Introduction

In the tomb of a Neo-Assyrian queen, located in the North-West Palace at Kalhu, archaeologists discovered several amulets, among which some stone beads inscribed in cuneiform script. The beads, which might have belonged to Queen Ataliya, wife of Sargon II (d. 705 BCE), contained incantations in Sumerian, part of which read:^[1]

It (= the ghost) has seized (my) temple. It has seized the straight (side) of (my) head. It has seized (my) head in the dust. O Marduk, beater of the head! It (= the ghost) has seized (my head). O Asalluhi, beater of the head! It (= the ghost) has seized (my head).

An incantation identical to that found on the queen’s beads is also attested in medical compendia from ancient Mesopotamia, from the first millennium BCE. There it is also accompanied by further ritual instructions. These mention^[2]

Eight stones (against) migraine. You string (them) on white wool. You recite the incantation sag-ki mu-un-dab seven times (on it), tie a knot (on it) (and) tie it onto his (sick) temple.

This is a typical example of both magical recipe and applied “finished product” being found that pertain to the same ritual. Whether the Neo-Assyrian queen was healed from the pain that seized her temples, described as “the straight side of my head”, remains unknown. What may be suggested, however, is that headaches, including those that resemble medical disorders identified today as migraines, have been attested in magical texts as early as three millennia ago.^[3] This article will look at some of the attestations of migraines and headaches in a specific corpus of magical texts: the Mesopotamian incantation bowls inscribed in Jewish Aramaic. It will survey these attestations and attempt to determine whether there are clues for identifying migraines, and whether specific symptoms and ritual elements accompany them in the bowls.

I begin this article with a brief description of current medical descriptions of migraines, in order to establish what symptoms are presently associated with this disorder. They will serve as a starting point from which to further establish potential connections with ancient descriptions of similar ailments. Next, I will succinctly outline what terminology, symptoms and types of treatments for migraines are recorded in antiquity in the geographical area that is relevant to the context of the Mesopotamian incantation bowls. I will proceed with a description of migraine and headache attestations in the rabbinic corpus, followed by their attestations in the Jewish ritual/ magical traditions, broadly understood. Lastly, the article will survey and analyze the attestations of migraines in the Mesopotamian magic bowls.

Migraines: a modern medical overview

A definition of migraines is important for a clear historical contextualization. Was a migraine in antiquity the same medical disorder that is today described by this term? How can one identify it in antiquity? Modern clinical definitions of migraine include a broad range of symptoms.^[4] Furthermore, migraine means something different to different people: the triggers it has, the effects it causes, and the means of alleviating these, all vary. Some general characteristics, however, do recur more often than others in the medical literature.

Modern clinical classifications of migraine refer to migraines without aura or with aura.^[5] The former, also known as “common migraine”, is typically manifested by pain focusing on one side of the head, that is, having a unilateral location.^[6] This is the origin of the Greek term ἡμικρᾱνίᾱ (from hemi-kraníon, or “half of the head”) and its parallels in other languages. These migraines are further described in medical literature as having a pulsating, throbbing or pounding quality. Migraine sufferers often feel nauseous during attacks. Many sufferers are photophobic during attacks and show extreme sensitivity to light. Others are (also) phonophobic and hypersensitive to sound. Sometimes migraines without aura are aggravated by routine, mild physical activity, such as walking.

The second class of migraines is that of migraines with aura, also known as “classic migraines”. A high percentage among migraine sufferers experience this class, sometimes in addition to migraines without aura. The term “aura” refers to “the complex of neurological symptoms that occurs usually before the headache”,^[7] although in some cases these continue after the headache has started. Migraines with aura comprise a variety of neurological symptoms: visual symptoms, sensory symptoms such as tingling sensations or numbness, motor weakness, speech-related symptoms or cognitive ones. Of these, the visual symptoms are the most common, being reported by more than 90 % of the patients who experience migraines with aura.^[8] Additionally, migraine pain of both classes is often located not just in the temple but in the eye on the affected side. Some migraines, defined as retinal migraines, even cause a temporary loss of sight or blindness in the eye affected by the migraine.^[9] Symptoms of both classes of migraines usually last a maximum of 72 hours.

Another common symptom of migraines, both with and without aura, is neck pain.^[10] Studies indicate that over 75 % of migraine sufferers experience neck pain correlated to the migraine attack. One comparative study found neck pain to be experienced even more frequently than nausea.

People of both sexes and all ages may suffer from migraines, with the percentage varying according to age. However, the percentage of female sufferers is much higher than that of males. Women also can experience menstrual migraines, both with and without aura, which are related to their monthly hormonal cycle.^[11] Migraines are further categorized as chronic or episodic. The former category refers to migraines occurring fifteen days or more per month, during a period of at least three months (or eight days per month, in case other symptoms are present).^[12]

Of the broad variety of symptoms outlined above, one can note some major recurring ones: unilateral headache, nausea, visual phenomena, eye pain and neck pain. As will be shown in what follows, these symptoms also appear in some ancient texts related to headaches, suggesting that they were describing the same disorder that is currently termed “migraine”. I will subsequently use this clinical starting point to analyze the descriptions of migraines in the Mesopotamian incantation bowls.

Descriptions of migraine in antiquity

As mentioned above, the term “migraine” reflects the English rendering of the Greek hemicrania, meaning “half of the head”.^[13] A term corresponding to “half of the head” appears in languages other than Greek, and is attested as early as the sixteenth century BCE in ancient Egypt.^[14] Some scholars even suggest that the Greek term was actually borrowed from the Egyptian concept of pain in half of the head,^[15] although this is not necessarily so, since both terms merely describe the most common symptom of migraines. Both Papyrus Ebers (ca. 1550 BCE) and Papyrus Chester Beatty V (ca. thirteenth-twelfth century BCE) prescribe remedies for a unilateral type of headache. However, the absence of additional symptoms means that caution needs to be exercised when identifying this type of headache with migraines.^[16]

Mesopotamian medico-ritual texts similarly describe symptoms that could correspond to migraines.^[17] For instance, some recipes from the second and first millennium BCE refer to a person who experiences “pulsating of the temples”, which would seem to correspond to the pulsating or throbbing headache typical of migraines. This “pulsation” is mentioned in several recipes, and can be accompanied by tears in one or both eyes, by numbness of the hands and feet, or even by a certain form of paralysis.^[18] Some of these recipes refer to temple pain in association with pain in the neck and the eye sockets, which would seem to bear similarities to the migraine symptoms known from modern clinical classifications.^[19] Again, such identifications need to be careful in order to avoid anachronisms, but it is likely that at least some of the medical and ritual texts from ancient Mesopotamia referred to migraine and/ or proposed treatments that would be suitable for this disorder. For instance, headache recipes instructing the medical practitioner to “make him (the patient) live in a house which has a shade; for three days you shalt do this”^[20] may reflect a cure for migraine attacks accompanied by photophobia and lasting 72 hours.

The Greek Hippocratic corpus may have referred to migraines in a description of a clinical case.^[21] The author described a patient named Phoenix, who

“seemed to see flashes like lightning in his eye, usually the right. And when he had suffered that a short time a terrible pain developed towards his right temple, then in the whole head, and then into the part of the neck where the head is attached to the vertebra behind, and there was stretching and hardness around the teeth. He kept trying to open them, straining. Vomits, whenever they occurred, averted the pains I have described, and made them more gentle”.^[22]

Later, additional Greek authors described headaches that may have been migraines, most prominently Aretaeus of Cappadocia (first-second century CE), who introduced a tripartite classification of headaches based on their symptoms and duration. Among these, the pain he termed “heterocrania” and was actually described as unilateral, would seem to correspond to migraines.^[23]

Galen (129–ca. 216 CE) continued the classification of Aretaeus but added the term “hemicrania” for a type of unilateral headache, thus introducing the term that is still in use today.^[24] The Galenic description is closely reminiscent of the modern clinical symptoms described above:

(…) this ailment is a chronic long-lasting and obstinate headache (kephalalgia), which flares up on minor provocation with such severe paroxysms that [the patients] cannot tolerate a noise, a loud voice or any bright light or motion but want to rest quietly in darkness because of the severity of the pain. Some persons believe that they are getting hit by hammer blows, others that their heads are squeezed or stretched, and in quite a few the pain extends to the roots of the eyes. (…) Some of the patients with only one-sided headaches, which are commonly called hemikrania, feel this pain at the outside of the skull; others as if it is penetrating deeply into the head.^[25]

The treatment in antiquity for the described symptoms included medicinal and ritual elements. In some cases, treatments were of a predominantly magical/ritual nature, for instance, those described in the Greek Magical Papyri (PGM) corpus, on gems and metal amulets, and in the type of objects that are the focus of this article – the incantation bowls.^[26]

After having briefly surveyed the ancient sources on headaches and (perhaps) migraines, it is useful to consider the distinction between the two. The question, which I also address elsewhere, is whether one can distinguish migraines from other types of headaches in this ancient material.^[27] My response is that such a distinction is possible, at least to some extent. As seen above, classifications of headaches based on accompanying symptoms are known from Egypt, Mesopotamia and the ancient Graeco-Roman world. Some of the symptoms currently associated with migraines also appear in these ancient sources and seem to consistently designate specific classes of headaches. Thus, one may cautiously employ such ancient categories and attach to them the modern medical term “migraine”, while bearing in mind that they might have referred to a different class of headache–they would have, nonetheless, be referring to one specific class. My research further indicates that while people in antiquity could distinguish a migraine from a headache, this does not mean that they always dedicated a separate treatment (medicinal or ritual/ magical) to each. For example, Papyrus Ebers 260 contains a recipe titled “Another (remedy) for the head and for the temple”, thus referring to two ailments, but suggesting one treatment.^[28]

Migraines in the rabbinic corpus

Traditionally, the Aramaic term tzilḥata (צילחתא) found in the rabbinic literature is regarded by scholars as corresponding to migraine.^[29] This feminine noun is formed from the root צלח, meaning to split or to cleave, and hence appears to denote a pain in half (of the head).^[30] The term tzilḥata appears very few times in the Babylonian Talmud. It is mentioned in a discussion of materials that may be carried out in the day of Shabbat, where the use of these materials is also noted. One of these is a substance called ʿyiṭran (עטרן), perhaps referring to tar or to a plant: “For what (use) is any amount of ʿyiṭran suited? For tzilḥata”.^[31] Later, medieval interpretations of this passage explained the term tzilḥata as “pain of half of the head”, that is, migraine.^[32] The manner in which the ʿyiṭran substance was to be used was not specified.

The detailed medical compendium found in the Babylonian Talmud, tractate Gittin 68b–70a,^[33] also mentions the term tzilḥata, proposing an elaborate treatment:^[34]

For tzilḥata, let him bring a wild rooster^[35] and slaughter it using a white zugita/ zuz,^[36] over the side (of the head) that hurts him. And he should be careful of its blood so as not to blind his eye. And he should hang it on the doorpost, so that when he enters (the house) he rubs against it and when he exits he rubs against it.

The treatment is a combination of medical and ritual/ magical elements. As in the previous Talmudic passage, no symptoms of tzilḥata are noted and hence the correspondence to migraine should be careful. It is worth noting that this passage directly precedes a treatment for baruqty (BRWQTY, ברוקתי). As it will be shown further below, the proximity of the two ailments, tzilḥata and baruqta, is relevant to a discussion of migraine in the incantation bowls.

Lastly, a possible reference to migraine is found in tractate Pesachim 111b, where it is said that “one who relieves himself on the stump of a palm tree will be seized by a palga spirit (PLGʾ, פלגא), and one who places his head on the stump of a palm tree will be seized by a tzarda spirit (ṢRDʾ, צרדא)”.^[37] The last term was interpreted by some, e.g. Rashi, as “pain of half of the head”, perhaps because its similarity to tzdada, meaning “side”. Other interpretations of the sentence view tzarda as referring to vertigo,^[38] and in yet other cases the term is translated as an eye disease.^[39]

Other than the three passages of BT Shabbat 90a, BT Gittin 68b, and BT Pesachim 111b, no terms or descriptions that appear related to migraines are found in the rabbinic corpus. This disorder is, however, mentioned in Jewish magical recipes, as described below.

Migraines in the late antique Jewish magical tradition

Disorders that appear to correspond to migraine are mentioned in two Jewish magical texts from Late Antiquity. First and foremost, in a recipe from Sefer ha-Razim (The Book of Mysteries), a Hebrew manual composed around the third or fourth century CE.^[40] The recipe combines a manipulation of materia magica with the writing of a text consisting of angelic names, and instructs the practitioner (my translation):^[41]

If you wish to cure the pain of half of the head or to bind or rebuke the spirit of bruqit/ bareqet (ברוקית/ ברקת), take the membrane (lit. fat) that covers the brain of a black ox,^[42] and write on it the names of these angels while in (a state of) purity, and place it in a silver (other mss.: copper) tubular case, and bind it with seven (strings of) colors and place it on the side of the pain. And abstain yourself from meat and from wine and from the dead and from a menstruating woman, and from every impure thing.

Migraine is defined here in Hebrew words, that can be rendered as a translation of “pain of half of the head”, hence: hemi-cranion. One of the manuscripts of the book even clarifies: “And if you sought healing for the headache that is called imigrania, that is the pain of half of the head (…)”.^[43] Interestingly, the migraine in this recipe is coupled with “the spirit of bruqit (BRWQYT)”, רוח הברוקית, (or, in other manuscripts, bareqet [BRQT, ברקת]). The same magical remedy is recommended for both migraine and the spirit of bruqit/bareqet.

The modern editors of Sefer ha-Razim, Rebiger and Schäfer, explain the term bruqit as “eine nicht exakt identifizierbare Augenkrankheit” (p. 245). They also mention that the Babylonian Talmud contains a similar term, barqit (BRQYT) (BT Shabbat 78a). This passage will be discussed further below. For now, it is important to note that the nexus between migraine and this eye disease, found in Sefer ha-Razim, resembles the one that appears in the Babylonian Talmud, Gittin 68b. The same link will be found in some of the incantation bowls, which will be examined later.

A second Jewish magical compilation from Late Antiquity that refers to migraines is The Sword of Moses (Ḥarba de-Moshe), roughly dated to the second half of the first millennium CE.^[44] Here one finds at least one recipe referring to tzilḥata and another referring to the palga spirit.^[45] The latter might be understood either as a migraine or as paralysis,^[46] but the former is more clearly associated with migraine symptoms, as noted earlier.

For tzilḥata (spirit) and for a spirit that cuts the (skull?) bone, write from HYMY until ŠDY and hang (it) on him.^[47]

The treatment here is less elaborate than the one proposed in Sefer ha-Razim and merely consists of inscribing a sequence of supernatural names on an unspecified material, and hanging the resulting amulet on the patient, on an unspecified location and for an unspecified amount of time. It may be that the practitioner was supposed to note also the instructions of the preceding recipe, which is against the palga spirit, and includes a more elaborate and detailed manipulation of materials, an oral adjuration, and an amulet.

The Sword of Moses also refers to baruqta, though not immediately adjacent to the mention of tzilḥata, but in slightly earlier section 11. There, the baruqta is listed next to eye diseases: “For any kind of eye pain”, “For baruqta (ברוקתא)”, and “For grit (חילא) (in the eye)”.^[48]

Magical texts intended to heal migraines continue to appear in the Jewish tradition in later periods, either employing the Aramaic term tzilḥata or the Aramaic and Hebrew “pain of half of the head”. In medieval Egypt one also finds the Judeo-Arabic term שקיקה, denoting the same disease. A survey and analysis of these later recipes remains a desideratum.

Migraines in the Mesopotamian incantation bowls

After surveying the attestations of migraines in the rabbinic literature and the Jewish magical tradition from Late Antiquity, I will move to their attestations in the corpus of Mesopotamian incantations bowls.^[49] The corpus under discussion consists of clay bowls inscribed in ink that were discovered in the area of Mesopotamia, present day Iraq, dating roughly from the fifth to the eighth century CE. The bowls were usually written in one of the dialects of the Aramaic language, namely Jewish Aramaic, Mandaic or Syriac, each corresponding roughly to one of the religious groups that inhabited that area in the Sassanian period. The bowls functioned mostly as apotropaic and protective objects, meant to keep away harm. However, they were also meant to handle existing problematic situations, including a variety of medical disorders, such as fevers, gynecological disorders, and headaches. The latter will be the focus of this article.

The first question to ask is one of definition. How can one identify migraines in the corpus of Mesopotamian incantation bowls? Since these bowls were written in Aramaic, the first step would be to search for the above mentioned term tzilḥata (צלחתא/ צילחתא), which appears to denote migraine in the Babylonian Talmud, the corpus closest in time and place to the incantation bowls. A second method of identifying migraines in the bowls would be to search for general mentions of the head (ריש, רישא, ראש) or headaches and then look at the accompanying symptoms.^[50] A small number of bowls do indeed mention headache (כיב ראשה). Similarly, one can search for references to the other body parts that are affected by migraines according to the modern clinical definitions listed above, such as the eyes, and then look for accompanying symptoms. A third relevant term that should be mentioned is one borrowed from Greek and denoting headache, though not necessarily with specific symptoms connecting it to migraines. This is kephalagia, a term found on late antique amulets, for instance on an Aramaic silver lamella meant to heal Natrun daughter of Sarah or a Greek-Aramaic one meant to heal Isidorus son of Cyrilla.^[51] The Greek term is sometimes rendered as kephalargia (קפלרגיא). In a Jewish context this term is primarily found on metal amulets, yet it also is attested on a few incantation bowls. Lastly, given the previously noted association between migraines and baruqta (e.g., in Sefer ha-Razim) I consider it useful to also search for attestations of the latter, even when they do not appear in proximity to the terms for migraine.

An initial exploration of the Mesopotamian incantation bowls published to date results in at least twenty-five bowls corresponding to the above criteria.^[52] All of them are written in Jewish Aramaic. To the best of my knowledge, there is no mention of the term tzilḥata (or migraines in general) in the Mandaic or Syriac bowls that have been published so far.^[53] It is important to note that this corpus of twenty-five bowls contains several parallel ones, that were inscribed for a small number of beneficiaries (see further below).

Among these twenty-five bowls the term tzilḥata appears in at least thirteen. Six bowls only contain the term tzilḥata and seven others contain both tzilḥata and baruqta. In addition to those seven, the term baruqta is independently mentioned in at least eight bowls, one of which is an aggressive text meant to return curses to their sender. Baruqta is accompanied by terms that can be associated with migraine symptoms. For example, it is described as an evil spirit “lying upon the body, the head, the temple, the ear, the eye sockets (lit.: the house of the eyeballs)”.^[54] The Aramaic term for headache (כיב ראשה) is found in at least one bowl, which is an aggressive incantation. I have also chosen to include in the corpus a bowl that mentions the eye (singular) and head (but no other organs), as these two are closely connected to migraine symptoms. Lastly, the term kephalargia/ kephargia, representing the transliteration of the Greek word for headache, appears in two published bowls, and perhaps in two unpublished ones.^[55] These attestations are summarized below.

Some of the bowls mention specific affected organs, also referring more generally to the entire body (פגרא) or “all the limbs of the body / all the body parts” (כל הדמי קומתה), while others actually describe the symptoms that affect these organs. For example, one of the incantations claims that Ragziel sent the evil spirit “to sit upon the head, the skull, to go up in the temples, to buzz in the ears, to sit upon the eyes, to confuse the countenance, and to harm the whole body”.^[64] Another bowl specifies on its exterior that it is intended “For the unbinding of the eyes”, thus alluding to one of the symptoms it was meant to treat.^[65] The following is a list summarizing the affected organs mentioned in those bowls that appear to refer to migraine.^[66]

As mentioned above, many of the bowls in the corpus were inscribed by the same hand, for the same beneficiary. Namely, eight of the twenty-five bowls were inscribed for Mahdukh daughter of Niwandukh/Newandukh^[68] and five of them were inscribed for Mihranahid daughter of Aḥat. The editors of several of these bowls suggest that they “were all written in a style of handwriting that could have been carried out by the same person or by scribes who belonged to the same school or family”, and that Mahdukh and Mihranahid “seem themselves to have been related to each other”.^[69]

One of the bowls whose beneficiary is Mahdukh daughter of Newandukh also mentions her husband, Gundas son of Rašewandukh, and her daughter, Mihroy (JBA 2 [MS 1927/29]). However, the text focuses on the two female beneficiaries, reiterating the incantation designed to drive away the evil spirit from both mother and daughter. Gundas is only mentioned at the beginning of the text, in the general sentence “[May there be he]aling [from heaven] for Gundas so[n of Rašewandukh and for Mah]dukh daughter of Newa[ndu]kh”. After this, the text proceeds with the request “[And] may she be protected and heale[d]”, thus referring to Mahdukh, and later on, to her daughter, Mihroy. It is possible that both mother and daughter were suffering from migraines, which are known to have hereditary factors.

Moving now to an analysis of this small corpus, it is evident that the term tzilhata, the one most likely to denote migraines, often appears in combination with baruqta. Furthermore, also when baruqta appears independently, it is accompanied by terms that can possibly point to migraines. As I will argue further below, the term baruqta in the bowls possibly denotes a migraine with aura, rather than cataract, glaucoma, or any other eye disease. For now, the textual propinquity of these two terms, both in the incantation bowls as well as in the other medico-magical sources discussed above, should be noted.

Many of the bowls in the corpus contain a short historiola that refers to a Jewish sage, Rabbi Ḥanina ben Dosa, who presumably lived in the first century CE in the Galilee.^[70] He is mentioned several times in the rabbinic literature, including in Pesachim 112b, where he appears as a subduer of evil entities. The bowl historiola recounts his encounter with an evil spirit, which is previously described in the text in detail, including its appellation: “whose name is Agag daughter of Baruq, daughter of Baruqta, daughter of Naqor, daughter of Namon, daughter of Tzilḥata, daughter of the evil eye”:

I adjure and beswear you, you, evil spirit, who met Rabbi Ḥanina ben Dosa, and Rabbi Ḥanina ben Dosa said to her, to the evil spirit who met him at that time, the verse that is written: You make darkness and it is night, wherein all the animals of the forest creep (Psalm 104:20)

מומינה ומשבענה עלכי אנתי רוחא בישתא דיפגע ביה ברבי חנינא בן דוסא ואמר לה רבי חנינא בן דוסא לרוחא בישתא דיפגע ביה בההיא שעתא קראה דיכתיב תשית חשך ויהי לילה בו תירמוס כל חיתו יער

Rabbi Ḥanina is described as having encountered the evil spirit who is the object of the adjuration. He then addressed the spirit with a biblical verse. Presumably, he regarded the verse as capable of restraining or overpowering the spirit. In what follows I would like to consider this biblical quotation and its use in the context of the present discussion of migraine symptoms. Psalm 104 describes the power of God upon all the earthly beings, from the smallest to the largest. The pronoun “You” in verse 20, “You make darkness and it is night”, refers to God: He is the one who casts darkness as part of the eternal cycle of night and day, which all living beings obey. The night animals, of which the lions are brought as an example, go out to seek their pray. When the sun rises anew they return to their dens, and humans go out to their daily work. The question is, why would such a verse be used to subdue an evil spirit? One would expect spirits, which in the Jewish (and other) traditions are known to be active at night, to be restrained using a verse about light.^[71] It is when the sun rises that the spirits are forced to retreat. This, however, is not the case in the present historiola. Rabbi Ḥanina is shown to use an apparently inappropriate verse for subduing evil spirits. There must be another explanation for this quotation.

In a discussion of this historiola and the quotation of Psalm 104:20, Simcha Gross and Avigail Manekin-Bamberger connect these with BT Pesachim 112b, suggesting: “The use of this specific verse, quite rare in the bowls and in ancient Jewish magic in general, may attest to some amount of sophistication of the scribe. The verse emphasizes God’s sovereignty over the night, meaning both accounts deal with Ben Dosa successfully fighting a nocturnal demoness”.^[72] I propose to see the quoted verse differently. Not as meant to subdue the evil spirit, but as a remedy to the afflictions caused by the spirit. If one assumes that the baruq and baruqta spirit cause unwanted light, which harms its victims, then a Biblical verse in which God produces darkness is the perfect antidote. God being more powerful than an evil spirit, the darkness that He casts is more powerful than the unwanted light generated by the spirit. The question is, thus, what sort of evil spirit (read: medical disorder) would produce unwanted light? The traditional interpretations of the Aramaic term baruqta as (spirit of) cataract or glaucoma are not useful here.^[73] Both cataract and glaucoma are ocular disorders that do not count photophobia among their symptoms.

The Aramaic word baruqta ought to be reconsidered in the present context. Its root, brq, means both “yellow” and “lightning”.^[74] The root is used in the second sense both in non-magical sources, like the Babylonian Talmud, as well as in the magic bowls.^[75] The nouns baraqa, baruqta, baruqy are translated as “cataract”, according to Michael Sokoloff, in relation to “shiny (?) eye”. This does not preclude an additional understanding of the root, closer to the meaning of “lightning”, namely: a disorder that causes flashes of light. Other scholars have put forward different interpretations. In an article discussing the medical compendium of Gittin 68b–70a, Markham Geller interpreted the term baruqty as “a form of blindness”, noting: “Although no Akkadian parallel is obvious, nevertheless the term buruqqu describes a condition of being flushed in the face, but AHw 140 translates the condition as ‘mit blitzenden Augen’ which is likely to be more correct (…)”.^[76] In his review of Sokoloff’s dictionary of Babylonian Aramaic, Geller maintained that “the meaning of the noun brwq ‘cataract’ is much less certain, since the Akkadian word barāqu, although well attested in other contexts, is never used to refer to ‘cataract’ in Akkadian medical texts”.^[77] Nevertheless, sometimes Geller continued to tentatively employ the translation “cataract” for the baruqta found in the incantation bowls.^[78]

Christa Müller-Kessler, re-editing a previously published bowl (Naveh/Shaked 1993, Bowl 25), translated ברקתא/ ברוקתא as glaucoma.^[79] It ought to be noted that the modern Hebrew word for glaucoma is barqit (ברקית). The question is whether the term found in the incantation bowls fits the characteristics of the group of eye diseases currently known as glaucoma. These contain one type of glaucoma that displays symptoms related to light: the angle-closure (or closed-angle) glaucoma. In this disease the patient may see hallows or rainbows around lights, and might also experience eye pain, nausea, and sometimes headaches. The open-angle glaucoma presents almost no symptoms before reaching an advanced stage of the disease.^[80] However, none of the glaucoma types feature photophobia among their symptoms. Neither do glaucoma patients see light flashes, a symptom which might have accounted for an ancient name related to lightning, from the root brq.^[81]

Lastly, Siam Bhayro, in a discussion of the sequence “Agag daughter of Baruq, daughter of Baruqta … daughter of migraine”, suggested that the text reflected “the client’s struggles with migraine and its resulting blindness”.^[82] Bhayro did not develop this idea further and referred to the discussion about the Rabbi Ḥanina bowls, but there the editors discuss eye diseases, without relating them to migraine. Neither Bhayro nor the previous editors noted the link with baraq, lightning or light flashes.

What medical disorders that could fit the present context produce light flashes or hypersensitivity to light? Evidently, as seen in the list of migraine symptoms listed at the beginning of this article, migraines with aura fit this description very well. Migraine patients are often photophobic, and those experiencing auras often see flashes of light and experience a variety of visual symptoms. The association of migraine/ tzilḥata with baruqta makes sense when the latter is interpreted as the aura involved in migraine attacks.

An additional support for this suggestion comes from one of the aggressive incantation bowls, meant to harm a person named Mar son of Aḥot (מר בר אחות).^[83] The bowl, inscribed for an anonymous beneficiary, addresses the evil spirit named Baruqta (ברוקתא) (repeatedly translated by the editors as “the cataract demon”). The text begins thus:

And her name is Baruqta. I summon you, evil spirit who dwells in the cemetery and resides in ditches and lurks between alfalfa and a vine, that you come/ and go against Mar son of Aḥot and sit upon his head and upon his temples and upon his eyes and dissolve the great sinew of his neck./ And he will say woe, woe, woe, woe, woe, woe, woe about the injury, the injury that afflicted his body and injured him (away) from me.^[84]

The Baruqta spirit is meant to afflict the head, temples, eyes, and neck of the target. However, with the exception of the eyes, these organs are not consistent with what is known about either cataract or glaucoma. This is particularly true of the last one, the neck. Yet, if one compares the list of sufferings that Baruqta should cause Mar son of Aḥot with the known symptoms of migraines, a parallel emerges. In addition to light flashes, unilateral headache, and eye pain, neck pain is closely correlated with migraines. As mentioned earlier, it is experienced by more than 75 % of the patients. Thus, it might be possible that this aggressive bowl contains a list of symptoms of migraine with aura, which the beneficiary of the bowl wished to send upon its target.

I mentioned earlier that a similar term, barqit (BRQYT, ברקית), is found in the Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 78a. The term appears in a passage commenting on the Tosefta about the amount of blood that may be carried on the day of Shabbat:^[85]

Rabbi Shimon ben Elazar says: (The measure is equivalent to) blood for applying to one eye, as one applies blood to barqit. And what (type of blood) is it? The blood of a wild chicken. Rabbi Shimon ben Gamliel says: (The measure is equivalent to) blood for applying to one eye, as one applies blood to yarod. And what (type of blood) is it? The blood of a bat. And a mnemonic for you is: Inside for inside, outside for outside.^[86]

Shaul Lieberman’s commentary on the Tosefta referred to barqit thus: “this eye disease is mentioned several times in the Talmud (…) and its exact nature has not been elucidated”.^[87] In the above passage, the terms barqit and yarod clearly refer to ocular disorders, which are treated by applying blood to the eye: the blood of a wild chicken or that of a bat, respectively. The Talmud implies that the difference between the two disorders is reflected in the mnemonic for the cure: the wild chicken lives outside, whereas the bat lives inside (caves, or perhaps near inhabited areas). Likewise, the blood of a wild chicken may cure a disorder found outside the eye, while that of the bat can cure a disorder inside the eye. Consequently, the term barqit here was sometimes interpreted as a wart on the eye (e.g. by the medieval exegete Rashi), while yarod was interpreted as a white opacity on the eye. Other commentators, from the Geonic literature, interpreted barqit as “a spirit that attacks (lit., takes hold of) the eye”.^[88] This interpretation, stressing the supernatural origin of the disorder, fits well with the occurrences found in Sefer ha-Razim and in the bowls. Yet even taking into account the Talmudic reading of barqit as an unspecified disorder external to the eye, this does not discard the possibility that it is external in the sense that one sees external flashes of light.

Summing up, the sources presented above seem to indicate that the association between tzilḥata and baruqta is not coincidental. If the former is understood as “migraine”, there is no reason to understand the latter as “cataract”, “glaucoma”, or “blindness”, but rather as “(migraine with) aura”. This interpretation is strongly supported by the recipe from Sefer ha-Razim, titled “If you wish to cure the pain of half of the head or to bind or rebuke the spirit of bruqit/ bareqet”. Here, the two disorders are uncontestably connected and the same treatment is offered for both. This makes sense if they are interpreted as migraine and migraine with aura.

Several bowls mention additional symptoms that are related to migraines. The most relevant are palga and rypsa (פלגא, ריפסא), which appear together with tzilḥata.^[89] As mentioned earlier, the former term appears in the Babylonian Talmud as well as in The Sword of Moses, and might denote either paralysis or migraine. In the context of the bowls, it is evident that the latter is the more adequate interpretation, perhaps also in relation to the motor weakness that is one of the symptoms of migraines with aura (hemiplegic migraines). The same is true of rypsa, from the root rps (רפס), meaning weak/ limp/ flaccid. Here, too, the bowl text appears to describe a migraine symptom related to motor weakness.

Conclusions

This article assembled a small corpus of Mesopotamian incantation bowls that seem to refer to migraines and headaches and placed them in a historical medico-ritual context, both Jewish and non-Jewish. What can be learned from these texts? To begin with, the size of the corpus indicates that migraines and headaches were not commonly mentioned on the Mesopotamian incantation bowls. When they were, it was on bowls inscribed in Jewish Aramaic, but not on Syriac or Mandaic bowls. It could be that bowls were not regarded as a suitable medium for treating or preventing migraines, and hence the small number of exemplars of this kind. Alternatively, it can be that migraine was seen as one in a long list of disorders from which the bowls sought to protect, and hence it was not mentioned separately, but fell under the heading “May there be healing from Heaven”. The historiola of Rabbi Ḥanina ben Dosa, featured in many of the bowls, is not encountered elsewhere. It may reflect a local invention of a ritual practitioner, who found an appropriate biblical verse to fight one of the most common symptoms of migraines: photophobia.

Second, the bowls in the corpus were inscribed for a small number of beneficiaries, mainly two female ones, Mahdukh and Mihranahid. The reason for this disproportionate amount of bowls for each of them remains unknown. It should, however, be noted that some of these bowls display additional insights into migraines. For example, one of Mahdukh’s bowls was found together with another one that did not mention any headache but referred to excess menstrual bleeding, which it sought to stop. It could be that Mahdukh was suffering from menstrual migraines (see above). Another of her bowls focuses on two beneficiaries: Mahdukh and her daughter, Mihroy. Healing from migraines is sought for both of them, suggesting perhaps a case of hereditary migraines.

Third, it seems that migraine was often personified and described as a spirit. This fits well with the medical framework of late antique and ancient Mesopotamia, where diseases were often seen as caused by ghosts and as being evil spirits in themselves.

Lastly, migraine is sometimes mentioned in connection to baruqta, a term previously understood as “cataract” or “glaucoma”. In many cases it is included in a sequence of names starting with “Agag daughter of Baruq daughter of Baruqta”, followed by terms related to migraine symptoms. It is possible that the term baruqta was derived from the root brq with the meaning of “lightning”, and denoted a medical disorder that caused the patient to see flashes of light. The article discussed several late antique sources in which the term baruqta was found to be repeatedly associated with the terms “head pain”, “pain in half of the head”, and tzilḥata (which can be interpreted as “migraine”). I propose that this association between baruqta and headaches suggests that migraines with aura are the more plausible interpretation of the term.

I have shown that the small corpus of incantation bowls mentioning migraines and headaches provides useful information on these disorders in late ancient Mesopotamia, but also raises numerous questions. An important one, that ought to be asked in conclusion, concerns the ways in which these healing bowls were used. Would they have been buried in the four corners of a room or beneath the threshold, as is known to be the case from other apotropaic bowl groups? Would they have been buried in close proximity to the bed of the beneficiary, so that the beneficiary lay directly upon then? Or would some of them, perhaps, be employed differently, for instance by holding or touching them during an attack of the disease (in this case, migraine)? Further explorations of the medical and ritual treatments for migraine might shed light on the questions raised in this article. Or, given the context, provide shade.