Among the ritual texts of ancient Mesopotamia, few are as compact and dramatic as Maqlû, an Akkadian word meaning «burning». It is the name of a long series of incantations and ritual instructions designed for a single purpose: to identify, neutralise and send back to its sender the work of a witch or a warlock. For anyone studying the history of magic it is a precious document, because it shows how a highly organised civilisation handled the fear of sorcery with the tools of liturgy, writing and fire.
What the Maqlû series is
The series, in the canonical form that has reached us mainly through copies from the first millennium BCE, consists of eight tablets of incantations and a ninth ritual tablet, which briefly explains which actions accompany each formula. Assyriologists have reconstructed the text from many fragments coming from different libraries, above all the one at Nineveh.
The human protagonist of the rite is the āšipu, the professional exorcist, who acts on behalf of a person convinced of being the victim of spells. The witch (in Akkadian kaššaptu) and the warlock (kaššāpu) are almost never named: they are anonymous figures, accused of having used figurines, food, water, dust and words to bind the victim.
A whole night of ritual
The ritual tablet makes clear that Maqlû was performed over a single night, until dawn, in the month of Abu, which in the Mesopotamian calendar fell in high summer and was associated with the return of the spirits of the dead. The rite was not a quick gesture but a sequence marked by stages:
- the invocation of the gods of the night and of the stars, called as witnesses;
- the symbolic summoning of the witch before the divine court;
- the making and destruction of her images;
- the purification of the client with water and aromatic substances;
- the conclusion at dawn, when the light of the sun seals the victory.
This structure has led many scholars to see in it a real trial: the witch is accused, judged and condemned before deities such as Šamaš, the Sun, lord of justice, and Girra or Gibil, the god of fire.
Figurines and fire
The heart of the rite is the use of figurines representing the witch and the warlock. The sources mention images of clay, tallow, wax, bitumen, dough and other materials. The figurines were bound, pierced, covered with substances and above all thrown into the fire. Many formulas address the fire god directly, with invocations such as:
«Burn, Girra, my witch and my warlock…»
The underlying idea is a principle of reciprocity: what the witch did against the victim returns upon her. If she modelled an image of the victim, now it is her image that melts; if she bound, now she is the one bound. It is a form of «responsive» magic, not of aggression: in the language of the series, the one who performs it declares himself innocent and asks only that evil return whence it came.
Words as a weapon
The eight tablets contain dozens of incantations, often built on repetitions, lists and rhythmic formulas. Some recurring features:
- lists of evil actions attributed to the witch: she took the dust from the victim's feet, mixed something into his food, spoke words against him;
- identification of the exorcist with the gods: the āšipu declares that he acts on behalf of Ea and Marduk, so that his words are not his own but divine;
- cosmic imagery: heaven, earth, rivers and mountains are called upon to seal the witch's fate;
- closing formulas declaring the incantation «not mine, but the gods'».
The language is vivid and hostile, yet it always keeps a legal frame: the speaker does not present himself as an aggressor but as an injured party asking for justice.
The historical context
Maqlû was not clandestine magic. On the contrary, it belonged to the official learning of exorcists, educated figures who studied canonical texts for years. Witchcraft, in the Mesopotamian view, was a recognised crime: already the Code of Hammurabi, in its second law, sets out a procedure for someone who accuses another of witchcraft, leaving the decision to the river ordeal.
This tells us a great deal: the «good» magic of the exorcist and the «bad» magic of the witch were not distinguished by technique, because both used figurines, words and substances. What distinguished them was legitimacy: one was public, regulated and aimed at protection; the other was secret and aimed at harm.
What it teaches us today
Reading Maqlû as a historical document means entering a world in which fear, justice and the sacred were intertwined. The series shows:
| Element | Symbolic function |
|---|---|
| Night | time of hidden forces and of divine judgement |
| Fire | purification and destruction of evil |
| Figurine | the witch's presence made visible and open to judgement |
| Dawn | return of order and light |
In the study of tradition, as practised in the Hermetic Workshop of Studio Esoterico Cornelio, these texts matter not to be imitated, but to understand one of history's first great ritual «grammars», in which fear is transformed into procedure, language and symbol.
In short
- Maqlû, «burning», is a Mesopotamian series of eight incantation tablets plus a ritual tablet.
- The rite lasted one night, in the month of Abu, and was led by the āšipu for a victim of spells.
- Figurines of the witch and the warlock were bound and burned according to a principle of reciprocity.
- Its structure recalls a trial before Šamaš and the fire god.
- Witchcraft was a recognised crime, already mentioned in the Code of Hammurabi.
