Jewish and Mandaean Incantation Bowls in the Royal Ontario Museum (Heritage)

THE FIVE TERRACOTI'A BOWLS which are the subject of this study are commonplace in appearance, their only distinction being that each has on its inside surface (and in one case on the outside as well) a spiral inscription in a dialect of Aramaic. The inscriptions are in fact magical texts designed to throw a protective spell over the persons for whom they were written. Bowls of this type have been found in Mesopotamia in considerable numbers during the past century, and have reached the Western world either through dealers or through archaeologists. The five texts before us add in various ways to the lore of the Mesopotamian incantation bowls, and in particular the three Mandaean ones make a modest contribution to the known vocabulary of Mandaic.