Computational Approaches to the Babylonian Incantation Bowls

• In Event: Computational Approaches

Abstract

The Jews of third- to seventh-century Sasanian Babylonia formed one of the most influential communities in Jewish history. They completed the Babylonian Talmud, which survives as the central canon of rabbinic Judaism. Nevertheless, we have access to almost no direct evidence of their communities: no original Talmud manuscripts survive. Only one substantial body of texts survives directly from this time period. The Babylonian incantation bowls, dishware covered in spiraling magical texts, protected late antique families from demonic incursion.
We know the bowls originate from roughly the same time and place as the Talmud: among other evidence, some bowls contain explicit dates. However, we know next to nothing else about their origins. Who created these bowls, and for whom were they made? How were these incantations chosen? How did their authors learn to shape these letters?
The Talmud generally frowns on magic, and the communities it portrays seem distinct from those suggested by the bowls—the latter intimately familiar with demons and magic; the former, refraining from magic except for the purpose of education. A relationship between these two communities would challenge our model of communal boundaries in a formative period in Jewish history.
While the texts of the bowls can provide some details, primarily this evidence is concrete. The bowls provide linguistic and paleographical clues which we can analyze statistically. Simple Python scripts can allow us to explore the demographic makeup of the bowl communities, as indicated by the shifting etymological origins of clients’ names across generations. Advanced machine learning techniques can cluster the bowls based on paleographical details, sketching an image of networks of Semitic scribal schooling under the Sasanians.
The application of computing to the study of the occult allows us to explore it as a source of hard data, and not as a fuzzy realm of marginal beliefs. We can then explore the magical evidence of these marginalized voices, centering them instead of dismissing them. Perhaps magic provides a source for the quotidian lives of the laity, in contrast to the marginal religious elite.

Author

• Shoshana Boardman