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July 12, 2009
Be Careful
It's always been good advice.
I'm currently reading through a rather sizable literature, ancient and modern, on namburbi rituals. These apotropaic rites, as far as I can tell, always feature one or more prayers. Sometimes, only the prayer survives. These rituals go back to Sumerian times and continued in use throughout Babylonian and Assyrian history. Namburbi is a Sumerian loan in Akkadian. Diviners made various modifications to the process along the way but the idea of a ritual by which someone could avoid the portent of a bad omen continued. Wherever one finds bad omens, one finds ways to deflect or mitigate their portent. It keeps the diviners employed. They got to read the prediction in the omen and then they got to help make the portent go away, generally šūtuqu, "bypass," in Babylonian, etēqu in Assyrian. Like a stockbroker who gets a commission when one buys stock and another when one sells it, presumably the diviners were paid for both the prediction and the cure. Good work it you can get it. But what if run-of-the-mill namburbi won't work and something more is called for?
Oppenheim published a group of tablet fragments that, when taken with other previously published fragments, resulted in a continuous, readable, text with only the usual number of lacunae. He called the resulting text "A Babylonian Diviner's Manuel." There are several abnormally interesting things about this text. I quote Oppenheim, 210, on one of the most interesting,
In the first section [of the text] the two traditional methods diviners use to reject an evil prediction are enumerated: either a contraindication or what is called an "annulment." Only when both methods fail is there actual danger that the sinister prediction cannot be made to bypass (šūtuqu) the person for whom it was relevant, and that it cannot be eliminated (nasāḫu), but will actually happen (ṭeḫû). At this point, the author exclaims, quote dramatically, "(when) they ask you to save the city, the king and his subjects from enemy, pestilence, and famine (predicated) what will you say?" . . . [References omitted, emphasis added]
The full quotation in Oppenheim's, 205, translation of the section is,
(When) you have identified the sign and (when) they ask you to save the city, the king and his subjects from enemy, pestilence, and famine (predicated) what will you say? When they complain to you, how will you make (the evil consequences) bypass them.
The author actually has some advice that includes studying various other ancient works. The exact work one should consult depends upon, among other things, the month and day of the year. Oppenheim, 208, points out that the author combines the two major divination traditions of reading terrestrial and celestial signs into a unified approach.
But perhaps his best advice is, itîd lā teggi, "Pay attention, do not be careless." The immediate context is the complex set of astronomical calculations that go into celestial divination. But this seems like good advice anytime one deals with kings and omens.
Reference:
Posted by Duane Smith at July 12, 2009 2:28 PM | Read more on Akkadian |
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