Lamaštu: An Edition of the Canonical Series of Lamaštu Incantations and Rituals and Related Texts from the Second and First Millennia B.C.

488 Pages·2014·65.82 MB·English

by  Walter Farber

L a m as t u
L
a
m An Edition of the Canonical Series
of Lamastu Incantations and Rituals
and Related Texts from the
a
Second and First Millennia B.C.
s
t
u
Walter Farber
Farber
Eisenbrauns
POB 275
Winona Lake, IN 46590
www.eisenbrauns.com
Lamaštu
General Editor
Jerrold S. Cooper, Johns Hopkins University
Editorial Board
Walter Farber, University of Chicago Jack Sasson, Vanderbilt University
Piotr Michalowski, University of Michigan Piotr Steinkeller, Harvard University
Simo Parpola, University of Helsinki Marten Stol, Free University of Amsterdam
Karen Radner, University College, London Irene Winter, Harvard University
1. The Lamentation over the Destruction of Sumer and Ur, by Piotr Michalowski
2. Schlaf, Kindchen, Schlaf! Mesopotamische Baby-Beschwörungen und -Rituale, by Walter Farber
3. Adoption in Old Babylonian Nippur and the Archive of Mannum-mešu-liṣṣur, by Elizabeth C. Stone and
David I. Owen
4. Third-Millennium Legal and Administrative Texts in the Iraq Museum, Baghdad, by Piotr Steinkeller and J. N. Postgate
5. House Most High: The Temples of Ancient Mesopotamia, by A. R. George
6. Textes culinaires Mésopotamiens / Mesopotamian Culinary Texts, by Jean Bottéro
7. Legends of the Kings of Akkade: The Texts, by Joan Goodnick Westenholz
8. Mesopotamian Cosmic Geography, by Wayne Horowitz
9. The Writing on the Wall: Studies in the Architectural Context of Late Assyrian Palace Reliefs, by John M. Russell
10. Adapa and the South Wind: Language Has the Power of Life and Death, by Shlomo Izre’el
11. Time at Emar: The Cultic Calendar and the Rituals from the Diviner’s Archive, by Daniel E. Fleming
12. Letters to the King of Mari: A New Translation, with Historical Introduction, Notes, and Commentary,
by Wolfgang Heimpel
13. Babylonian Oracle Questions, by W. G. Lambert
14. Royal Statuary of Early Dynastic Mesopotamia , by Gianni Marchesi and Nicolò Marchetti
15. The Correspondence of the Kings of Ur: An Epistolary History of an Ancient Mesopotamian Kingdom, by Piotr Michalowski
16. Babylonian Creation Myths, by W. G. Lambert
17. Lamaštu: An Edition of the Canonical Series of Lamaštu Incantations and Rituals and Related Texts from the Second and
First Millennia b.c., by Walter Farber
18. The Lamentation over the Destruction of Ur, by Nili Samet
19. The babilili-Ritual from Hattusa (CTH 718), by Gary M. Beckman
Lamaštu
An Edition of the Canonical Series of Lamaštu Incantations
and Rituals and Related Texts from the
Second and First Millennia . .
b c
W F
alter arber
Winona Lake, Indiana
eisenbrauns
2014
© Copyright 2014 Eisenbrauns
All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America.
www.eisenbrauns.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Farber, Walter, 1947–
Lamaštu : an edition of the canonical series of Lamaštu incantations and rituals and related texts from the
second and first millennia b.c. / Walter Farber.
pages cm. — (Mesopotamian Civilizations ; 17)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-57506-258-7 (hardback : alk. paper)
1. Lamashtu (Assyro-Babylonian deity) I. Title.
BL1605.L36F37 2014
299′.21—dc23
2014000566
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sci-
ences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984. ♾™
Cherchez la femme!
For Gertrud

Contents
Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi
Lamaštu, Daughter of Anu: A Sketch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
The Lamaštu Texts: Ancient History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Lamaštu Texts in the Third and Second Millennia b.c. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Early Sumerian Lamaštu Incantations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Akkadian Lamaštu Texts from the Old Assyrian and Old Babylonian Periods . . . 8
Lamaštu Texts from the Middle Babylonian Period . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Lamaštu Texts in the First Millennium b.c. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
The Canonical Lamaštu Series . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
An Early Canonical Version in the 13th Century? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Different Recensions in the First Millennium . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
The ṭuppu Recension (Assur and Babylonia) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
The pirsu Recension (Nineveh and Sultantepe) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
“Ni/Si” and Possible Other Recensions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
The Colophons of Tablets belonging to the “Lam.” Series . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Excerpt Texts and Adaptations of Passages from the Canonical Lam. Series . . . . . . 26
Canonical Incantations Used in Other Ritual Contexts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
School Tablets Containing Excerpts from the Lamaštu Series . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Excerpts and Adaptations from “Lam. III” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
Lamaštu Amulets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
Other Standard Babylonian Lamaštu Incantations and Rituals . . . . . . . . . . . 34
Non-Canonical Lamaštu Incantations in a Variety of Ritual Settings . . . . . . . . . . 34
“ND”: Another SB Connection to the Middle Babylonian Compendium “Ug” . . . 34
“SKS”: Assyrian Influence in Uruk? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
“RA”: A Multi-Use Lamaštu Incantation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
“STT 144,” “STT 145,” and “FsB”: More Non-Canonical Lamaštu Texts
from NA Libraries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
Non-Canonical Rituals With Ties to the Lamaštu Corpus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
Unidentified Fragments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
vii
viii Contents
The Lamaštu Texts: Recent History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
The Beginnings in the 19th Century: Lamaštu Amulets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
The First Texts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
From Myhrman to Geers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
Franz Köcher: Dissertation (1948) and CAD manuscript (1974) . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
New Discoveries Since 1977 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
Manuscript Sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Part I: The Canonical Lamaštu Series (“Lam. I–III”) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Duplicate Texts to the Series . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Exemplars of the pirsu Recension . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Exemplars of the ṭuppu Recension . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Exemplar of the “Ni/Si” Recension . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Exemplars of Doubtful Affiliation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Parallel Texts Used in the Reconstruction of the Canonical Series . . . . . . . . . 47
Parallels Excerpted from the Canonical Text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
Independent Parallels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
Part II: Lamaštu Incantations and Rituals That Are Not Part of the
Standard Babylonian Series . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
Non-Canonical Old Assyrian and Old Babylonian Lamaštu Incantations . . . . . . . . 50
Middle Babylonian Lamaštu Texts from Peripheral Areas
Not Directly Related to the Series . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
Other Standard Babylonian Lamaštu Incantations and Rituals . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
Non-Canonical Lamaštu Incantations in Various Ritual Contexts . . . . . . . . . 51
Non-Canonical Rituals against Lamaštu Not Containing
Specific Lamaštu Incantations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
A Neo-Assyrian Memorandum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
Part III: Three Unidentified Standard Babylonian Fragments
with Possible Connections to the Lamaštu Corpus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
Table I. Previous Publications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
Table II. List of Museum and Excavation Numbers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Table III. Concordance between “Lam. I–II” and “Lam. III”
(Rituals and Incipits) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
Table IV: Index to Separate Transliterations, Transcriptions, and Translations
of Parallels and Related Texts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
The Texts: Edition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
Part I: The Canonical Lamaštu Series (“Lam. I–III”) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
Transliteration in Score Format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
Lam. I (= 1. pirsu) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
Lam. II (= 2. pirsu) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
Lam. III (= 3. pirsu) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
Contents ix
Transcription and Translation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143
Lam. I (= 1. pirsu) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144
Lam. II (= 2. pirsu) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164
Lam. III (= 3. pirsu) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186
Line Commentary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196
Lam. I (= 1. pirsu) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196
Lam. II (= 2. pirsu) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224
Lam. III (= 3. pirsu) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253
Part II: Lamaštu Incantations and Rituals That Are Not Part
of the Standard Babylonian Series . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259
Transliteration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259
Individual Old Assyrian and Old Babylonian Lamaštu Incantations . . . . . . . . . . . 259
“OA ” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259
2
“OB ”–“OB ” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 260
2 6
Middle Babylonian Lamaštu Texts from Peripheral Areas
Not Directly Related to the Series . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 262
“Ug” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 262
“RS” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263
“Bo” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263
“Emar” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263
Non-Canonical Standard Babylonian Lamaštu Incantations
in Various Ritual Contexts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 266
“ND” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 266
“FsB” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267
“RA” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 268
“SKS” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271
“STT 144” and “145” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 273
Non-Canonical Standard Babylonian Rituals against Lamaštu Not Containing
Specific Lamaštu Incantations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275
“RC” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275
“FsL” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 276
“K 888” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 276
“SpTU” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277
“BM 33399” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277
A Neo-Assyrian Memorandum: “Assur Memo” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 278
Transcription and Translation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 280
Individual Old Assyrian and Old Babylonian Lamaštu Incantations . . . . . . . . . . . 280
Middle Babylonian Lamaštu Texts from Peripheral Areas
Not Directly Related to the Series . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 286