RI V I S TA DEGL I S TU D I O RI E NTALI

NUOVA SERIE
R IVIS TA DEGL I S T UDI ORI E NTALI
NUOVA SERIE

Organo scientiico del

DIPARTIMENTO DI STUDI ORIENTALI
SAPIENZA, UNIVERSITÀ DI ROMA

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Raffaele Torella

Direttore scientiico
Raffaele Torella

Editor-in-Chief
Franco D’Agostino

Comitato scientiico
Giovanna Calasso, Federica Casalin, Ciro Lo Muzio,
Giorgio Milanetti, Filippo Salviati,
Lorenzo Verderame, Maria Gioia Vienna

Segretaria di redazione
Francesca Gorello

Pubblicato con il contributo

di «Sapienza», Università di Roma
 SA P I E N ZA , UN I VE R S I TÀ DI ROMA
DIPA RT I M E N TO D I S TUDI OR IE NTALI

APPROACHING RITUALS
IN ANCIENT CULTURES
QUESTIONI DI RITO:
RITUALI COME FONTE DI CONOSCENZA
DELLE RELIGIONI E DELLE CONCEZIONI
DEL MONDO NELLE CULTURE ANTICHE

Proceedings of the Conference, November 28-30, 2011, Roma

EDITED BY
CLAUS AMBOS AND LORENZO VERDERAME

SUPPLEMENTO Nº 2
ALLA RIVISTA DEGLI STUDI ORIENTALI
NUOVA SERIE
VOLUME LXXXVI

PISA · ROMA
FABRIZIO SERRA EDITORE
2013
 R IVIS TA DEGL I S T UDI ORI E NTALI
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 SOMMARIO

Preface 9
Claus Ambos, Lorenzo Verderame, Introduction 11
Claus Ambos, Mesopotamische Baurituale aus dem 1. Jahrtausend v. Chr.
Nachträge und Verbesserungen 17
Claus Ambos, Rites of passage in Ancient Mesopotamia: Changing status
by moving through space: Bit rimki and the ritual of the substitute king 39
Emanuele M. Ciampini, La dinamica del rituale di Hathor nel tempio
della dea a File 55
Federico Contardi, The Reception of Royal and Divine Rituals by In-
dividuals in Egypt of the First Millennium 79
M. Erica Couto-Ferreira, The River, the Oven, the Garden: the Female
Body and Fertility in a Late Babylonian Ritual Text 97
Agnès Garcia-Ventura, Mireia López-Bertran, Figurines & Rit-
uals. Discussing Embodiment Theories and Gender Studies 117
Pietro Giammellaro, The begar on the threshold. Spaces, ritual cross-
ings and social identity in the Homeric epic 145
Harold M. Hays, The End of Rites of Passage and a Start with Ritual
Syntax in Ancient Egypt 165
Patrick Maxime Michel, Ritual in Emar 187
Nicola Modena, Lost in Description: The Missing Rituals of the Queen
at the Court of Ancient Israel 197
Davide Nadali, When Ritual Meets Art. Rituals in the Visual Arts versus
the Visual Arts in Rituals: The Case of Ancient Mesopotamia 209
Andreas H. Pries, On the use of a grammar of rituals. Relections from
an Egyptologist’s point of view 227
Anne-Caroline Rendu Loisel, Noise, Light and Smoke: the Sensory
Dimension in Akkadian Rituals. A General Overview 245
Marta Rivaroli, The Ritualization of War: the Phases of Bellum and
their Sacral Implications 261
Giulia Torri, Susanne Görke, Hittite Building Rituals. Interaction
between their Ideological Function and Find Spots 287
Lorenzo Verderame, Means of substitution. The use of igurines, ani-
mals, and human beings as substitutes in Assyrian rituals 301
RI TES O F PASSAGE IN ANCIE NT M E S O POTA M IA :
CHANGING STAT US BY MOV IN G T H RO U G H
S PACE: BI T RIMKI AND T H E RIT UA L
OF THE SUBSTITU T E KIN G *
Claus Ambos

The article discusses elements of the complex ritual of the substitute king. The ritual
bit rimki – “House of the bath”, an important ritual for purifying the ruler, was often
performed after a bad portent in the framework of the ritual of the substitute king. In
addition, also the meaning of space in ritual is considered, referring to the notion of
rites of passage as developed by Arnold van Gennep: In performing bit rimki and the
ritual of the substitute king, the king changed his status. After he had temporarily lost
his royal status and was reduced to a miserable wretch, oicially called “the farmer”,
he regained his status as king during the performance of the ritual. In fact, this move-
ment through various social states was in parallel with a physical movement through
a complex ritual space; the setting of the ritual performance.

I n this article I will deal with rites of passage in the Ancient Near East by pre-
senting a case study, the ritual bit rimki, “House of the (ritual) bath”. This
ritual is attested on cuneiform tablets from Babylonia and Assyria that stem
from the irst millennium BCE, but which certainly belong to an older tradi-
tion reaching back into the 2nd or even 3rd millennium. Up to now, there is no
scholarly edition of the ritual, and many pertinent cuneiform tablets remain
unpublished to the present day.1 In addition to the extant fragments of the rit-
ual handbooks, the ritual is also alluded to in letters from scholars and oi-
cials to the kings of the Neo-Assyrian empire from the 8th and 7th centuries
BCE. The ritual was as a rule performed for the king, but there are attesta-
tions that it could also be performed for other (high-ranking) people.2
The ritual bit rimki was performed often in the framework of the so called
“ritual of the substitute king”. When – to be very brief – an eclipse of the

* Research for this article was conducted in the framework of the Collaborative Research Center 619
“The Dynamics of Ritual”, supported by the German Research Council (DFG). I am grateful to Dr.
Christopher Frechette, SJ (Boston College) for correcting my English and commenting upon an earlier
draft of this article. – Abbreviations used in this article: LKA = Ebeling (1953); SBTU III = von Weiher (1988).
1 See for the time being on the ritual as known from the 1st millennium BCE Laessøe (1955); Borger
(1967); Farber (1987: 245-255); Farber (1997). On older forerunners see Geller (1995: 114-126); G. and W. Far-
ber (2003: 108-114). Elsewhere I have dealt with the ritual bit rimki as a case for analyzing Mesopotamian
notions of purity and impurity: Ambos (2012).
2 See for performances of the ritual for high-ranking dignitaries the evidence of letters from the cor-
respondence of the Neo-Assyrian kings: Parpola (1987: no. 227); Parpola (1993: no. 371). Most manuscripts
of the ritual handbook explicitly mention the king as the person for whose sake the ritual is performed;
one manuscript, however, mentions a “man”: LKA no. 75; Borger (1967: 2).
40 claus ambos [2]

moon or sun occurred during which the planet Jupiter was not visible, this
was taken as a very bad and inauspicious portent announcing the death of a
king.3
In order to determine which king was afected by the eclipse, the sun and
the moon were divided into quadrants. These quadrants stood for Babylonia,
Assyria, Elam and the Westland. The eclipse was understood to afect the
king of the country for which the respective quadrant was eclipsed.
Another person was then enthroned as a substitute king in the afected
ruler’s stead. The substitute king “ruled” for about 100 days and then died or
was killed. Thus the bad portent had come true, and the king was dead. The
real king was called the “farmer” during the “reign” of the substitute king.
After his substitute’s death he resumed his royal dignity. From the royal
correspondence it becomes clear that the ritual bit rimki framed the ritual of
the substitute king, that is, it was performed at its beginning and at its end.

1. Rites of passage
The ritual bit rimki and the ritual of the substitute king can be termed rites of
passage. The ideal rite of passage consists of a tripartite scheme: Rites of
separation, a liminal or marginal state, and rites of aggregation. The concept
of rites of passage and the tripartite scheme were developed by Arnold van
Gennep.4
A. van Gennep observed that in a person’s life the transitions from one
(social) position into another one are accompanied by rites of passage (e.g. at
birth, puberty, marriage, and death). These rites are necessary because
persons or groups leaving their former position (and thus their former social
environment – his or her family, age group, religious community etc.) are
considered a threat to the established social order, which has to be dealt with
by the performance of appropriate rituals.
Albeit focusing on rites during a person’s life cycle, van Gennep dealt also
with other events such as rites for building and consecrating a house, rites of
vendetta, or calendar rites (i.e. rites of the cycle of the seasons or of the lu-
nar cycle etc.).
Rites of separation serve to separate a person or group from an old state
or position. This person or group is then in a liminal or marginal state, having
been separated from their old position and having not yet reached their new
one. This liminal or marginal state is characterized by ambiguity, indetermi-

3 Kümmel (1967); Parpola (1983: XXII-XXXII and 402-408); Huber (2004) and (2005: 156-166). The ac-
tual attestations of performances of bit rimki in the context of the ritual of the substitute king can be
connected with lunar eclipses: Parpola (1983: 176) (with regard to no. 185 [1]) and (1983: 198) (referring to
no. 203, discussion section).
4 See van Gennep (1909). For writing this article I used the German translation van Gennep (1999).
On the usefulness of the concept of rites of passage for the study of Ancient Near Eastern ritual see
Ambos (forth.).
[3] rites of passage in ancient mesopotamia 41

nacy and reversal of status.5 Rites of aggregation then serve to introduce the
person to his or her new position or state. A. van Gennep himself was aware
of the fact, that this is quite an ideal scheme (and certainly not a rigid rule),
which in real life might not appear in this shape. According to the context,
one element or the other of this tripartite scheme might be developed more
or less distinctively. Furthermore, a rite of separation, seen from a diferent
viewpoint, may well be considered also a rite of aggregation.
This scheme can be applied to the ritual bit rimki and to the ritual of the sub-
stitute king: Because of the evil omen announcing his death, the king was in
a marginal state, when he was no longer a king, but a farmer. By various rites
of separation, every evil that afected his person was removed from his body
and transferred to the substitute. Then, by various rites of aggregation, the
farmer was re-introduced into his royal status, which he had temporarily lost.
The performance of the ritual bit rimki, and, in a broader framework, of
the ritual of the substitute king, implied also the movement through space
for both protagonists, the farmer and the substitute king.
A close correlation between passing through space and passing from one
state to another has been noted by van Gennep.

2. The ritual bit rimki : A general overview

First I want to give a presentation of bit rimki.6 Many sources are not yet pub-
lished and what is clear from the published evidence is that there are at least
two extant versions of the ritual handbook. Thus my description is very
tentative. Afterwards I want to deal with bit rimki in the broader context of
the ritual of the substitute king.
After some initial puriication rites of the king and his palace, the ritual ex-
perts and the king went into the open country. There, a complex ritual struc-
ture made of reeds, the so called “House of the (ritual) bath” (bit rimki), had
been constructed. This House of the (ritual) bath consisted of a space that
was fenced of from the outside world by a circle of reed standards. Inside this
space, a reed hut or several reed huts were constructed that served as tempo-
rary shrines.7
During the night, the ritual expert made the king recite a long cycle of
prayers to the major gods of the pantheon and to the stars and planets. The
king asked the gods for their support, mercy and favor and that they might
intercede with his personal gods on his behalf.8

5 Drawing on van Gennep, Victor Turner (e.g. 1969; German edition 2000) focussed in his works
intensively on the liminal phase of the tripartite scheme.
6 The following is a condensed and modiied version of Ambos (2012).
7 Seidl/Sallaberger (2005/2006: 62f.).
8 These prayers belong to the genre of “Akkadian” šu-íl-lá – “hand-lifting”. See for this genre
Frechette (2012) and regarding speciically the the nocturnal cycle of prayers Frechette (2012: 176-180 and
201-208).
42 claus ambos [4]

In the morning at sunrise, after having bathed himself and put on a clean
garment, the king passed through seven “houses”, as they are called in the
text. These houses must have been seven temporary structures connected to
the house of the (ritual) bath. Perhaps they were rooms, stations or sections
that formed part of this structure. In every single house he performed rites
of puriication and recited prayers.
The ritual actions in the seven houses consisted of washing parts of the body
of the king and of manipulating igurines in front of the rising sun, Šamaš.
The igurines represented the persons, who by performing various acts had
brought evil efects upon the king. As long as the king remained in harmony
with the divine sphere, the sorcery and machinations of his adversaries were
doomed to fail. But the eclipse had announced the anger of the gods towards
the king, who now had become susceptible to harmful external inluences.
In the irst four houses the king washed his hands over ive igurines: one
of the enemy, one of the sorcerer, one that acted as a substitute of his own
person and two crosswise arranged igurines that represented adversaries of
the king.
In the ifth house the exorcist stabbed a igurine of the curse-demon; the
king washed his mouth with water and beer and spat it on the igurine, which
was then buried. In the sixth house, igurines of the sorcerer and sorceress
were bound with a rope and buried. In the seventh house, a igurine of the
death-spirit was buried.
The following lines describe the actions and recitations in the second and
third houses:9
The king enters the second house and (the exorcist) recites the incantation “Lord, who
in the pure heaven” as a ki-utu-kam-prayer. (The king) speaks the incantation: “Šamaš,
king of heaven and earth, lord of truth and justice”, and then he washes his hands over
a igurine of a sorcerer.
(The king enters) the third house and (the exorcist) recites the incantation “Šamaš,
(when you are rising) from the netherworld” as a ki-utu-kam-prayer. (The exorcist or
king) recites the incantation: “The asakku-demon has spread like a lood over the riv-
er”. Over a igurine acting as a substitute he (the king) washes his hands. He speaks the
incantation “Šamaš, king of heaven and earth.”
It is evident, that by washing parts of his body over the igurines of his ad-
versaries, the king not only got rid of his impurity, but also turned it, in the
form of his used washing water, against his opponents. This is conirmed by
the wording of the prayers the king recited in the houses. I give an example
from the 2nd house:10

9 Laessøe (1955: 29); Farber (1987: 251).

10 This passage is cited after Foster (1993: 655-657). See also the edition by Abusch & Schwemer (2011:
375-386).
[5] rites of passage in ancient mesopotamia 43

The igurine is like a (human) shape, the head is like a (human) head,
the shape of the body is like the shape of a (human) body.
O Šamaš! This is the igurine of the witch (who is doing) the sorcery, who has harassed
me, who is making the attempt against me,
who has said to a sorceress, ‘Bewitch!’, who has said to a harasser, ‘Harass!’, who has
incited another,
who has made me eat (bewitched) bread, who has made me drink (bewitched) beer,
who has made me wash in (bewitched) water, who has made me anoint myself with
(bewitched) oil,
who has made me eat (bewitched) food.
Because of whatever she made me eat, because of whatever she made me drink,
because of whatever she made me wash with, because of whatever she made me
anoint myself with or dispatched against me,
because she pronounced my name with evil intent, interred symbols of me,
made igurines of me and took my measurements,
collected dust grains from my footprints, took up my spittle,
plucked out a lock of hair, cut of a piece of my clothing, snooped for something bad
about me,
because she has made accusations against me, hampered me, seized me, polluted me,
has made me full of stifness and debility,
has seized my heart, has turned the heart of my god against me,
has twisted my muscles, weakened my strength,
has overthrown my arms, hobbled my feet,
has set upon me discord, ill temper, misery, anxiety, panic,
terror, cursing, fear, worry, loss of sleep, speechlessness, depression,
misery, dissatisfaction, illness,
(…)
O Šamaš, this is she, here is her igurine!
Even though she is not here, her igurine is here!
I wash the water of upon her, whatever is known to me of her or not known,
I pollute her with it, let her receive it from me.
(…)
Just as the water is cleared from my body and goes upon her and her form,
so do I cast of upon her wrong and bondage!
May all evil in my person, lesh, and sinews
be cleared like the water from my body and go against her and against her form!

The king had absorbed evil matter with the food he ate or with the oil he used
to clean his body. Parts of his body (like hair) or of his clothes had been ma-
nipulated by his enemies and the sorcerers hired by them. The result was a
state of inability to act, a loss of agency, connected with bodily and mental
illness, as it is described in the prayer.
As it is also described in the prayer, it was possible for the afected person
to turn the evil machinations of his enemies against themselves by removing
the evil matter from his body and transferring it to his adversaries in the form
44 claus ambos [6]

of the igurines representing them. To be eicacious, however, these actions

had to be performed in a legal framework before the divine judge, the rising
sun, Šamaš (Sumerian: Utu). In every house, the king addressed an incanta-
tion to him while washing himself. Šamaš is explicitly addressed as the judge
who is expected to render his verdict in the case when he rises in the morn-
ing. I cite a passage from one of the prayers to the sungod:11
Utu/Šamaš, when you come out from the great mountain (the netherworld),
when you come out from the great mountain, the mountain of the underground water,
when you come out from the Holy Hill, the place where the destinies are ordained,
when you come out from the horizon to (the place) where heaven and earth embrace
each other,
the great gods step toward you to trial,
the Anunnaki-gods step toward you to make the decision.
In front of the divine judge, the rising sun, the king airmed his innocence
and accused his adversaries of having acted against the will of the gods.
Šamaš and other gods had convened in the reed hut(s) that formed part of
the house of the (ritual) bath. Reed huts are attested in general in many if not
all Ancient Near Eastern rituals.12 They were temporary shrines that provid-
ed a pure and vitalizing environment where the king (or the person for whom
the ritual was performed) met the gods. Reeds were considered a pure and
apotropaic building material, having grown out from the cosmic subter-
ranean water, the apsû. Reeds epitomized life and thriving, because the reed
bed was, in marked contrast to the steppe or desert, a place abundant in wa-
ter and teeming with animals. In the reed huts the king was re-introduced in-
to his royal status.
This at least is suggested by the wording of one of the incantations of the
3rd house:13
When you go out from the reed hut,
may the garment, when you put it on, give you dignity,
May the scepter, which they gave you, subdue the country for you!
May the crown, which they gave you, raise your head.
This investiture makes clear that by the removal of impurity the king has
again achieved his former agency and ability to act, qualities he had tem-
porarily lost.
It seems that there was a certain interdependency or mutual reaction be-
tween rites of separation from evil and rites of aggregation to the royal sta-
tus: As the king gradually got rid of his impurity when passing through the
seven houses of bit rimki, he was in turn invested with his regalia (or perhaps
the individual components of his regalia in each of the houses).

11 Borger (1967: 2f. ll. 1-6). 12 Taracha (2001); Sallaberger & Seidl (2005/2006).
13 Watanabe (1991: 375 ll. 109-116). Another pertinent text is BM 32534, who is published here in the
appendix (see below).
[7] rites of passage in ancient mesopotamia 45

After the king had passed through the seven houses, there followed, still in
the house of the (ritual) bath as it seems, further rites of puriication. There-
after followed a sequence of rituals and incantations against sorcery. Finally,
the king presented himself to the triad Ea, Šamaš and Asalluhi, the gods who
guaranteed the success of the ritual performance, and addressed them with
prayers. Finally, he recited prayers also to his personal gods.

3. The ritual bit rimki as performed in the framework

of the ritual of the substitute king

I will now illustrate the broader context, the ritual of the substitute king,
with a detailed example from the reign of the neo-Assyrian king Esarhad-
don, who ruled in the irst half of the 7th century BCE. Under Esarhaddon’s
rule the Assyrian empire had reached its climax and stretched over all of the
near East.
During the reign of this king the rituals performed to drive of the evil from
a total lunar eclipse that happened on the 15th day of the 10th month, ¥ebe-
tu, which is December 27th, 671 BCE, are very well documented in the royal
correspondence excavated in Nineveh.
Already a few days before the eclipe of the moon the king’s chief exorcist
Marduk-šakin-šumi started the ritual counter-measures with the performance
of the ritual bit rimki. However, the puriication achieved by performing bit
rimki was not suicient, as Marduk-šakin-šumi wrote in a letter to his king:14
I am also worried about the impending observation of the moon, let this be [my]
advice: If it is suitable, let us put somebody on the throne. (When) the night [of the
15th day] comes, he will be alicted [by it]; but he will sa[ve your life]. I am listening –
[the king, my lord], knows the Babylonians and what they [pl]ot and [re]peat. (These)
plotters should be af[licted]. Tomorrow, if it seems good, I shall come to the audience
and speak to the king.
According to Marduk-šakin-šumi’s proposal, a certain Damqî, a disloyal Baby-
lonian was appointed substitute king.
The substitute king was married to a substitute queen. We know that the
substitute underwent an investiture and received the royal insignia, as be-
comes clear from a letter of the king’s exorcist Adad-šuma-usur to Esarhad-
don:15

14 Parpola (1983: no.185) = Parpola (1993: no. 240). Cited here is rev. 14-26 and left side 1.
15 Parpola (1983: no. 134) = Parpola (1993: no. 189). Cited here are ll. 6-13. Parpola assumes that this
letter refers to another performance of the ritual of the substitute king on behalf of Esarhaddon earli-
er in the year 671 BCE. Anyway, the evidence of this text regarding an investiture of the substitute king
is of relevance also for the present example focussing on Damqî. In this letter, both the substitute king
as well as a substitute igurine are mentioned. The latter may have been in fact a igurine; the expres-
sion might, however, refer to the human substitute as well (see the discussion by Parpola 1983: no. 298
note to l. 5)
46 claus ambos [8]

Concerning the substitute king (šar puhi) of Akkad (=Babylonia), the order should be
given to enthrone (him). Concerning the clothes of the king, my lord, and the gar-
ments for the igurine of the substitute king (salam šar puhi), concerning the necklace
[of go]ld, the sceptre and the throne, [… ba]th.
Esarhaddon was king of Assyria but ruled as well over Babylonia, and ac-
cordingly he carried the titles King of Babylon, Viceroy of Babylon and King
of Sumer and Akkad.16 The total eclipse had thus afected Esarhaddon not
only as king of Assyria, but as well as ruler over Babylonia. The king’s advi-
sors had to make allowance for this fact while performing the ritual of the
substitute king.
Accordingly, Damqî, the substitute king, was enthroned in Assyria to act as
a subsitute of Esarhaddon as king of Assyria; and then he had to travel to the
city of Akkad in Babylonia in order to act as a substitute for Esarhaddon as
ruler of Babylonia.
The movement of the substitute king was controlled by special agent Mar-
Ištar, who reported to Esarhaddon. In one of his letters we read, that the sub-
stitute spent the night of the 15th, when the eclipse occured, in the palace of
the king. By doing so, he was afected by the evil portent:17
The substitute king, who on the 14th day sat on the throne in [Ninev]eh and spent the
night of the 15th day in the palace o[f the kin]g, and on account of whom the eclipse
took place, entered the city of Akkad safely on the night of the 20th and sat upon the
throne.
I made him recite the omen litanies before Šamaš; he took all the celestial and ter-
restrial portents on himself, and ruled all the countries.
The substitute absorbed not only the evil of the eclipse, but also that of all
unhappy portents that occured during his reign by incorporating them – in the
true sense of the word. This is alluded to in the letter just cited and in other
letters as well:18 During the reign of a substitute king, when some birds had
been seen, the appearance of which was considered a bad omen, the substi-
tute king and his queen had to eat them. Lists of evil omens were recited in
front of the sungod in the presence of the substitute, and he himself repeat-
ed the omen litanies. The texts listing the evil omens were aixed to the hem
of the substitute’s garment.19
Finally, the substitute died or was killed and buried with all royal honours,
as Mar-Ištar reports:20
16 Frame (1992: 64f.).
17 Parpola (1983: no. 279+) = Parpola (1993: no. 351). Cited here are ll. 5-14.
18 See in addition to the letter just cited also Parpola (1983: no. 26, 27 and 30) = Parpola (1993: no. 12,
11 and 2). These letters deal with diferent performances of the ritual of the substitute king during the
reign of Esarhaddon.
19 In the Ancient Near East, the hem of the garment represented its owner. So the manipulation of
the substitute’s garment afected the substitute himself.
20 Parpola (1983: no. 280) = Parpola (1993: no. 352). Cited here are ll. 5-21.
[9] rites of passage in ancient mesopotamia 47

[Damqî], the son of the bishop of Akka[d], who had ru[led] Assyria, Babylonia [and]
all the countries, [di]ed with his queen on the night o[f the xth day as] a substitute for
the king, my lord, [and for the sake of the li]fe of (the king’s son) Šamaš-šuma-uki[n].
He went to his fate for their redemption.
We prepared the burial chamber. He and his queen were decorated, treated, dis-
played, buried, and wailed over. The burnt-ofering was made, all portents were can-
celled and numerous apotropaic rituals, bit rimki and the ritual bit sala’ mê, exorcistic
rites, penitential psalms and omen litanies were performed to perfection. The king, my
lord, should know (this).
As the ritual bit rimki had been performed at the beginning of the ritual of
the substitute king, it is now performed also at its closure, when the substi-
tute was dead, as the letter just cited informs us.
A fragmentarily preserved ritual handbook informs us that the royal in-
signia the substitute king had worn during his short “rule” were disposed of
after his death: They were burned and then buried at his head and that of his
substitute queen:21
“Take your […] and your evils with [you …] down to the netherworld!” you speak be-
fore Šamaš and his royal throne, his royal table, his royal mace, his royal scepter you
burn before Šamaš with ire. Their ashes you bury at their heads and then the purii-
cation of the country will be established, ditto the puriication of the king will be es-
tablished.

4. Conclusion
It is interesting to look at the relationship between space and the changing
status of the rituals’ participants.
The real king, the farmer, kept a very low proile and did not act as a king
– he did not travel through his empire and did not hold court at his residences.
He only moved through secure, secluded and restricted ritual spaces such as
the fenced-of space of the house of the (ritual) bath, the bit rimki, where he
gradually got rid of his impurity and regained his royal status.
The substitute, on the other hand, did what the king was discouraged from
doing: He behaved as if he were the ruler, travelled through the country and
stayed in the palaces of the king. By doing so, he gradually took more and
more impurity upon his own person.
Parpola has argued that the evil omen of the eclipse afected the king per-
sonally as a speciic person. Only by means of rituals could it be transferred
to another person, the substitute.22
On the other hand, it can also be argued that the bad omen of the eclipse
was in the end rather related to space and not necessarily to a speciic person.

21 Lambert (1957-1958: 110 obverse (?), column B Z. 3-8). See on this ritual handbook also Wiggermann
(1992: 141f.). 22 Parpola (1983: XXIV).
48 claus ambos [10]

Seen from this point of view, it did not alict the king as a speciic individual,
wherever he might be during the event. It alicted that very person who was
oicially termed “king” and stayed at the king’s palace – even if this person
in efect did only hold the external marks of kingship such as the royal in-
signia but had no real power whatsoever, such as the substitute king.23
In the beginning, I tried to apply van Gennep’s scheme of the rites of pas-
sage to bit rimki and the ritual of the substitute king. For the substitute, it was
indeed of a rite of passage, since he passed from the state of a commoner to
the state of a king.
For the real king, the ritual of the substitute king was not so much a rite of
passage but rather a rite of return. Originally, the king had been in a desirable
state of harmony with the divine sphere, which endorsed his rulership. But
then evil omens occured that announced divine anger and disharmony be-
tween the king and the gods. The king took on a marginal state, when he was
no longer a king, but a farmer. By various rites of separation, every evil that
afected his person was removed from his body and transferred to the substi-
tute. Then, by various rites of aggregation, the farmer regained his royal sta-
tus and a state of harmony with the gods, both of which he had temporarily
lost.
The term “rite of return” has been coined by anthropologist V. Crapan-
zano in a diferent context and with a diferent notion.24 With this term Cra-
panzano referred to rituals of the life cycle that are performed precociously
and thus have no immediate consequences for the persons who undergo
these rites. His case study deals with circumcision in Morocco, which – at
least in theory – makes a boy a man. According to Crapanzano, the rite is per-
formed while the boys are still so young, that after the performance they re-
turn in practice to the old state of childhood rather than passing to the new
state of manhood.
Used in a diferent way, the term “rite of return” is a useful concept for our
case study: The performance of the ritual bit rimki and of the ritual of the sub-
stitute king enables the ruler to return to an older but temporarily lost state.
So, with respect to the ruler, we do not have a rite of passage but rather a rite
of return.

23 That a portent was relevant in regard to space becomes clear also from another example from the
correspondence of Esarhaddon. When a ield near the provincial town of Harihumba had been struck
by lightning, this was considered as a bad omen. The king was worried, but his scholar Balasî argued that
Esarhaddon had not been afected by this omen because he had never been at Harihumba and thus had
no connection to this place (Parpola 1983: no. 38 = Parpola 1993: no. 42 ll. 5-15): “As to what the king, m[y
lord, wr]ote [to me]: ‘[In] the city of H[ar]ihumba lightning struck and ravaged the ields of the Assyri-
ans’ – why does the king look for (trouble), and why does he look (for it) [in the ho]me of a tiller? There
is no evil inside the palace, and when has the king ever visited Harihumba?”
Esarhaddon, nevertheless, ordered the performance of some rituals: Parpola (1983: no. 349) = Parpo-
la (1993: no. 69). See also Maul (1994: 118).
24 Crapanzano (1992: 260-280). I discussed the usefulness of this term for Ancient Near Eastern stud-
ies in Ambos (forth.).
[11] rites of passage in ancient mesopotamia 49

5. Appendix
Above I cited a passage from an incantation from the third house of bit rimki
featuring the investiture of the king with the royal insignia when leaving the
reed hut. During a stay the British Museum, London, I identiied a new per-
tinent text fragment, BM 32534 (1876-11-17, 2276), which improves our under-
standing of the passage. With the kind permission of the Trustees of the
British Museum, this fragment is published here. It came to my notice thanks
to the forthcoming catalogue of the texts of the Babylonian Collections of
the British Museum by Christopher Walker; Jon Taylor made excellent pho-
tographs of this text and put them at my disposal. To both colleagues I want
to express my sincerest thanks. I also want to thank the staf at the study room
of the Department of the Middle East of the British Museum for their sup-
port when I collated the fragment.
The incantation is bilingual and has the incipit lugal-e šà-gi-bi-kù-ga hé-du7
nam-lugal-la – šarru kun libbi ellu usum šarruti – “Pure King with steadfast
heart, itting for kingship”. It was treated earlier by Borger (1967) and Watan-
abe (1991: 372-378).25 The obverse of the new fragment BM 32534 duplicates ll.
85-95 and the reverse ll. 107-117. Restorations are based on the other pertinent
sources. The fragment measures 4,5 × 4,5 cm.

5. 1. Transliteration
obverse:
(broken)
1’ ¥báraµ-7-na ki-¥za-zaµ-[bi-šè te-ĝá-dè-zu-dè]
2’ ana pa-rak-ka se-bet-ti-¥šúµ-[nu ina šu-ken-ni ina te4-he-e-ka]
3’ dingir-bára a-ri-a šà-bi-ne-¥neµ-[a hu-mu-ra-ab-hun-ĝá]
4’ ili(dingir.meš) šá pa-rak-ku ra-mu-ú lib-ba-šú-nu [li-ni-ih-hu-ka]
5’ dNammu ama-é-a-ke4 silim-ma hu-mu-r[a-ab-bé]
6’ dmin um-ma bi-tum šu-lum liq-[bi-ka]
7’ lahar sila4-bi niĝin-na-gin7 nam-ti-la hu-[mu-ra-ab-niĝin-na]
8’ ki-ma làh-ri šá pu-had-sa is-sa-na-ah-hu-[ru ba-la-tu lit-tas-har-ka]
9’ d+En-ki-ra ¥kiµ-za-za-zu-[dè]
10’ a-n[a dÉ]-¥aµ ina šu-ke-ni-ka [0]
11’ ¥d+Enµ-k[i lugal-la] ¥saĝ-zuµ hé-ri-[íb-íl-la]
12’ (traces)
(broken)
reverse:
(broken)
1’’ [é-a-tu5-a-šè] ku4-r[a-zu-dè]
2’’ [šutug-t]a!? è-d[è-zu-dè]

25 References to the “composite text” in the notes refer to Watanabe’s reconstruction of the incantation.
50 claus ambos [12]

Fig. 1. BM 32534 obverse.

3’’ túg mu4-¥mu4-daµ-zu <me->téš ha-ra-a[b-sum-mu]

4’’ su-ba-a-tú a-na lit-bu-ši-ka ba-a[l-tú lid-din-ka]
5’’ ĝišĝidri sum-ma-zu ma-da ha-ra-a[b-gúr-gúr-e]
6’’ hat-ta id-di-nu-ka ma-a-tum li-ka-[an-ni-iš-ka]
7’’ aga sum-ma-zu saĝ-zu hé-ri-í[b-íl-la]
8’’ a-gu-ú id-di-nu-ka re-ši-ka li[l-li]
9’’ é-a- ¥tu5-a-šèµ è-da-[zu-dè]
(broken)

5. 2. Translation
(broken)
1’f. When you approach the dais of “The Seven of Them” in order to prostrate your-
self,
[13] rites of passage in ancient mesopotamia 51

Fig. 2. BM 32534 reverse.

3’f. may the gods who dwell on the dais calm their heart towards you!
5’f. May Nammu, the mother of the house, say to you: “Peace!”
7’f. As an ewe keeps turning back to its lamb, may life keep turning around to you!
9’f. When you prostrate yourself before Enki/Ea,
11’ may king Enki/Ea raise your head!
(broken)

(broken)
1’’ When you enter the house of the bath,
2’’ when you go out from the reed hut,
3’’f. may the garment, when you put it on, give you dignity!
5’’f. May the scepter that they gave you, subdue the country for you!
7’’f. May the crown, which they gave you, raise your head!
9’’ When you go out from the house of the bath
(broken)
52 claus ambos [14]

5. 2. Notes
Only a selection of variants to the other sources is mentioned here.
obv. 6’ (= 90 composite text):
The variants have šilim (imperative of the verb šalamu) rather than the
noun šulum (šulmu) attested here in BM 32534 (an interpretation as stative D
šullum does not seem to it).
obv. 7’f. (= 91f. composite text):
On metaphors based on an ewe and its lamb see in general Heimpel (1968:
228-237). A mother animal turning back to its ofspring is a topos also attest-
ed in Ancient Near Eastern Art: On an ivory from Nimrud there is depicted
a cow turning back to its calf (Mallowan 1966: Pl. VI).
The reverse of BM 32534 helps to interpret the irst badly preserved lines of
the text V R 51 iv (= text A in Borger’s edition) in the context of the compos-
ite text of the incantation. V R 51 iv “13-21” is in fact a duplicate to the reverse
of BM 32534 and thus to ll. 107-117 of the composite text. V R 51 iv “13-21” was
collated with the help of a photograph.
rev. 2’’ (= 109 composite text):
Variants have è-da-zu-dè and give an Akkadian translation: ištu šutukku ina
asêka.
rev. 3’’f. (= 111f. composite text):
The reconstruction of the Sumerian verb in rev. 3’’ is suggested by the
Akkadian translation and text V R 51 iv “16”: […]-mu. The reconstruction of
the Akkadian verb is based on SBTU III no. 66 rev. 82; cf. also V R 51 iv “17”:
[…-di]n-ku.
rev. 5’’f. (= 113f. composite text):
The Sumerian verb can be reconstructed with the help of V R 51 iv “18”,
where collation suggests […]-gúr-e.
For the Akkadian verb cf. the duplicate SBTU III no. 66 rev. 83:

Do we have to read here li-x-niš-ka?! However, the traces as copied by von

Weiher after li- do not it -ka- or -kan-. In V R 51 iv “19”, according to collation,
[…-ni]š-¥kaµ seems possible.
rev. 7’’f. (= composite text 115f.):
The reconstruction of the Sumerian verb is based on ll. 15 and 95 of the in-
cantation (composite text). Against the copy in V R 51, there is space between
[15] rites of passage in ancient mesopotamia 53

iv “19” and “20” for yet another, however totally destroyed, line, which dupli-
cated BM 32534 rev. 7’’. V R 51 iv “20” duplicates BM 32534 rev. 8’’.

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