Abstract
While the use of natural means to heal the sick and the wounded has a reputable antiquity in the Middle East, particularly in Mesopotamia, the use of preternatural or magical means is no less ancient. The Mesopotamian "doctor" (Sumerian A.ZU; Akkadian, asu; Aramaic, arya) worked with magical rituals and administered medicines externally and orally. Indeed the practice of medicine and of magic was so closely intertwined that it is impossible to draw a line distinguishing one from the other. From the seventh century BCE, when the earliest surviving Mesopotamian medical texts were composed, magic and medicine were used in tandem. Although Mesopotamian doctors made use of a highly developed pharmacology, no prescription was complete without an appeal to supernatural entities. For this reason, it should not be surprising that health (Aramaic, asutha) is one of the primary concerns of later incantation texts, such as on the two terracotta bowls on display here.