Aramaic Incantation Bowls

The Aramaic incantation bowls are inscribed ceramic bowls used in Jewish magic during the late Sasanian and early Islamic periods (ca. 500–700 CE) to ward off evil spirits, cure diseases, and overturn curses.|||Ceramic bowls with Aramaic inscriptions, excavated in Mesopotamia (modern Iraq and Iran). Over two thousand bowls are known, mostly in museum collections.|||Produced ca. 500–700 CE. The only major extant written corpus produced by Jews during this period outside the Babylonian Talmud.|||Not canonical in any tradition.|||The primary archaeological evidence for Jewish magic in late antiquity. Reveal beliefs about demons, angels, and the efficacy of adjuration.|||Shaked, S., Ford, J. N., & Bhayro, S. Aramaic Bowl Spells: Jewish Babylonian Aramaic Bowls. Brill, 2013.|||Levene, D. Jewish Aramaic Curse Texts from Late-Antique Mesopotamia. Brill, 2013.|||Marcus, A. W. & Mokhtarian, J. S. Aramaic Incantation Bowls in Their Late Antique Jewish Contexts. SBL Press, 2025.|||Aramaic Incantation Bowls — SBL Press|https://cart.sbl-site.org/books/140376P|Marcus & Mokhtarian volume.;; Incantation Bowls — Wikipedia|https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incantation_bowls|Background and scholarly discussion.|||" This bowl is for the healing of the house of X, against all evil spirits and demons." — Aramaic Incantation Bowl (paraphrase)