Reading akkadian PRayeRs & Hymns An Introduction

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READING AKKADIAN PRAYERS AND HYMNS: AN INTRODUCTION
standing. The final petition of this first half of the supplication section mentions
the instruments of speech, mouth and tongue, and requests their intercession.
The second half of the supplication section is dominated by the supplicant’s
concern for release from witchcraft. In lines 21–23 the supplicant begins with a
request that any evil machinations not approach. In lines 24–25, using similar
language as in lines 21–23 (lines 22 and 24b are identical), the supplicant requests
that the machinations (that apparently have arrived) depart. Then in lines
26–27 the supplicant requests the release of the bonds of witchcraft, which implies
they actually have the supplicant in their grip. Just as the evil intensifies in
lines 21–27 so too do the supplicant’s appeals to authorities that can counter
them: Ea’s incantation is cited in lines 24 and 26 and Ea’s recruitment of Marduk,
his son and traditional assistant in some forms of incantations (see the
comments), is requested in line 27. The end result for all of these requests comes
out only in line 28: that the supplicant’s body be free of illness.
The prayer does not conclude with the typical line or two in which the supplicant
promises to praise the deity. Rather, it ends with three lines that present
a unique arrangement of several traditional phrases of praise in which the gods
are the actors. 6
Despite the fact that there is only a single line of ritual instructions preserved
on one manuscript, Mayer’s MS A, we know that Ea 1a, as with several
other shuilla-prayers, was incorporated into various ritual complexes as a prescribed
prayer. For example, its incipit is cited in a royal investiture ritual, 7 a
universal namburbi handbook (SpBTU II, no. 18, rev. 27), 8 and part of Bīt rimki
(see Zimmern, BBR 26 iii 45). 9
6 See Mayer, UFBG, 327–40 for this form of ending generally and 337 for the unique arrangement
of the various elements in Ea 1a specifically. Mayer’s MS F expands the praise to four lines
by incorporating another traditional phrase (see 446, n.21[1]).
7 See Angelika Berlejung, “Die Macht der Insignien: Überlegungen zu einem Ritual der Investitur
des Königs und dessen königsideologischen Implikationen,“ UF 28 (1996), 1–35.
8 See Christopher Frechette, Mesopotamian Ritual-prayers (Šuillas): A Case Study Investigating
Rubric, Genre, Form and Function (AOAT 379; Münster: Ugarit-Verlag, forthcoming), §6.
9 For Bīt rimki, see Jørgen Læssøe, Studies on the Assyrian Ritual and Series Bît Rimki (Copenhagen:
Munksgaard, 1955).
ESSENTIAL BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Ea. E. Ebeling. “Enki (Ea).” RlA 2 (1938), 374–79. Hans D. Galter. Der Gott
Ea/Enki in der akkadischen Überlieferung. Dissertationen der Karl-Franzens-
Universität Graz 58. Graz: Technische Universität Graz, 1983. Samuel Noah
Kramer and John Maier. Myths of Enki, the Crafty God. Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1989. Peeter Espak. “Ancient Near Eastern Gods Enki and Ea: Diachronical
Analysis of Texts and Images from the Earliest Sources to the Neo-Sumerian
Period.” M.A. Thesis. Tartu University, 2006.