A UNIQUE TALMUDIC ARAMAIC INCANTATION BOWL.

• Author: MULLER-KESSLER, CHRISTA

Generally, incantation bowls are written in a formal standardized literary Eastern Aramaic or, less frequently, in a "koine" of Southern Babylonian Aramaic. The present article treats a magic bowl that is written in an idiom that is related to Talmudic Aramaic. Although the term Talmudic Aramaic has been used indiscriminately in several studies to describe the language of incantation bowls, the only attested evidence for this dialect in a bowl written in Aramaic square characters is the single British Museum howl, BM 135563 (1971-2-29, 1), presented here. The text has a strong parallel in a late copy of a Mandaic incantation series Shafta d Pishra d Ainia which is also reminiscent of a passage in the incantation series Maqifi.

WHETHER TALMUDIC ARAMAIC IS ATTESTED in magic bowls that are written in Hebrew characters depends on what is meant by the term. [1] The magic bowls and their language are often said to have linguistic affinities to Talmudic Aramaic (Levine 1970, 343; Epstein 1960, 14), the latter being understood as an Aramaic dialect which is specific to the Babylonian Talmud. [2] S. D. Luzzatto was the first to describe clearly Talmudic Aramaic and to differentiate among various types of Aramaic dialects recorded in the Babylonian Talmud, including the specific dialect of Babylonian Jews, Talmudic Aramaic. [3] Since Luzzatto, three major grammatical works on the Aramaic of the Babylonian Talmud have .been published, as well as a syntax.4 These grammars discriminate clearly between Talmudic Aramaic and what may be called the Standard Literary Babylonian Aramaic [5] that is also found in some tractates such as Nedarim, Nazir, Tamid, Kerithoth, Me[subset]ilah, Tamid. [6] A summary of Babylonian Aramaic is presented in the Enc yclopedia Judaica by E. Y. Kutscher. [7] As noted, Luzzatto (and others after him) observed different forms and dialects of the Aramaic language used in documents, quotations, or proverbs. [8]

The idiom of the Babylonian Jews attested in the Talmud, however, is not used in the texts of the magic bowls. As stated above, the impression given in some studies of the bowls is that their language has a relationship to Talmudic Aramaic even though this is sometimes expressed ambiguously. However, the dialects of the bowls that occur in Aramaic square characters do not have features in common with the Talmudic Aramaic idiom. The majority of bowls studied so far are composed in a Standard Literary Babylonian Aramaic, and a smaller number of bowls are written in what may be called "Koine Babylonian Aramaic," a term defined by T. Harviainen. [9] However, one bowl, BM 135563 (1971-2-29, 1), has surfaced that proves to be an exception to the rule, as it was written in the dialect of Talmudic Aramaic. Typical features of the Aramaic dialect of the Babylonian Jews found in this bowl are: plene spellings as in [h.sup.[contains]]ky (1. 8); the weakening of gutturals and the interchange of n and l as in [nhm.sup.[contains] = [lhm.sup.[contains]] [(1. 11);.sup.[contains]] instead of e.g., [[blank].sup.[subset]badnykw (1. 10); n and l not distinguished in the preformative of the third person imperfect (see Noldeke 1875, 215); apocopated forms, e.g., where endings are dropped, as in [bdnykw.sup.[contains]] (1. 10), [ky.sup.[contains]] (1. 9), mynhw (1. 11); [as.sup.[contains]] a common preposition for [l.sup.[subset]] which is prefixed to the beginning of a word, e.g., [bby.sup.[contains]] (1. 1).

In contrast, Standard Literary Babylonian Aramaic preserves the gutturals, endings of words, and employs the y-preformative in the third person masculine imperfect. The direct object is indicated by the nota accusativi yt. The preposition [l.sup.[subset]] is used as well as thwt (Talmudic Aramaic twt). In distinction to these features are bowls composed in Koine Babylonian Aramaic. In this dialect, the magic formularies are translations from Mandaic, although parallels are not yet attested for all of them. It may be assumed that Mandaic had a strong input. This can be supported by expressions and syntactical constructions found only in Mandaic. Lexical features in Koine Babylonian Aramaic are often known only from Mandaic. However, some texts show a definite Babylonian (Akkadian) legacy which evidently goes back to Late Babylonian times (see Muller-Kessler and Kessler 1999). Typical for Koine Babylonian Aramaic is the weakening of gutturals and the tendency towards the dissimilation of emphatics, e.g., bqwmt y [gsys.sup.[contains]] [dprzl.sup.[contains]] (Montgomery, 1913 bowl 2:1), [gsys.sup.[contains]] [less than] [gsys.sup.[contains]]. The final [-.sup.[contains]] for the status emphaticus is always indicated by [an.sup.[contains]] whereas in Standard Literary Babylonian Aramaic it interchanges with h. The imperfect preformative of the third person masculine is n-/l- and the indicator of the direct object has fallen together with the preposition l. This is also true for Mandaic and Talmudic Aramaic. However, Konie Babylonian Aramaic, like Mandaic, with few exceptions does not have apocopated endings. [10]

The bowl BM 135563 is part of a collection housed in the Department of Western Asiatic Antiquities in the British Museum. According to the records of the Department, the bowl was acquired in 1971, and is from the

Kermanshah area. One section of the text has a definite Mandaic forerunner.

The scribe of the bowl has a very distinctive and experienced hand but, nevertheless, the text shows various corruptions. This is evident in the frequent omission of letters and words, and in the insertion of superfluous words. The content of the bowl is a magical story (historiola) with a short ritual at the end. However, the purpose for which the bowl was composed is not mentioned and the doxological introduction is missing. [11] In the narrative portion the client, Gusnazdukht daughter of Ahat, replaces the speaker, a higher demon or an anonymous being. [12]

TRANSLITERATION OF BM 135563 (1971-2-29, 1)

Conventions used here are:[...] 1 illegible letters; [...] partly legible letters; {...} scribal plus; [less than]...[greater than] scribal omission.

(1.) [[blank].sup.[contains]]bby [ytbn.sup.[contains]], [[blank].sup.[contains]]nh gwsnzdwkt bt...