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The Cult of Dead Kin in Assyria and Babylonia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 August 2014

Miranda Bayliss
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Extract

Assyriologists have long been aware of the evidence for a cult of the dead in Assyria and Babylonia, but there is at present, to the writer's knowledge, no systematic study of the subject. She has therefore examined the evidence relating to the cult of the dead, and attempted to compare the attitude towards dead kin shown in the cult with what we know of relations between living kin and of concepts of descent. In this study, comparisons are occasionally made with other societies not culturally connected with Mesopotamia. The writer's interest here lies in the application of social anthropology to the study of Mesopotamian society. Traditionally anthropologists have studied the type of society formerly called “primitive”, now more often called “small-scale” or “pre-industrial”. Ancient Mesopotamia was not a society of this type, but a peasant society, with a comparatively elaborate technology and a wide field of social relations, at least among the power-holding groups. Social anthropologists have only recently begun to study peasant societies. It will be appreciated that the writer has no formal training in social anthropology, and that this attempt is, therefore, highly tentative.

The factors determining the existence and importance of a cult of dead kin in a society have not been clearly revealed by comparative study. Scheinfeld has indeed shown that all societies that have such a cult have also the institution of inheritance of property, but the evidence examined by him does not permit the conclusion that inheritance is a precondition for the existence of a cult of deceased kin.

Type
Research Article
Information
IRAQ , Volume 35 , Issue 2 , Autumn 1973 , pp. 115 - 125
Copyright
Copyright © The British Institute for the Study of Iraq 1973

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References

1 Cf. Meissner, B., BuA I (1920), 425–9Google Scholar; Ebeling, E., Tod und Leben bei den Babyloniern und Assyrern (1931)Google Scholar; Heidel, A., The Gilgamesh Epic and Old Testament Parallels (1946), Ch. IIIGoogle Scholar; Saggs, H. W. F., “Some Ancient Semitic Conceptions of the Afterlife,” Faith and Thought 90 (1953), 157–82Google Scholar; Parrot, A., Le “Refrigerium” dans l'Au-delà (1937)Google Scholar.

2 M.Phil, thesis, Ancestry and Descent in Mesopotamia from the Old Babylonian to the Neo-Assyrian Periods (University of London, 1971; unpublished)Google Scholar. The following is a revised version of Ch. IV of this study.

3 E.g. (in general) Redfield, R., Peasant Society and Culture, Chicago, 1956Google Scholar; Wolf, E. R., Peasants (Foundations of Modern Anthropology Series, ed. Sahlins, M. D.), New Jersey, 1966Google Scholar; (specific societies) China—Freedman, M., Family and Kinship in Chinese Society, California, 1970Google Scholar; Lineage Organisation in South-Eastern China (LSE Monographs in Social Anthropology, No. 18), Athlone Press, 1958Google Scholar; Japan—Nakane, C., Kinship and Economic Organization in Rural Japan (LSE Monographs in Social Anthropology, No. 32), (1967)Google Scholar; India—Dube, S. C., Indian Village, London, 1955Google Scholar; Turkey—Stirling, P., Turkish Village, London, 1965Google Scholar.

4 Scheinfeld, D. R., A Comparative Study of Ancestor Worship (Unpublished London University MA Thesis, 1960), Ch. IX, especially pp. 179–83Google Scholar.

5 See Ritter, E. in AS 16, 299–321Google Scholar; CAD A/2, s.v. āšipu.

6 A number of these incantations have been collected and published by Ebeling, E., TUL, 1. Teil: Texte, especially pp. 122–56Google Scholar, “Beschwörungen und Riten gegen Totengeister”.

7 Further, the word arūtu has sometimes been translated as “shade”, but probably means a pipe through which libations were passed to graves. See Sjöberg, A., AS 16, 63 fGoogle Scholar.

8 CT 16, 10 v 5–14Google Scholar.

9 Thompson, R. C., The Epic of Gilgamesh, p. 70 and pl. 58, ll. 153–4Google Scholar.

10 For examples see BR 8/7, 44 llGoogle Scholar. 4–5; MDP 2, p. 110 vii 10Google Scholar; BBSt 8, iv 20Google Scholar; 9, ii 19; CH, Epilogue xxvii 37–40Google Scholar.

11 VS I 54 14–18Google Scholar and duplicates (written on clay balls in OB script, but in MB language).

12 Streck, M., VAB 7, 56 vi 75Google Scholar.

13 E.g. CT 16, 10 v 14Google Scholar, quoted above, and comparable texts published by Ebeling, , TuL, 122–56Google Scholar. See also VS I, 54 ll. 15–16Google Scholar. Invocation of the names of the gods was, of course, a regular part of their cult in Mesopotamia, as elsewhere. For its significance in the Old Testament, see Childs, B. S., Memory and Tradition in Israel (1962), 12–14Google Scholar.

14 E.g. CH, Epilogue xxvib 18 33–8Google Scholar; AfO 12 (1937/1939), 365 fGoogle Scholar; KAH II, 58 l.94 f.; OIP 2, 98 l. 94Google Scholar; see also mušaru (AHwb, s.v.).

15 E.g. AKA 388 ff; BBSt 34. A name inscribed on a cylinder seal might enjoy a similar durability.

16 The concept of šumu is inadequately expressed by “name”, embracing as it does the sense both of “reputation” and “identity”. It sometimes has the meaning of “male posterity, son”. See Schulz, W., “Der Namenglaube bei den Babyloniern”, Anthropos 26 (1932), 895–928Google Scholar.

17 See n. 10 above.

18 See Stamm, J. J., MVAeG 44, 278–306Google Scholar.

19 E.g. KAR, 227 iii 13Google Scholar: ú-[ša]r-rih-ku-nu-ši ú-[kab]-bit-ku-nu-ši, “I have praised you, honoured you”, etc. Cf. CAD, s.v. kabātu, 6a. Note also the OB PN Eṭemmu(m)-rabi “the-Ghost-is-Great” (VS 13 103Google Scholar; YOS 8 172 5Google Scholar). Like demons, ghosts are sometimes given the determinative for the divine, e.g. KUB 29, 58 iv 2Google Scholar; ZA NF 11 (1939) 202Google Scholar; ilu(m) “god” is used in some “substitute-names” to describe the dead relative of whom the new baby is a replacement, e.g. I-túr-ilum, “The-God-has-returned” (EBPN 112a). The meaning may be compared to “of blessed memory”; cf. divus in Roman tomb inscriptions.

20 See especially AHwb, s.v. eṭemmu(m).

21 KAR, 227 iii 14 f., 24 fGoogle Scholar. In OA texts there are references to the invocation of ghosts by female necromancers in order to foretell the future, (e.g. TCL 4, 5 l. 5Google Scholar).

22 KAR, 184 r. (!) 11; ibid., r. (!) 23; BRM 4, 18 l. 7Google Scholar; AMT, 54, 3 r.9Google Scholar.

23 Expressed in Akkadian by the terms māmītu or arnu/annu. These basic concepts of Mesopotamian religion are very difficult to interpret. References to māmītu and arnu/annu relating to kin are frequent in incantation texts, e.g. Šurpu III 1–8Google Scholar; KAR, 178 vi 35–52Google Scholar.

24 CT 38, 26 l. 23Google Scholar; note the following section.

25 See Fortes, M., “Pietas in Ancestor Worship”, JRAI 91 (1961), 166–81Google Scholar; id., Time and Social Structure (1970) (mainly on the Tallensi); Weber, M., The Religion of China (1951; Eng. Trans.)Google Scholar; Carstairs, G. M., The Twice-Born (1957) (on the Hindus of Rajas than)Google Scholar.

26 I.e. in terms of the relations between father and son in the inheritance system (see below). The two explanations are, of course, not mutually exclusive.

27 AfO 19 (1959/1960), 117, ll. 7–10Google Scholar.

28 See KAR, 184, quoted above, p. 118, n. 22Google Scholar.

29 E.g. KAR, 227 iii 28 f.Google Scholar: at-ta GIDÌM la ma-am-ma-na-ma ša qé-bé-ra ù sa-ki-ra la te-šu-ú; CT 23 18 ffGoogle Scholar. 7 f.

30 Note, however, that queens participated in the royal cult at certain periods (see below, page 123).

31 AfO 19 (1959/1960), 117 (see above, n. 27)Google Scholar.

32 E.g. BE 14, 40 l. 14 fGoogle Scholar. (see below, page 120, n. 39).

33 E.g. MSL 5 (Ḫḫ IV) 157, l. 93Google Scholar: giš.gu.za gidìm = ku-us-su-ú e-ṭim-me; RA 28 (1931), 19Google Scholar: giš.gu.za gidìm = ku-us-su-ú e-ṭim-tum (?); see also Salonen, A., Die Möbel des alten Mesopotamiens (1963), 41Google Scholar.

34 E.g. KAR, 227 iii 9–10Google Scholar: (GIDÌM) AD.MU AD.AD.MU AHA.HU AHA.AMA.HU ŠEŠ.MU NIN.MU kim-ti-ia ni-šu-ti-ia u sa-la-ti-ia ma-la i-na KI-tim ṣal-lu,” (Ghost of) my father, my father's father, my mother, my mother's mother, my brother, my sister, my kin, family and relatives, as many as are lying in the earth.” The terms for grandparents must be influenced by stylistic symmetry, as it is unlikely that in a society with patrilineal inheritance the maternal grand¬mother would be an important relative and not the paternal grandmother or maternal grandfather.

35 LKA, 83 l. 4 f.Google Scholar: [M]U-ka it-ti e-ṭim-me az-kur MU-ka ina ki-is-pi az-kur, “I have invoked your name with the ghosts, I have invoked your name in the funerary offering.”

36 E.g. Meissner, B., BuA I, 427–9Google Scholar; Haupt, P., BA 10/2 (1927), 75Google Scholar; Koschaker, P. in Ebert, E., Reallexikon der Vorgeschichte III, p. 115Google Scholar, s.v. Erbrecht.

37 MDP 2, 110, vii 9–11Google Scholar; BBSt no. 8, iv 20; no. 9, ii 18 f.

38 F. R. Kraus, TBP, no. 7 obv. 11.

39 BE 14, 40 ll. 11–15.

40 a-na É AD.DA.NI uṣ-ṣi, ll. 9–10.

41 MDP 23, 285 ll. 15–16Google Scholar.

42 See P. Koschaker, loc. cit. (n. 35); RA 11 (1914), 29–42Google Scholar; Driver, G. R. and Miles, J. C., BabL. I, 329 fGoogle Scholar.

43 BE 6/2, 123 ll. 3–7Google Scholar; CT 6, 27b ll. 14–17.

44 On the Roman cult see de Coulanges, N. D. Fustel, La cité antique, (1900) I, Ch. VIIGoogle Scholar. Fires which must not go out are mentioned as part of the cult of the gods (BRM 4, 6 18Google Scholar; KUB 37, 61 12′Google Scholar). See also LB references to bonfires in the streets of Uruk on a religious festival, (RAcc, 76 ll. 35–45, 79 ll. 35–39; and to a festival Ka-nu-né ABL 49 r. 13; cf. 15; 50 7. (d) Kinūnu, a hearth deity, see Gelb, I. J., NPN, 306 fGoogle Scholar. For a discussion of kinūnu belû see Landsberger, B., ZDMG 69 (1915), 526Google Scholar. For a month Kinūnu at Nuzi, see ArOr 10 (1938) 62Google Scholar; cf. Kupper, J.-M., RA 41 (1947) 174Google Scholar; Langdon, S., BMSC, 29Google Scholar; Jean, C.-F., RES 10 (1941) 129Google Scholar. For a possible reference to an ED rite of oil-burning and a doubtful etymology of Sum. ibila, “heir” as “the one who burns oil”, see Thureau-Dangin, F., AO I (1899), 271Google Scholar; RA 10 (1913), 93 ffGoogle Scholar. (based on Gudea, Statue B 7, ll. 44–6; Cylinder B, 18).

45 I.e. references to paššūr sakki (written GIŠ. BANŠUR ZAG.GÚ.LA, “ceremonial tray”, which occurs only as part of the preferential portion of the eldest son in partition documents, e.g. BE 6/2, 26 I 15Google Scholar; 32 3; 43 3. See O'Callaghan, R. T., JCS 8 (1954), 137–41Google Scholar.

46 Personal anxiety in the face of death, irrespective of other tensions, may well have contributed towards this. Such anxiety is a theme of the Epic of Gilgamesh (see A. Heidel, op. cit. (n. 1)).

47 E.g. traditional Chinese society, where up to forty generations of ancestors might be worshipped by up to ten thousand people. See Freedman, M., “Ancestor Worship and the Transmission of Family Authority” in Firth, R., Social Organization (1967)Google Scholar; Weber, M., The Religion of China (Eng. trans., 1951)Google Scholar. The length of time for which the cult of a dead relative was observed may well have varied in Mesopotamia from household to household. Little is known of the frequency of the rites. References to ūm kispi, “the day of the funerary offering” as the name of the 29th day of the month (RA 16 (1919), 152Google Scholar; MSL 5 (Ḫḫ 1), 23 l. 196Google Scholar; LSS VI, 141 ff.Google Scholar; cf. KAR, 184 obv. 28: ina UD.3.KÁM UD.29.KÁM e-nu-ma GIDÍM uš-taš(!)-še-ru, “On the third day (or?) the 29th day, when the ghosts are mustered” may refer only to the royal funerary cult, which, like all ceremonies relating to the king, had public significance, and which is known to have been a monthly ceremony.

48 It is not known whether groups larger than the household met for the cult. Mourning ceremonies (Akk. bikītu) may also have provided an occasion for the gathering of relatives. This is suggested by LKA 70 i 3–4Google Scholar. There is evidence that kin were ideally buried close together (CT 23, 18 ff., 26, 28Google Scholar).

49 The main evidence is the Obelisk of Maništusu (published MDP 2, 1 ff. and Pls. 1–10Google Scholar). See for interpretation Gelb, I. J., MAD 3, 181Google Scholar; also Diakonoff, I. M., Sale of Land in Pre-Sargonic Sumer (Moscow, 1954)Google Scholar.

50 See Finkelstein, J. J., JCS 20 (1966), 95–118Google Scholar for the connections between the Genealogy of the Hammurapi Dynasty and the Assyrian King List. See also Lambert, W. G., JCS 22 (1968), 1–2Google Scholar.

51 See Brinkman, J., JESHO 6 (1963), 233–42Google Scholar. For the sources (mainly kudurru inscriptions) see King, L. W., BBSt (1912)Google Scholar; and Steinmetzer, P. X., Die babylonischen Kudurru (Grenzsteine) als Urkundenform untersucht (1922)Google Scholar.

52 The ancestral names of the lineages include Akkadian, Kassite and West Semitic types.

53 See TCL 7, 43 ll. 5–6Google Scholar; OECT 3, 61 ll. 21–2Google Scholar; BE 14, 39 ll. 6–10Google Scholar; BBSt 10 r1. For LB ancestral names see Lambert, W. G., “Ancestors, Authors and Canonicity”, JCS 11 (1957), 1–14Google Scholar; idem, “A Catalogue of Texts and Authors”, JCS 16 (1962), 59–77; Weisberg, D. B., Gild Structure and Political Allegiance in Early Achaemenid Mesopotamia (YNER I, 1967), esp. 77–85Google Scholar; Ungnad, A., “Babylonische Familiennamen”, Ar. Or. 12 (1935), 319–26Google Scholar (cf. “Das Haus Egibi”, AfO 14 (1941), 57–64Google Scholar); Tallqvist, K. L., Neubabylonisches Namenbuch (1905)Google Scholar; and the name lists in Strassmaier, J. N., Babylonische Texte, IV 40–68Google Scholar; VII 15–28.

54 Published by J. J. Finkelstein, loc. cit. (n. 50). See also Malamat, A., JAOS 88 (1968), 163–73Google Scholar; Lambert, W. G., JCS 22 (1968), 1–2Google Scholar.

55 The sāhirum is perhaps the equivalent of the zākir šumi of other texts.

56 UKU.UŠ ša i-na da-an-na-at be-li-šu im-qú-tu, “the soldier who fell in the service of his lord” (l. 35).

57 See Birot, M., ARM 9, Commentary, 283 ffGoogle Scholar.

58 ARM 9, 221 ii 1–2Google Scholar; 225 l. 6 f. Cf. I Sam. 20: 5, 18–29 which refers to a festival at the court of Saul on the New Moon, at which time David had to return home for yearly household sacrifices (I Sam. 20: 6, 29).

59 ARM 1, 65 ll. 5–7Google Scholar. Terqa may have been the original seat of the dynasty. See Landsberger, B., JCS 8 (1954), 35 n. 26Google Scholar. Cf. also IAK 26, nos. 5 and 6.

60 ARM 3, 40 ll. 16–18Google Scholar. Babylonian administrative documents and letters also record deliveries of food for funerary offerings, e.g. OB: JCS 11 (1957) 36 no. 27Google Scholar; VS 16, 51 l. 5Google Scholar; VAB 6, 80 6Google Scholar; YOS 2, 30 l. 14Google Scholar; TCL 1, 7 l. 12Google Scholar; MB: PBS 2/2, 8 ll. 1 and 9Google Scholar; cf. ATR 119b.

61 Streck, M., VAB 7, 250 ll. 1–5Google Scholar; a-di ki-is-pi na-aq Ameša-na GIDÌMmeš LUGALmeš DU-ut ma[h-ri-ia] šá šub-ṭu-lu ár-ku-us a-na DINGIR u a-me-lu-tum ana ÚŠmešu TImeš MUN DÙ-uš am-me-ni GIG HUL lìb-bi È-u hu-lu-uq-qu-u rit-ku-sa(?) KI-ia, “I made arrangements for the funerary offerings and libations for the ghosts of my royal predecessors, which had fallen into abeyance; I did good to god and man, to dead and living. Why are sickness, sorrow, loss and expense always connected with me?”

62 See Landsberger, B., In Memoriam Halil Edhem I (1947) 115–51Google Scholar, for transliteration, translation and discussion of this text; For the text see H. Pognon, Inscriptions sémitiques, No. 1, Pls. 11–13.

63 See Landsberger, loc. cit., 143 and n.2.

64 The evidence from ED Lagash shows that wives of ensis could perform the rites for former ensis, acting in their capacity as overseers of the temple of Bau, consort of the city god. See Deimel, A., Or. 2 (1920), 32–51Google Scholar. The NA funerary ritual (published in transliteration BA 2 (1894), 635Google Scholar; Photo. ZA NF 11 (1939) 42–61, P. VIIGoogle Scholar; cf. TuL, 63–5) mentions the daugher (ll. 29 and 41), the daughter-in-law (l. 4) (i.e. the wife of the crown prince), and queen (SAL É.GAL, ll. 40 f.) playing a role in the royal funeral.

65 Col. iii 8–12.

66 See Parpola, S., AOAT V/i, 132 for translationGoogle Scholar.

67 The same concept is illustrated by the complaint of Aššurbanipal that his piety has not been rewarded (see n. 61 above).

68 E.g. WVDOG 65, Pl. 12a (cf. p. 21); Pl. 20 f. (cf. p. 101) and p. 177; Andrae, W., Das Wiedererstandene Assur, pp. 136 and 138Google Scholar; AfO 13 (1939–1940), 215Google Scholar.

69 OIP 2, 135 l. 18Google Scholar. Note the concern shown for the remains of his ancestors by the Chaldaean king Merodach-baladan, who dug their bones out of their graves in the Sealand and took them with him into exile on the other side of the Gulf, Persian (OIP 2, 85 ll. 8–11Google Scholar). Presumably he feared the kind of treatment from Sennacherib that Aššurbanipal later meted out to the remains of the Elamite kings (see n. 12 above).