en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grimoire
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The earliest known written magical incantations come from ancient Mesopotamia (modern Iraq), where they have been found inscribed on cuneiform clay tablets that archaeologists excavated from the city of Uruk and dated to between the 5th and 4th centuries BC.
This is off by roughly two millennia. Mesopotamian incantation texts are attested from the third millennium BCE, not first appearing only in 5th–4th century BCE Uruk tablets.
Full reasoning
The claim says the earliest known written magical incantations are Uruk tablets from the 5th–4th centuries BCE. That is contradicted by specialist sources on Mesopotamian magic.
- A Cambridge Core article on the incantations from Ebla states that "the earliest Mesopotamian incantations originated in southern Iraq" and that the largest collection of Early Dynastic incantations comes from Ebla. Early Dynastic Mesopotamia is in the third millennium BCE, far earlier than the 5th–4th centuries BCE.
- The Metropolitan Museum of Art likewise notes that some Mesopotamian incantations derive from texts "dating back to the third millennium B.C., when such texts were first composed."
So Uruk tablets from the 5th–4th centuries BCE may be important witnesses, but they are not the earliest known written magical incantations.
2 sources
- SEMITIC OR SUMERIAN? A CASE OF MISTAKEN IDENTITY IN THE INCANTATIONS FROM EBLA | IRAQ | Cambridge Core
"Although the earliest Mesopotamian incantations originated in southern Iraq, the largest collection of Early Dynastic incantations stems from the royal chancellery of Ebla..."
- Cuneiform tablet: Utukku lemnutu, tablet 3 - The Metropolitan Museum of Art
"Some incantations derive from texts dating back to the third millennium B.C., when such texts were first composed..."