Lenormant - Chaldean magic: its origin and development

First published in 1999 by

Red Wheel/Weiser, L LC

York Beach, ME

With offices at:

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Boston, MA 02210

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Lenormant, Franois, 1837-1883.

[Magie chez les Chaldens. English.]

Chaldean Magic: Its origin and development / Franois Lenormant.

p. cm.

Originally published: London: Bagster and Sons, 1878.

Includes bibliographical references and indexes.

ISBN 0-87728-924-7 (hardcover: alk. paper)

1. Magic, Assyro-Babylonian. I. Title.

BF1591.L613 1999

133.43-dc21

98-49347

CIP

Printed in The United States of America

MV

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials Z39. 48-1984.

M. SAMUEL BIRCH, LL.D., F.S.A., ETC.,

EN TMOIGNAGE

DUNE VIEILLE ET RESPECTUEUSE

AFFECTION.

HIS book came out in France three years ago. Since that time science has been making rapid strides, and in prosecuting my studies I have found a confirmation of many of my opinions. I could not therefore allow a translation of my studies relating to Chaldean Magic to appear without making a new edition of it, subject to various corrections and additions. To this end I have carefully revised all the translations of Cuneiform texts contained in this volume, and in some cases slight modifications have been necessary to bring them into harmony with the latest discoveries. I have added a translation of several interesting fragments which were not comprised in the French edition, and entirely rewritten some of the chapters. The book which I now offer the English public may, therefore, be regarded as an almost entirely new work, which alone represents the present state of my opinions and studies.

A MAGIE CHEZ LES CHALDEENS, of which this present volume is an enlarged edition, was issued by M. Lenormant in the autumn of 1874; it was preceded by Les Premieres Civilisations, and closely followed in 1875 by La Divination et la Science des Prsages; all these works possessing the same characteristic feature: the exposition of Assyrian thought, as evidenced by the language of the Cuneiform inscriptions themselves, compared with the traditions and usages of other contemporary and descended races, both Semitic and Turanian.

The interest excited in the philosophical world by these treatises was still further increased, by the publication in England, almost immediately afterwards, of the late George Smiths Chaldean Genesis, in which for the first time since the era of Assurbanipal, the myths of the ancient Accadians were read in the light of day. By the additional texts thus recovered for the use of students, the premises of M. Lenormant were to a great extent confirmed; and the interest of Biblical scholars in Assyrian mythology showing every sign of increasing, it was deemed advisable to present the general public with an English edition of La Magie. This task was at once undertaken by Messrs. Bagster and Sons, and on the MSS. being sent to the author, he in the most generous manner offered to recast the earlier Chapters of the work, and to rewrite some of the latter. While this was being done, the researches of Prof. Sayce and other Assyriologists elucidated new facts, and discovered fresh parallels between the Accadian and Ugro-Finnic theologies. These discoveries had all to be considered and incorporated with the original text of M. Lenormant, and the result was, in the end, an almost entire remodelling of the French edition. To the editor was assigned, with the consent of the author, the office of adding references from English authorities to the citations already given from Continental writers, especially as

La Magie was, in its new form, designed for a larger circulation than that of scholars alone. The various texts issued in the Records of the Past, and the Transactions of the Society of Biblical Archology, had to be cited wherever it was possible to do so; and further, such various readings noted as had been adopted by English translators. These numerous emendations, while they increased the value of the work, delayed its progress through the press far longer than was anticipated, and even now, at the last moment, it has been judged expedient by M. Lenormant to add an Appendix bearing upon the ethnographical meaning of the term Sumiran, in reply to a pamphlet by Dr. Oppert, which has become the centre of a controversy, the waves of which have begun to reach our shores.

These circumstances will account for one or two apparent discrepancies in the present translation: viz., the use of the syllable dug for khi, in the ideograms composing the name of the god Marduk, from p. , is another example of the progressive revision which this translation has undergone.

These revisions and corrections, both of the original work and the present translation, as passed by M. Lenormant, are only such as from the nature of the theme, and the advancing condition of Assyrian philology might be expected. Of Assyriology it may truly be written, day unto day uttereth knowledge. There is probably no section of the science of comparative mythology of which, till recently, less has been known, or of which, at present, more authentic materials remain, than the subject of Chaldean Magic: its Origin and Development.

W. R. C.

V ENTNOR,

November, 1877.