TY  - JOUR
A1  - Schwemer, Daniel
T1  - Any Evil, a Stalking Ghost, and the Bull-Headed Demon
T2  - Zeitschrift für Assyriologie und vorderasiatische Archäologie
N2  - Based on first-millennium cuneiform manuscripts from Aššur, Babylon, and Uruk, this article offers an edition of a ritual against an illness conceptualized as the demon ‘Any Evil’. The text sheds light on how the catch-all figure Any Evil corresponds to the idea of a universal cure for any physical ailment, and how the rhetoric of the incantation articulates this relationship and facilitates the active participation of the patient. The ritual instructions of this and a closely related text show that Any Evil is envisaged as a bull-headed, male demon. This points to an adaptation of motifs that are typically associated with ghosts in ancient Mesopotamian thought and raises questions concerning the pictorial representation of Any Evil and its conceptual foundations.
KW  - Any Evil
KW  - Bull-Headed Demon
KW  - Aššur
KW  - Babylon
KW  - Uruk
Y1  - 2020
UR  - https://opus.bibliothek.uni-wuerzburg.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/21776
UR  - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-217763
SN  - 0084-5299
SN  - 1613-1150
N1  - This publication is with permission of the rights owner freely accessible due to an Alliance licence and a national licence (funded by the DFG, German Research Foundation) respectively.
VL  - 110
IS  - 2
SP  - 141
EP  - 160
ER  -