Death They Dispensed to Mankind the Funerary World of Ancient Mesopotamia 1
DEATH THEY DISPENSED TO MANKIND THE FUNERARY WORLD OF ANCIENT MESOPOTAMIA 1 DINA KATZ Leiden Inhumation, rather than discarding of the corpse at a safe distance to rot or be devoured by wild animals, is a sign of respect to the human body. The traditional burial practices point to a funerary cult, with variations that suggest differentiation according to socio-economic status. Deposits of grave goods, particularly food, drink and personal belongings, demonstrate a belief that life continues beyond the grave, and therefore that humankind contains an immortal segment. Thus, death appears as a transitional phase, in which life is transformed from one mode to another. Modern readers may perceive it as a passage from an actual to a mythological reality, but the ancient Mesopotamian treated it as a continuous actual reality, in a different mode and location. 2 1Abbreviations used are those of PSD, CAD. Additional are: ETCSL (www.etcsl.orient.ox.ac.uk ) DGil – The death of Gilgameš (Cavigneaux 2000), Urnamma A – The death of Urnamma (Flückiger-Hawker 1999; ETCSL 2.4.1.1), GEN – Gilgameš, Enkidu and the Netherworld (ETCSL 1.8.1.4), Gilg. – The (Akkadian) Epic of Gilgameš (George 2003), ID – Inana’s Descent (ETCSL 1.4.1), IšD – Ištar’s Descent . For reasons of clarity, brackets marking reconstruction of text were omitted from the translations. 2 It is not my intention to present an integrative history. Cultural uniformity has never really been achieved by the ancient Mesopotamian civilizations. Least of all religious practices, which involved official and popular streams. Therefore, one should bear in mind that we deal with a range of individual histories sharing basic principles and different degrees of common features.
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