Burial of Enemies’ Bodies in Ancient Mesopotamia

Document Type : Original Article

Author

A Lecturer at History Dept., Faculty of Arts, South Valley University, Qena, Egypt.

Abstract

Burial of enemies’ bodies is one of the habits that did not frequently occur among peoples of the ancient Near East. For ideological or political reasons, such a habit is almost limited to Ancient Mesopotamia. This research paper scrutinizes the meaning of the idiom of burial of dead enemies as well as tackles the reasonsthat made ancient Mesopotamian people bury their enemies, whether such bodies were of foreigners or rebels or even some outlaws through some historical ages. Moreover, this paper discusses the situation of the spirits which did not receive funeral occasions and their society from the religious perspective of the Ancient Iraqi people.
In addition, this research paper discusses the situation of those who were punished by not being buried because of committing some crimes. Such penalties increased in number during the Old Babylonian Period. People in ancient Iraq feared the emergence of unburied spirits, so they buried the enemies, especially if the distance between battle site and the victorious cities was very near. Therefore, kings realized the importance of burial for the enemies’ dead bodies, so they made non-burial an additional punishment for those enemies. However, if the families of the un-buried deceased could   bury it, the spirit would calm down and settle down in the other world. In ancient Iraq, people followed some rituals to bury the body again, in which some magical works were performed. A spirit that was not buried turned into a demon (eţemmu) which caused multiple diseases, especially skin diseases. Such unburied spirits could also threaten to break up the family.

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References

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