Maqlu

Maqlû ("Burning")

Anonymous / tradition · c. 11th-7th century BC (Standard Babylonian series, likely compiled from older Middle Babylonian material) · Babylon (Iraq) · medicine

An eight-tablet ritual and incantation series argues that a person suffering unexplained misfortune is very likely the victim of a witch's curse, and that the correct remedy is to identify, name, and ritually burn a substitute effigy of that witch until the curse itself is destroyed.