Having been excavated from Nippur in 1888, 290 incantation bowls are now housed at the Penn Museum, 5 of which are on display. They are typically the size of a cereal bowl, but a few have been found to be much larger. A protective spell is often inscribed around the inside, written in one of three Eastern Aramaic dialects: Jewish Babylonian Aramaic, Syriac, and Mandaic. However, there are some inscribed with a pseudo-script. Many have images of bound demons in the center, and they can be specific to the incantation or entirely unrelated. Incantation bowls would be buried upside down under the floors of houses in specific locations, such as underneath doorways and in the corners of rooms, all in order to protect the family against demons and harmful magic. In some cases, two bowls would be buried rim to rim and sealed, while others have been found in burial places. These bowls have the ability to reveal information about various ancient demographics, as scribes from a range of social, educational, and religious backgrounds wrote these incantations. Moreover, there are explicit family names inscribed, sometimes on multiple bowls, leading to the possibility of tracking the relationships and interests of families and scribes. Bowls tend to mix imagery and ideas from many cultures and religious practices, and they assert that magic in the ancient world was not as separate from normal life as has been assumed.