Mandaic lead rolls
Mandaic lead rolls, sometimes also known as Mandaic amulets or sheets, which are related to Palestinian and Syrian metal amulets, are a specific term for a writing medium containing incantations in the Mandaic script incised onto lead sheets[1] with a pin.[2][3] Some Mandaic incantations are found on gold and silver sheets.[4][5] They are rolled up and then inserted into a metal capsule with loops on it to be worn around the neck on a string or necklace.[6][5]
History[edit]
These metal objects were produced by the Mandaeans, an ethnoreligious group, as protective talismans. Their inscribed texts are related to inscriptions written in ink on earthen ware bowls, the so-called Aramaic incantation bowls. The metal variants, however, can contain much longer texts and are often inscribed on several lead sheets with catch-lines to indicate the continuation of the text onto the next sheet.[7][8] The lead rolls date to Late Antiquity (3rd–5th centuries CE)[9]: 4 with their textual forerunners going back to the Late Parthian period and originate from Iraq (Central and South Iraq) and Iran (Khuzestan). Major established sites of finds are al-Qurnah,[10] Kish,[11] Seleucia (Sittacene),[12] Ctesiphon,[13] with the first to be discovered in graves 1853 by John George Taylor[14] in Abu Shudhr north of the Shatt al-Arab and copied by Henry Creswicke Rawlinson.[15][16] It was followed nearly sixty years later by the publication of an exemplary specimen in 1909.[7] Most of the objects came and still come through illicit antiquities trade.[17]
Very specific for Mandaic lead rolls are magical stories created by learned Mandaean writers forming a new text genre for Aramaic (historiolas)[18] which have a forerunner in the Aramaic Uruk incantation written in a very Late Babylonian cuneiform (c. 150 BC).[19][20][21]
Such Mandaic magical texts often transmit insights on the afterlife and cults of Late Babylonian gods (Bēl, Birqa of Guzana, Nabu, Nerig/Nergal, Shamash, Sin), goddesses (Mullissu, Mammitu, Ishtar/Delibat = Δελεφατ), and deities of Iranian origin (Anahid, Danish/Danḥish,[22] Ispandarmid = Spenta Armaiti)[23][24][25][26][5][27] as well as demons (Lilith, Dew, Shedu).[28][29] A recently translated lead amulet was bought in Jerusalem.[30]
Modern artefacts[edit]
In Ahvaz, Iran, there is a copy of the Mandaean Book of John with Mandaic text inscribed on lead plates. Originally belonging to Abdullah Khaffagi, it was seen by Jorunn Jacobsen Buckley in 1973.[31]