Edition literarischer Keilschrifttexte aus Assur

Introduction

31

The highly broken ending deviates completely from Therapy
Description 2’s conclusion.
The further textual witnesses hailing from Nineveh (no. 8-9)
and Kalhu (no. 10) aid in filling textual lacunae within Therapy
Description 2. These tablet fragments are so small that the
broader context of the preserved passages remains unclear; it
evidently deviates from that known from Therapy Description
2’s other textual witnesses. By means of a brief addendum
(1. 74a). Texts nos. 8 and 9 from Nineveh disclose the Situation
in which the therapy described therein should be accomplished.
In both cases. the king served as the patient. In one of diese,
the healing treatment should be conducted because impending
ill for the king was already forecast by a lunar eclipse (Text
no. 8). On the other occasion. the performance of the therapy
was recommended after the king had been compelled to endure
inauspicious portents “which appeared in my palace and my
land” (Text no. 9).
Therapy Description 3 (here Text no. 11) is known from
a single textual witness from Assur copied down in the late
Neo-Assyrian period by a healer “in order to perform it”. The
tablet’s exact place of discovery is unknown. The treatment
therein described should eure a suffering which was traced back
to a "curse” (arratu) and a “ban” (mämitu). The description
of Symptoms preceding the very brief portrayal of the healing
process resembles that known from Therapy Description 1.
albeit the treatment should be implemented at a still earlier
stage. while the afflicted still did not display any grave physical
signs of illness. The events of the healing procedure are roughly
sketched in a mere seven lines of text. As in Text no. 3. the
approach towards the pcrsonificd ban assumes centre stage.
The treatment of the individual afflicted with “curse” and “ban”
is without the slightest mention. Consigned to writing in their
complete wording and addressed to the sun and moon gods. both
prayers therein demonstrate that the procedure to dispel a curse
and a ban was to be carried out in part by night and at part by
day (or rather on a day of the full moon at sunset and moonrise).
Therapy Description 4 (here Text no. 12) is only represented
by a miniscule fragment of a tablet prepared in the mid-7th
Century BCE for the royal library at Nineveh. Preserved therein
is the beginning of the description of a healing procedure to
be performed when the “hand of the spirit of the dead and the
hand of the ban” seized a human being. The underlying structure
of this therapy description only preserved in a small passage
corresponds to that of Therapy Description 3.
Therapy Description 5 (here Text no. 13) is only known from
a small, heavily damaged fragment of a tablet hailing from the
so-called House of the Incantation Priest. It belongs to a tablet
wherein (as in Therapy Description 2) a healing procedure. to be
undertaken “when a ban had revealed its potency in the body of
the individual”, was depicted. Scarce few words are extant from
this therapy description. Regardless. these demonstrate that the
healer should perform manipulations upon a figurine fashioned
from wax. This alone lends Therapy Description 5 a special
Status. Figurines created from wax most prominently played a
role in healing procedures aimed at defending against witchcraft.
The remains of the description of a healing procedure with the
instructions for buming the wax figurine of the personified ban
may only be found on the reverse of a tablet from the Neo-
Babylonian period. The tablet is today held in Otago Museum in
Dunedin (New Zealand) and is adomed with a crude depiction

of the goat-headed ban.45 As. in the perspective of the ancient
Near Eastem healers. sorcery and “ban” alike provoked similar
Symptoms of illness. and thus were not uncommonly treated
together through therapy. this procedure of buming wax figurines
originally tied to defence against witchcraft may have found its
way into a procedure for dispelling a ban.
Therapy Description 6 is known from two textual witnesses
(here Text no. 14-15). Both originale from the tablet inventory
found in the so-called House of the Incantation Priest in Assur.
According to its subscript. one of these was “hastily excerpted”
by a healer “for the preparation of the performance”. The
curative treatment was aimed at eliminating the destructive force
of different ills. Among these could be found the “hand of the
spirit of the dead”. the “hand of Istar”. and. moreover. the “(curse
of) retaliation” (türtu), the “oath” (msu), and probably the “ban”
(märmtii). The procedure by which to repel this evil conforms
essentially to the basic pattem of the procedure for dispelling a
ban.
2.2.2. Clay Tablet Editions with Compilations of the dicenda
of the Healing Treatment entitled nam-erim-bür-ru-da
(Texts nos. 16-47>46
‘Guide’ and therapy descriptions were not the only forms of
transmission developed by the healers to document the procedure
for dispelling a ban. The third männer of documentation
essentially reflects a very ancient tradition reaching back into
the early third millennium BCE. Quite a few clay tablets with
incantations and prayers preserved in their exact wording are
known from this period. The custom of attaching to dicenda
references to their embedding in a therapy or ritual event came
about tardily in the Old Babylonian period and would only
truly flourish during the first millennium BCE. The timewom
tradition of consigning the dicenda to writing but leaving the
agenda to non-textual forms of transmission informs the clay
tablet editions. which seem to ignore entirely or to a great extent
the healing procedure; rather. these consist almost exclusively
of its dicenda. The majority of the writings on the dispelling of
a ban presented in this book belong to this type of transmitted
text, here designated ‘nam-erim-bür-ru-da recitation’. The
most part of the pertinent tablets were fumished with catchlines
referring to the first line of the respective following tablet. The
order thereby established corresponds to the chain of events as
prescribed in the ‘guide’ for dispelling a ban.47
While the ‘guide’ and the greater part of the ‘therapy
descriptions’ are only known from the tablet Collection of the
so-called House of the Incantation Priest, the third form of
transmission of the procedure for dispelling a ban is also present
within other tablet inventories.48 The pertinent textual witnesses
45 P. Zilberg. W. Horowitz. ZA 106. 175-184.
46 Text no. 10 likely also belongs to this textual group.
47 Among a considerable sum of those textual witnesses here pertinent,
the end of the tablet is so heavily damaged that it might no longer be
determined as to whether the tablet in question displays a catchline or not
(Texts nos. 16.17.19 with additional fragments. 20. 21. 23. 28. 9(+)30. 31.
33. 37. 39. 41. 42. and 47). A total of seven Neo-Assyrian textual witnesses
from Assur (Texts nos. 18. 32. 35. 43(+)44). Nineveh (Text no. 27). and
Kalhu (Texts nos. 34 and 40) were fumished with catchlines. while. by
means of contrast. other textual witnesses. two early Neo-Assyrian (Text
no. 36 from an unidentifiable location and Text no. 45 from Nineveh) and
one Babylonian (Text no. 38 from Sippar). were not.
48 Texts nos. 17. 18. 32. 35. and 43(+)44 hail from the so-called House of the
Incantation Priest.