Reading akkadian PRayeRs & Hymns An Introduction

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READING AKKADIAN PRAYERS AND HYMNS: AN INTRODUCTION
every namburbi-ritual required a namburbi-prayer, however, 112 and other kinds
of prayers may also have been required during the course of the ritual (e.g.,
shuilla-prayers and cult-material incantation-prayers or Kultmittelbeschwörungen).
113 When a prayer was prescribed by the ritual instructions—namburbi or
otherwise, it might appear as a full text embedded in the broader ritual context.
Sometimes, however, the instructions only cited the incipit, that is, the prayer’s
initial line; the remainder of the prayer would have been provided by the exorcist
performing the ritual, presumably from memory or from another tablet.
A namburbi-prayer was only one part in a rather complex ritual process,
which is briefly summarized here in an idealized form. 114 After the exorcist prepared
the items needed for the ritual (e.g., holy water and figurines) and erected
an altar, 115 the people and places 116 involved in the ritual would be purified
(e.g., the one affected by the omen may wash in water). An offering of various
foods and drinks, which in fact constituted a meal, would be presented to the
gods involved in the ritual, typically Shamash, Ea, and Asalluḫi. 117 Incense may
also be burned during the meal. 118 With the preparations made for approaching
the gods and the mood for a favorable hearing achieved, the heart of the ritual
began: the removal of the impending evil from the one affected by the evil sign.
It is at this point in the ritual that the prayer would have been recited.
increase in trade for a business owner or other professional (see Caplice, Akkadian Namburbi
Texts, 9 and 23–24) and to overcome the estrangement of a couple who had been separated for a
time (see ZB, 409–14).
112 This point is easily verified by perusing the examples translated in Caplice, Akkadian Namburbi
Texts. As with all ritual instructions, however, the possibility must be considered that not
everything that was to be done in a namburbi-ritual was actually written on the tablet. In some
cases, the ritual instructions may have presumed the exorcist knew what (else) there was to do.
113 For the incorporation of the shuilla-prayer, Sin 1, into a namburbi against the evil of a lunar
eclipse, see page 386, n.7 and the references there. For cult-material prayer-incantations, as
stated earlier, we must presume they were recited during namburbi-rituals from memory by the
exorcist since they were not incorporated into the actual instructions (with one exception). See
Maul’s statements in ZB, 33 with n.67, 107 with n.8, and 375, 377, line 12ʹh for the exception).
114 This summary is idealized because not every element in it is attested in every namburbiritual,
and there is no attempt here at an exhaustive listing of the great variety in ritual details.
For the variety of ritual actions, see Maul’s thorough treatment in ibid., 39–113 and the much
briefer overview in Caplice, Akkadian Namburbi Texts, 9–12.
115 See ZB, 39–47.
116 The ritual could take place in a variety of settings such as the roof of a house, the bank of a
canal, or where the omen manifested itself. But it is not uncommon for the instructions to describe
the location only vaguely: a secluded place in the steppe (ina ṣēri parsi) or some other
inaccessible locale (ašar šēpu parsat, lit. “a place where the foot is barred”; see ibid., 48).
117 See ibid., 48–59.
118 Caplice, remarking on the burning of aromatics, writes, “it is clear that burning them on a
censer was part of the normal banquet situation among human beings in the Neo-Assyrian period,
so that their use in rituals providing a divine banquet was natural” (Akkadian Namburbi
Texts, 11). Note also the similarity to the meal-related activities as described in the OB ikribulike
prayer, line 11ff. (see page 90).