About: Maqlû

The Maqlû, “burning,” series is an Akkadian incantation text which concerns the performance of a rather lengthy anti-witchcraft, or kišpū, ritual. In its mature form, probably composed in the early first millennium BC, it comprises eight tablets of nearly a hundred incantations and a ritual tablet, giving incipits and directions for the ceremony. This was performed over the course of a single night in the month of Abu (July/August) when the perambulations of the spirits to and from the netherworld made them especially vulnerable to its spells. It was the subject of a letter from the exorcist Nabû-nādin-šumi and the Assyrian king Esarhaddon. It seems to have evolved from an earlier short-form with only ten incantations to be performed in a morning ceremony, whose first incantation begins: Š