (p. x), while another is a translation of an essaypreviously published in a Hebrew-language journal(p. 269).Eleven contributions deal with magical texts and/ormateria m?gica. In the opening essay, editor ShaulShaked discusses nine Jewish Aramaic magical bowlsof Babylonian provenience dating to the end of theSasanian/late Talmudic period now in the Sch0yen Collection in Oslo and London. He remarks, inter alia, onthepresence thereon of some prayer formulae, of severaltexts belonging to the genre of the Jewish mysticalHekhalot literature, and of twoMishnaic texts (p. 3).Joachim Oelsner discusses not only magical bowlsand clay tablets of southernMesopotamian proveniencebut also many other (non-magical) texts relating tothe Babylonian cult. He concludes that "well into theParthian period Babylonian cults and culture were stillalive" (p. 44) but had almost entirely died out by theSasanian period (p. 45). Markham Geller investigatespossible influences from Sumerian-Akkadian magicaltexts in the later Jewish Aramaic magical bowls ofsimilarly Mesopotamian (Babylonian) provenience. Hefinds many more differences than similarities between

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110 Journal of theAmerican Oriental Society 121.1 (2007)Two essays in the volume deal chiefly or entirelywith theoretical issues concerning thephenomenological

category of "magic." Rejecting assertions that this termshould be abandoned in favor of other terminology,such as "ritual power," Yuval Harari proposes "a new,quasi-ostensive definition" (p. 107) of magic. His proposal of "an ongoing learning and refining process . . .constituted upon as wide a description as possible of thephenomena we wish to denote by that term" (p. 114) isa promising approach. Nevertheless, he espouses theunwarranted position thatone must distinguish between"religion" and "magic" as though theywere two discretephenomena. Rather, magic should be considered onecomponent within religion, a species of the genus.Harari's ultimate concern is "the magic of the Jews ofPalestine and its environs in antiquity and the earlyMiddle Ages" (p. 117), and he argues persuasively thatfor this group and thisperiod "a Jewishmagic text in itsclearest and most reduced sense is an adjuration text"(p. 119). Finally, Marcel Sigrist presents an argument forseeing magic as "an integral part of human rationality"(p. 296), certainly a legitimate view. Like Harari, however, Sigrist sees a need to demarcate "religion" from"magic" (see, e.g., p. 305).There are a few spelling errors/typos (e.g., pp. 44,62, 104, 111 n. 69, 194 n. 82, 207, 209, 257, 267) andother mistakes in the prose (pp. 205, 295) thatmildlyimpede the reader's progress through the volume. Thisdoes not, however, detract appreciably from the richsampling of scholarship within Officina M?gica, acrossseveral different domains, on a textual genre and anaspect of human behavior that resist easy interpretation.

Daniel R. MillerBishop's University

cial areas such as the Baharia oasis, Hierakonpolis, elKab, Aswan, and Aniba inNubia. Also not apparentfrom the title is that the text addresses decorated tombsof thepost-Amarna Dynasty 18 (just prior to theRamesside age) when therewas considerable innovation andtesting of new styles and themes.The text is divided into two sections: a survey of thedevelopment of artistic style(s), and an analysis of theseartistic styles. It begins with a detailed stylistic surveyof Theban tombs divided into those that span the end oftheAmarna period to the end of Dynasty 18 and Dynasty 19 and tombs of Dynasty 20. Tombs are assigneddates according to what is known about the tombowner's career (and often much is known), by a representation of a king or a reference to his name, and inmany cases, on much more subjective stylistic features.Of the thirty-fourDynasty 19 tombs studied, fourteenare assigned to that time period according to their style.And of the twenty-two from the following dynasty,nearly half (twelve) are dated stylistically. Hofmannclearly states what aspects of the paintings suggest aparticular date. For example, in tombs of Dynasty 19,men's skin tends tobe red-brown, while in the followingdynasty, it is lighter, almost beige. Although some general trends can be discerned, doing a diachronic studyof tombs employing samples that are not firmly datedcreates some methodological difficulties.The text is followed by two appendixes. The first isdevoted towork methods. This section of the book hasthemost easily accessible general information about thetombs, with a valuable discussion of the preparation of

walls, the variety of types of relief, guidelines and grids,pigments, and pigment change over time. The secondappendix consists of an extensive set of tables (nearly aquarter of the entire book) that sort tombs by criteriasuch as technique (raised relief only, combination ofraised and sunk relief, paint only, etc.), colors employedfor various aspects of the paintings, clothing, wigs,presence or absence of perfume cones and their shape,hair ornaments, and body type. These are helpful fordating other types of materials, such as Ramessidestelae. These appendixes are followed by indexes ofpersonal names, tomb numbers, and general terms thatenable the reader to dip into the book for specificmonuments.

I occasionally felt overwhelmed by this volumebecause it tries to cover so much ground. The authordeals with painted as well as relief decoration, and shecompares private tombs to other private tombs and tostelae, as well as to contemporary royal tombs andmonuments. Other sections deal with architecture, stylesof relief, and how thework was done. Itwould havebeen very helpful to include summaries of the sections,formuch of the text consists of a detailed descriptionof a specific tomb with remarks about its stylistic andthematic relationship to others, but there are no overallstatements about how the tomb reflects development.The author herself recognizes this, commenting that

Bilder im Wandel: Die Kunst der RamessidisehenPrivatgr?ber. By Eva Hofmann. Theben, vol. 17.Mainz: Verlag Philipp von Zabern, 2004. Pp. ix+ 217, illus. 86.One of the glories of ancient Egyptian civilization isthe incredible ability of its artists. One can only marvelat theiroutput and at their technique. A large number of

finely decorated tombs were produced in theRamessidePeriod (Dynasties 19-20, ca. 1293-1070 B.c.), with thegreatest concentration inwestern Thebes. This citywasthe theocratic and cultural center of the country formorethan five hundred years, and as a result, the tombs therewere decorated by themost accomplished artists.Appropriately, since this volume is in the series "Theben," themajority of the tombs under discussion are located inthat region. What is not apparent from the title, and avaluable feature of thework, is the discussion of contemporary tombs at Saqqara in the north and in provin

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