The Daily

There are many examples of witches in pop-culture, from iconic characters like The Wicked Witch of the East from Wizard of Oz, to films lime The Blair Witch Project and Robert Eggers’ The VVItch.

But witches have been a part of human history since its very earliest days in ancient Sumer, considered to be the earliest human civilizations, emerging 5000 years ago in the region we know as Iraq.

Genevieve Le Ban has been studying ancient Sumerian texts to unravel their view of witchcraft through their laws and customs as a part of her research which is being showcased as a part of Macquarie University’s Three Minute Thesis Competition.

I spoke to Genevieve about her research to learn more.