Reading akkadian PRayeRs & Hymns An Introduction

INTRODUCTION
ritual speech
prayer
praise
Fig. 2 The Scribal Superscript én in Relation to the Constructed Category of Prayer
a ritual-prayer (i.e., reciting the text and performing the ritual actions that accompanied
it). 54 Aside from certain kinds of royal prayers that may have included
a public element to them, ancient Akkadian prayers were not spoken in a
congregational setting; rather, they were individual. Despite the limited number
of people involved, such ritual-prayers were not necessarily private since they
may have been performed on a roof or beside a canal, although sometimes an
inaccessible place was prescribed. In any case, although ritual-prayers were intended
for individuals, they were hardly individualistic.
Who was present at or had access to the location of the ritual-prayer’s enactment
is probably the least important element of the communal aspect of
Mesopotamian prayer. The broader social embeddedness of the individual and
the manner in which this shaped their identity occupies a much more important
role in the proper understanding of ancient Akkadian prayers. The Mesopotamians
seem to have created personal identity primarily via their family, social
position/occupation, and city, among other things. 55 Even when praying alone
(or only with the ritual expert), these communal aspects of life were everpresent
concerns and therefore unsurprisingly impacted the kinds of petitions we
find in the prayers. For example, the ubiquitous petition for life (balāṭu) included
more than biological health or longevity; “life” encompassed the entire social
and physical well-being of the person, as is clear from the poem Ludlul bēl nēmeqi.
In this doxological text the protagonist of the poem recounts how Marduk’s
anger resulted in his social alienation (I 41–104) and physical suffering (II 49–
120). When Marduk sent healing, the physical ailments were dispelled (III 68–
line m) and the sufferer was reintegrated into his community in a very public
54 In the case of prayers of the diviner, the supplicant and ritual expert were one and the same.
And in the cases of letter-prayers and royal prayers in building inscriptions, there are no ritual
experts involved. The generalizations in this paragraph will need adjustment according to the
specific kind of prayer one is reading.
55 See Karel van der Toorn, Family Religion in Babylonia, Syria, and Israel: Continuity and Change
in the Forms of Religious Life (SHCANE 7. Leiden: Brill, 1996).
én
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