Edition literarischer Keilschrifttexte aus Assur

Introduction
Translated by Alexander Johannes Edmonds

Published in this work are texts from the ancient Near Eastem
healing arts consigned to writing more than some two and a
half millennia ago. and forgotten. in tum. with the demise of
the cuneiform cultures. Largely presented here for the Erst time,
these tractates confront us with the venerable knowledge of the
ancient Near Eastem healers. conferring profound insights into
their notions as to how infirmities and pains arise. and as to how
the fundamental causes of illness might be overcome.
The cuneiform texts edited in this book contain the
instructions as to the healing of an affliction termed mänütu
("ban”). Its Enal stage is described as an extremely severe. life-
threatening abdominal illness. marked by acute stomach pains.
muscular defence of the abdominal wall, and stark changes
in bowel activities. often accompanied by nausea. fever. and
outbreaks of sweating.
Conceptions as to the causes of illness very much foreign to
our own might already be encountered in the very name of this
ailment; indeed. the Akkadian word mänütu hardly described a
malady in the direct sense at all. but rather was terminologically
situated within the legal sphere. In a judicial context. for one. it
stood for an “oath” takenbefore king and gods invariably bound
to self-execration. With gods and magistrates. or officials. work
colleagues. family members. or neighbours as witnesses. the
oath taker therein invoked a grave punishment culminating in
death in the case of a breaking of the vow. On the other hand.
mänütu was the Situation of outlawry best described by the
term “ban” (“Bann” in German) which. in the conceptual world
of the ancient Near East, befell the oath-breaker. Stripping him
and his family of the security of an invulnerability supplied
by tutelary deities. Lastly. the punishment meted in fulfilment
of the self-execration swom by the oath taker was also termed
mänütu.1
That the legal term mänütu also found use as the
designation of an ailment demonstrates that ancient Near
Eastern healers hardly viewed the acute image of sickness -
likewise characteristic to their own perspective - as being the
central and distinguishing feature of this affliction. The actual.
profounder essence of this illness designated as a “ban” was
considered rather as residing in a heavy, ultimately unatoned-
for guilt which the invalid or one of his family members had
brought about by means of breaking an oath or committing an
analogously regarded transgression.
According to ancient Near Eastem healers. the sufferings
initially began almost unnoticed. manifesting themselves merely
in gradually mounting problems and difficulties and only y ielding
1 The rendering of the word mänütu as “curse” (“Fluch” in German) as
encountered time and again within academic literature is insufficiently
precise. and should be avoided.

thereafter ever more somatic Symptoms. Behind this. the healers
saw the workings of a ban which would finally culminate in the
death of the affected person were no curative measures to be
initiated.
Cuneiform collections of prescriptions. mostly surviving
from the era of the first millennium BCE. attest to the fact
that it was sought to combat the bodily complaints which
might be ascribed to the impact of a ban with a considerable
ränge of medicines and eures. Yet. already at the close of the
second millennium BCE. Mesopotamian healers could consult
cuneiform tractates for study and teaching alike called by
the Sumerian title of nam-erim-bür-ru-da “proceduras
for dispelling a ban”. Their objective far surpassed the mere
freeing of a patient from the Symptoms of a ban-illness.
A ban-dispelling therapy should neutralise the potency of
a ban at the earliest possible stage of advancement. liberale
the afflicted patient from his grave culpability engendering
this illness. and undo the ban for good measure. The desire
to eliminate fundamentally those causes of the malady beyond
any bodiliness was central to the procedura of dispelling the
ban. This. in tum. would ensure an enduring eure.
Upon first glance. the means and ways in which these
proceduras were practiced seem distant and foreign. It is
probably on such grounds that these respective tractates have
not been catego rised under the heading of “cuneiform medicine”
within Contemporary Ancient Near Eastem Studies. Usually.
they are merely termed “incantation rituals”. This less than
well-reflected ascription deriving from timewom conceptual
paradigms beguiles Assyriologists into expecting within these
healers’ pertinent writings only phenomena of religious-
historical interest. but certainly not any discovery of interest
from a medical perspective beyond mere antiquarianism.
Curiosity as how it was sought in the ancient Near East to tackle
health problems such as those outlined here remains on such
grounds extremely limited, even among scholars interested in
medical history. There may well, nonetheless. come a time,
freed of Eurocentric confines of intellection. in which the
insights resting within the texts herein presented might begin
to receive the recognition they are due.
1. State of Research
In July 1908. the archaeologist Walter Andrae made a
sensational find. Three hundred metres south of the great
forecourt of the Temple of Assur. he encountered in one of
the sounding trenches which had been dug across the entirety
of Assur the remains of a domestic structure which had been
destroyed in a conflagration. presumably at the end of the 7th
Century BCE during the capture of the city. Beneath the debris