ts have been combined with views that reflect a later and,
in many respects, a more advanced period. The incantation texts are
certainly no older than texts furnishing omens. Some of the incantation
texts indeed may not be any older than portions of the creation epic,
and in the latter, as in other parts of the religious literature, there
are elements as ancient and as primitive as anything to be found in the
omens or incantations. So much, however, is true, that the incantations
represent the earliest ritual proper to the Babylonian cult, and that
the conceptions underlying this ritual are the emanation of popular
thought, or, if you choose, of popular fancy of a most primitive
character. It is also true that, on the whole, the incantation texts
retain more traces of primitive popular thought than other divisions of
the religious literature with the exception of the omens. The remodeling
to which they were subjected did not destroy their original character to
the extent that might have been expected--a circumstance due in the
first instance to the persistency of the beliefs that called these texts
forth.

Many of the texts containing incantations were found by the modern
explorers in so mutilated a condition, that one can hardly hazard any
generalizations as to the system followed in putting the incantations
together. From the fact, however, that in so many instances the
incantations form a series of longer or shorter extent, we may, for the
present at least, conclude that the serial form was the method generally
followed; and at all events, if not the general method, certainly a
favorite one. Deviating from the ordinary custom of calling the series
according to the opening line of the first tablet, the incantation texts
were given a distinct title, which was either descriptive or chosen with
reference to their general contents. So one series which covered at
least sixteen tablets was known by the very natural name of the 'evil
demon'; the incantations that it contained being intended as a
protection against various classes of demons. Another is known as the
series of 'head sickness,' and which deals, though not exclusively, with
various forms of derangements having their seat in the brain. It covered
no less than nine tablets. Two others bear names that are almost
synonymous,--"Shurpu" and "Maklu," both signifying 'burning,' and so
called from the chief topic dealt with in them, the burning of images of
the sorcerers,