What’s down This Rabbit Hole?
A writer of fiction inspired by the Hittite world can fall down some lovely research rabbit holes. I sometimes download academic papers from the website academia.edu. Not surprisingly, once that website got a whiff of my interest areas, it started feeding “related” articles into my inbox. Some I read, many I ignore. Much as I love delving into the details of the ancient world and use them avidly in my writing, I have to restrain myself or I’d never get my novels written. However, sometimes a title tickles my curiosity far too much. Recently, a title mentioning magical stones proved irresistible.
The article turned out to be in the journal Nouvelles Assyriologiques Brèves et Utilitaires in the NOTES BRÈVES section, that is, a collection of short notes. I hunted through those notes looking for the one about magical stones. Along the way, I also found a proposed translation of a Sumerian literary text that struck me as beautiful and sadly evocative of this moment in history when so many people have fled their homes and country.
An Unusual Cure for a Headache
First, what did I learn about the Mesopotamian use of magical stones? The Mesopotamians didn’t call them magical. That label is our modern take. In one procedure, they used eight stones to cure pulsating headaches. We can identify three of the stone types listed, black obsidian, chalcedony, and carnelian. The healer bound the eight stones to the temples of the sufferer.
The scholar noted that pressure on trigger points such as the temples is an effective treatment for certain headaches. Perhaps this technique worked in a “medical” way. I find the different colored stones called for intriguing. To the modern sensibility that does feel like inviting magic into this healing rite. It reminds me of similarly precise details for ritual ingredients found in Hittite healing. The Hittites sought good physical and mental health in a balance between the mortal and divine realms. Why not a rainbow of smooth stones to achieve that?
Sumerian Lines
I will leave you with some favorite lines culled from the translation of a Sumerian tablet. See if they reach across the millennia into your soul.
Like an ox that has not remained under the yoke, I was made to go into the steppe. Like a cow and her calf that have not stayed together, I moan with a voice to split the heart Like a ewe and her lamb seized at the place of milking, they got hold of me Like a bird, someone tore me from my nest. I am consumed with those who moan in the streets of Nippur. A foreign city has become my city, I have no one who cares about my cause.
To read the article in which I found these excerpts and the discussion of the magical stones on Academia.edu from Nouvelles Assyriologiques Brèves et Utilitaires 2018 N° 4 (décembre) NOTES BRÈVES
Here for a post on Hittite curing by analogical magic.
Here for a post on “Helpful, harmful and Hallucingenic Herbs of the Bronze Age.