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Post by sheshki on Dec 28, 2013 14:28:07 GMT -5
This thread is for collecting information about rituals and related stuff./\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/from ePSD  siškur 2
siškur [PRAYER] (1192x: Lagash II, Ur III, Early Old Babylonian, Old Babylonian) wr. siškur 2; siškur "prayer; blessing; offering, sacrifice, rites; to pour (a libation), sacrifice; to intercede" Akk. karābu; naqû; nīqu
Interestingly siškur is a combination of the signs for calf (AMAR) and barley (ŠE), things often used in rituals and sacrifices. /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/from ePSD   siškur 2 ša 3 e 2-gal ritual in the palace
The siškur 2 ša 3 e 2-gal is sometimes connected to celebrations on the eve of a festival, moon festivals and ancestral cult. The sacrifices offered are mainly small domestic animals.
For more information read Die Göttin Ninegal/Bēlet-ekallim nach den altorientalischen Quellen des 3. und 2. Jt. v. Chr.by Geetā De Clercqpage 38/39 >>>Link/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/from ePSD kaš-de 2-a
kašdea [BANQUET] (7x: Ur III, Old Babylonian) wr. kaš-de 2-a; kaš-de 2 "banquet" Akk. qerītu
Example:1 udu-niga/ kaš-de 2-a dnin-e 2 -gal –ka 1 fattened sheep for the pouring of beer for Ninegal.
According to De Clercq, kaš-de 2-a occurs in combination with animal sacrifices. In general it means "banquet", but in combination with a divine name it is a libation ritual, the “pouring of beer(kaš)”. It can also occur in combination with LUGAL, which then means a meal of the king with the gods (in combination with sacrifices of cattle). Also, if a divinity has left his/her temple, a kaš-de 2-a ritual in combination with a gerrānum (lament) speeds up his or her return.
For more information read Die Göttin Ninegal/Bēlet-ekallim nach den altorientalischen Quellen des 3. und 2. Jt. v. Chr.by Geetā De Clercqpage 39/40 >>>Link/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/from ePSD  siškur 2 e 2-maš
siškur 2 e 2-maš, 'die Riten in der Kleinvieh-Hürde' (the rites in the paddock for the sacrificial small domestic animals).E 2-maš literally means goat house and is situated near the palace. Related to this is the goddess dNin-e 2-maš.
For more information read Die Göttin Ninegal/Bēlet-ekallim nach den altorientalischen Quellen des 3. und 2. Jt. v. Chr.by Geetā De Clercqpage 41/42 >>>Link/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
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Post by sheshki on Dec 29, 2013 11:48:54 GMT -5
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\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/from ePSD ki-a-nag
ki'anaĝ [LOCUS] wr. ki-a-naĝ "a place of libations to the dead" Akk. ?
The ki-a-nag is a place of sacrifice to dead rulers and their relatives, ensis and high officials, often carried out on the eve of festivities. This tradition goes back to Early Dynastic times. The materials used for the sacrifice are water, beer, sweet water, milk, honey, oil, butter and wine, but also small domestic animals and barley were used sometimes. The ki-a-nag itself, “the place where you drink water” or “ the place where you let the dead drink”, is located on the cemetary where there is a vertical pipe for the libations connecting to the tomb.
For more information read Die Göttin Ninegal/Bēlet-ekallim nach den altorientalischen Quellen des 3. und 2. Jt. v. Chr.by Geetā De Clercqpage 41 >>>Link
Here is a list of ki-a-nag of “famous” people: Line numbers in brackets, ob.=obverse, rev.=reverse, c1/2= column 1 line 2Urnamma (ob.c1/6) and Shulgi (ob.c1/7) www.cdli.ucla.edu/P101585Gudea (ob.c1/3) and his wife (ob.c1/6) www.cdli.ucla.edu/P102382Arad-Nanna, probably a sukkal-mah during the reign of Shu-Suen (ob.c1/2) www.cdli.ucla.edu/P322407Enentarzi (ob.c1/2) www.cdli.ucla.edu/P220706Shulgi (ob.c1/1) and Amar-Suen (ob.c1/2) www.cdli.ucla.edu/P200543Ur-Namma (ob.c1/5), Amar-Suen (rev.c1/2), Shulgi (rev.c1/7) and Shu-Suen (rev.c1/11) www.cdli.ucla.edu/P125354Idin-Dagan of Isin (ob.c1/1+1/5) www.cdli.ucla.edu/P134165/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
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Post by sheshki on Sept 29, 2014 10:40:53 GMT -5
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from: THE NAKED SOUL; DELIBERATIONS ON A POPULAR THEME; by Dina Katz
1.2.
The funeral of King Šu-dSu’en
The monthly account YBC 4190 includes, after the twenty-ninth of the
month, a special list of animals delivered from Drehem for the funeral of
the Ur III king Šu-dSu’en. The list follows the sequence of the ritual, and
thus it outlines the activities from the angle of the sacrifices.
It shows that also the king was mourned for two days before his burial on the third
day.The sacrifices began on the fifteenth day of the month at midnight; a
goat was sacrificed for the opening of the pit (rev. i:17–19). It seems that
first the grave had to be sanctified to make a proper locus for the ritual.
Since not every hole in the ground can serve as a passage to the netherworld,
the pit must be turned into a special passage. The sanctification
would enable divine interference in the process and, consequently, a gate
would magically open in the grave for the spirit to pass the solid wall of
earth and be admitted into the netherworld. On the next midnight, that of
the sixteenth of the month, a goat was sacrificed in Ur, seemingly at the
grave where the king was to be laid (ki-tag-ga). At the same time in Enegi
animals were offered to the netherworld gods Ninazu, Ereškigal, and
Ninšubur, and in Gišbanda to Ningišzida. We note the absence of
Nergal and Gilgameš. But most interesting is that a lamb was delivered
for the “wooden libation table of the ghost in the wind” (giš-a-nag gidim im-a).
To this important ghost we shall return shortly. Some hours later,
at nightfall of the same day, the sixteenth, goats were offered to the harp
of Nana, chief god of Ur, to the harp of Ninsumuna, divine mother of the
dynasty, and to Utu of “the edge of the pit.” In addition, a lamb and a goat
were seemingly released into the pit for the libation table of the seated
gidim.This line brings to mind Urnamma A:81–82, “Urnamma seated
them to a huge feast.” But the couplet from Urnamma A has a better
illustration in the huge quantity of animals that were thrown into the pit at
the end of the burial procedure. Perhaps, therefore, we should read this
entry in chiasm: 1 lamb in the pit and 1 goat for the seated gidim.This
way we can associate the recipients with the chairs that were used in
funerary rituals (gišgu-za-gidim). The seated gidim may represent the
ancestors of the king.The performance of this session at nightfall
suggests that “Utu of the edge of the pit” is a statue, and that it was put
next to the pit because Utu had an active role in the funeral.I propose
that rather than as the judge of the dead, Utu functions here as the guard
of the gates of the netherworld at night, due to his role as the herald of
heaven.Accordingly, Utu stands at the pit to open the gates of the
netherworld for the soul of the king.
At midnight of the seventeenth day of the month more than a hundred
animals were slaughtered. The huge quantity of sacrifices complements
the description in Urnamma A:81–82 of the feast that Urnamma
offered the residents of the netherworld upon his arrival. Presumably, on
that night the king was buried and arrived in the netherworld. The
recipients of the sacrifices were some forty deities and cultic installations
in Ur (rev. ii:20–iv:26’). The list begins with a sheep for the libation tables
of the gidim and one for the gidim-è-è, and a lamb for the lying place in
the garden. Ten cows and oxen and 57 lambs, goats and sheep, in total
67 animals, were thrown into the pit.The dead soul was probably released
from the body inside the grave,in concurrence with the purpose of the
ritual to turn the hole in theground into a gate to the netherworld,
and also to avoid an encounter with living people.
The program of the last day may be inferred from the
information about Geme-Lama. Her fifth meal, the first meal of the third
day, was placed in her tomb. The second and last meal of that day should
then be offered through her funerary chapel, when the ghost is in the
netherworld or on the way. The midnight sacrifices in the ritual of fiud
Su’en indeed allow the possibility that the corpse was laid in the grave
earlier, a few hours before his soul was released. A study by I. Winter
suggests that the preparation of the body for the passage to the netherworld
was done inside the grave.This procedure implies that the corpse
was laid in the grave a few hours before the release of the spirit.
Accordingly, the food in the tomb, like the fifth meal of Geme-Lama, may
have been placed there for the hours until the departure to the netherworld.
1.2.1 The end of the king’s ritual
A few more animals were sacrificed on the twentieth, the twenty-fifth, the
twenty-eighth, and the twenty-ninth of the month. On the next day his
successor Ibbi-dSu’en, already in Nippur, was to be crowned. From
Nippur he went to be crowned in Uruk and from there to Ur. This whole
month the new king was travelling between Ur, Nippur, and Uruk
offering sacrifices to deities in different temples and shrines. His
activities signify the intention to regain the normal social order and thus
mark the end of the mourning period.
...
2. IM - a windy soul
Sumerian IM is rarely used in the meaning “dead soul.” In addition to the
account for Tezenmama’s ritual, it occurs in the account for Šu-dSu’en’s
“The gidim in the Wind (im)” (where the combination implies that the
gidim is inherent to the soul) and in the two Old Babylonian literary
rituals, “The Messenger and the Maiden” and “Lulil and His Sister.” The
messenger died far away from home and, therefore, he did not receive a
proper funerary ritual. He was whirling in the mountains, perhaps like a
storm, until his IM arrived for the ritual of the young woman that enabled
it to enter the netherworld. Thus, a spirit could escape the body, but
without the ritual it could not enter the netherworld. The spirit roams in
the world as a liminal, terrifying entity, but is dangerous mainly to its own
neglectful family members. So, the power to open up a gate to the netherworld
is the magic of the ritual and the most important purpose of the
ritual33.
footnote 33
This is amply attested in the incantation and magic literature. In the associated
rituals the roaming dangerous ghost receives a funerary ritual, to open
for it the gate to the netherworld, where the ghost gathers with his ancestors
and finds rest. In some publications we can read that neglected ghosts come
out of the netherworld and haunt the living. However, the very fact that evil
spirits (Akkadian: etemmu) are treated with a funerary ritual to eliminate their
threat and heal the patient proves that the ritual is definitive, that a human
ghost could not come out of the netherworld. In the netherworld, the human
ghost is powerless. It can be called up by means of necromancy or a dream,
that is magic...
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Post by sheshki on Sept 29, 2014 14:17:18 GMT -5
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from: Sumerian Funerary Rituals in Context, by D. Katz, published in Performing Death, Social analysys of funerary traditions in the Ancient Near East and Mediterranean (2007)
LULIL AND HIS SISTER
In the mythological lament over Ašgi, the young dead god instructs his sister Egime about his funerary ritual. First of all she must announce: "his spirit is released." Then she should fetch a bed, set a chair and put a statue on it, place a garment on the chair, and cover the statue. Afterwards she should offer bread, rub it5, and pour water into the libation pipes (a-a-pa4-šè).6
Ašgi, the son of Ninhursaga and Šulpae in Keš and Adab, is called here Mulu-líl, the Emesal form of Lú-líl, literally "man-spirit." The name of his sister Egi-me, written NIN9-me, means "my sister." Read as a pun, the names of the participants in the ritual are generic appellations that signify their role in the cult, endowing the text with a universal sense: Mululil is any dead young man and Egime is any mourning sister. The mention of libation pipes suggests that this ritual was performed over the grave. That it began with the announcement of the release of the spirit indicates that the ritual is enacted when the body is interred.
THE MESSENGER AND THE MAIDEN
The same procedure, also performed on a statue, is attested in "The Messenger and the Maiden." This text narrates in poetical language the preparations for and the performance of a ritual for a restless spirit by a young woman. After the narrator reveals to the girl that her man is coming, describing his whereabouts in rich imaagery which signifies that he is dead (lines 1-19), the girl enumerates all the things that she will offer to him (line 20-37): cakes, various sorts of fruit, barley, beer, wine and honey, cream and milk, hot and cold water; the list also includes other objects: a harness and a whip, a clean garment, a chair, and a luxuriant bed. Her ritual begins with a description of the messenger as though he were a statue: he comes but does not walk, he has eyes but cannot see, a mouth but cannot speak (lines 38-41). Then the girl describes the ritual (lines 42-49):
I placed bread and rubbed it; from a bowl whose strap had not been opened, from a dish of which the rim had not been soiled i poured water, i poured to the ground and he drunk it. With my good oil i annointed the figure. With my new garment i dressed the chair. The spirit has entered, the spirit has departed. My messenger in the mountain; in the midst of the mountain he was whirling, he is lying (now in rest).
footnotes
5Rubbing the statue with the bread is a puzzling activity. In magical texts the rubbing with dough was used to draw from a body the evil which caused the disease. Is this a similar function, even if symbolic? In that case perhaps it should be connected with a belief that spiritual cleansing was prerequisite for entering the world of the dead. Conversely, since the dead cannot actively eat, perhaps this gesture simply symolized the consuming of solid food.
6 Libation pipes were uncovered in some graves at Ur royal cemetery as pipes going down through the filling into the grave. Perhaps also the libation channels in the building which may have been a mausoleum of Šulgi and Amar-Suen; Woolley 1974, pl. 6a-b.
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Post by sheshki on Nov 13, 2014 15:53:54 GMT -5
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from When Writing Met Art by Denise Schmandt-Besserat
Votive and Dedicatory Inscriptions Page 83
...
The most specific and detailed evidence of the use of funerary statues comes from the ED III economic-administrative archives of the emi, or household, of the Queen of Lagash. Among these so-called nig-gish-tag-ga texts are records showing expenditures for 16 statues of family members. Seven of the statues identified in the text are those of the following deceased Lagashite kings and their queens: Ur-Nanshe; Enmetena and his wife Ninhilisud; Lugalanda (two stautes) and his wife Barnamtara; and Sagsag, wife of Uruinimgina. The eighth statue belonged to an otherwise unknown individual named Irkunnunna. According to the texts, it was Queen Sagsag´s personal responsibility to present various victuals as offerings to the statues on the third day, or climax, of the festival of Eating Malt. This means that the queen made sacrifices to the statues of Ur-Nanshe, Entemena, and other long-deceased ancestors of the dynasty. She also made offerings to her own statue.
Magical texts illustrate that the cult of the dead (kispum) was also performed in private households and specify that if offerings were not satisfactory, a ghost could become malevolent and come to earth to pester the living. It is likely, therefore, that a similar cult of funerary statues existed outside the palace. Karel van der Toorn suggested that statues may have played a special role in representing ancestors who were not buried below the house, as was usual, but outside the compound, in a cemetary. Thus it may not be by chance that one of the statues found in the house area of Khafaje represents a couple. But there are no texts to support this idea, since unlike palaces, private households did not keep official records of offering expenditures.
...
Placing a statue in front of a deity was probably believed to give a devotee the advantage of constantly being part of a tutelary god´s awareness. But the greatest privilege involved partaking in a temple´s collective food offerings, as mentioned in the Lagash texts. The tablets describe Sagsag not only making individual sacrifices to particular royal statues during the festivals but also communal offerings that may have been given to groups of non--royal votive statues.
The statues´inscriptions showcasing proper names also speak in favour of a funerary function. The statues continue and perfect the tradition of the Royal Cemetery of Ur. Like Meskalamdug, Nani apparently believed that engraving his name could supplement or replace the daily invocation of ancestor names necessary for the survival of their ghosts in the hereafter. The function of the inscription was to shelter the dead from oblivion on earth and, subsequently, a grim afterlife. But the statuettes were meant to do far more than Meskalamdug´s precious bowl - in Sumer, statues were thought to have life of their own.
Once carved, statues were given a name, Enmetena and Meskigala specify in their inscriptions that they named their effigies, respectively, "Entemena whom Enlil loves" and "Have mercy on my prayers." Naming the statues gave them life; later, when they were ritually animated, the statues could perpetually pray to the gods for a blessed afterlife. The stone figures became the intercessors between humans and deities.
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Post by us4-he2-gal2 on Nov 14, 2014 10:05:50 GMT -5
This is some great stuff with the Schmandt-Besserat and the Dina Katz  I have particularly enjoyed the Katz material and have pondered the funerary stuff from time to time. Katz is the only scholar I know of to publish and discuss in detail these funerary ritual which, those scarce, provides crucial information for Mesopotamian understanding of afterlife beliefs. Often I am critical of the Necronomicon groups and criticize their ideas of i.e. forming gates to summon demons and so forth, usually I see this is opposite of how Mesopotamian magic and ritual worked. With Katz discussions we do get the sense that a 'gate to the underworld,' in some way, was part of the funerary rituals. But the word gate could be replaced by passage, pathway, whatever. Against popular ideas (ideas inspired by the Necronomicon) the purpose of such "gates" was entirely the sending of harmful things away from this realm and not summoning things to the world of the living. |
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Post by enkur on Nov 18, 2014 9:51:58 GMT -5
The basic idea of Simon's Necronomicon is an initiatory quest through the 7 planetary gates of Nanna/Sin, Nebo/Nabu, Ishtar, Shamash, Nergal, Marduk and Ninib/Ninurta with observing certain taboos - thus the initiate receives their blessings and gets empowered to protect himself and the world of the living from the harmful things evoked by "the wanderers" (the black magicians) from the "outer abyss", or the netherworld. Those harmful things are in fact the Lovecraftian "Old Ones", or "the Ancient Ones" as termed in that book. Amongst these is also Tiamat and her defeated monsters. In fact the author has created a fanciful mixture between the documented Babylonian mythology and the modern Lovecraftian mythos but generally follows the outlines of the Mesopotamian traditions. Unlike Sitchin he doesn't lack some taste for the authentic antiquity and the book has the style of a grimoire written by an educated Arabian in the 8th century CE who has come across some forbidden ancient lore from, to say, the Seleucid period, since certain of the magical formulas are written in Greek. As Sitchin has stimulated certain people to deepen their interest in the Mesopotamian culture and history, so did Simon's Necronomicon with me Unfortunately there are many who tend to accumulate ignorance over ignorance. |
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Post by enkur on Nov 18, 2014 10:00:40 GMT -5
There are, however, some other versions of Necronomicon which deal with gates to summon harmful things only.  Above I related to the one based on the Babylonian mythology. |
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Post by sheshki on Feb 18, 2015 15:01:24 GMT -5
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\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/While trying to translate ED tablets i find a lot of information regarding holy places. Since they are places for rituals i guess that fits into this thread. So here is a list of stuff i found so far (i created little flash cards)  .  -  ḫi.en-da cultic place in Lagaš (RIA6,421)  -  dug-ru cultic place of Ningirzu in or near Lagaš (RIA6, 421)  -  - šag 4-pad 3-da sometimes ša 3-pa 3 or ša 3-pa 3-da šagepada- temple of Nanše in Lagaš (RIA6, 420)  -  E 2-pa place in Lagaš (RIA6, 420)  - -  -  ki-pa-su 3-sikil place in Lagaš (RIA6, 420)  -  ba-gara 2Bagara, temple in Ningirzu in Lagaš (RIA6, 420)  -  tar-dagal or sila-dagal (public square) temple of Enki in Lagaš (RIA6, 420) -  -  E 2-an-na main temple of the Ibgal in Lagaš (temple of Inanna) (RIA6, 420/21) there is also an Eanna in Uruk   -  -  abzu-e-(ga) ABZU of the canal, cultic place near Lagaš (RIA6, 420)  -  Ib-gal temple (the great oval) of Inanna in Lagaš (RIA6, 420) - -  - -  E 2-tar-sir 2-sir 2-ra temple of Bau, in the URUKUG   / holy city in or near Girsu (RIA6, 420) -  E2-dam house of the spouse probably part of the Bagara of Ningirzu (Lagaš) and centre of the cult of Bau -  - E2-ad-da temple of the father (P431129/38) temple of Enlil in Lagaš excerpt from P431129: {d}en-lil 2-la For Enlile 2-ad-da the Temple of the Fatherim-sag-ga 2of Imsagmu-na-du 3he built. /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
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Post by lilitudemon on Mar 7, 2015 2:27:13 GMT -5
Some questions, Mulliltu/Mullissa was the Akkadian-Assyrian name of Ninlil, is there a relation here? I had read her name with lil2 could also translate as "ghost". It also appears in Enlil's name.
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Post by sheshki on Apr 14, 2015 13:23:55 GMT -5
/ e2-ša3-ga/ba, Lambert, RlA 7, 154 | (name of the temple of dlugal-URUxGANA 2-tenû. ki) |
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Post by sheshki on May 17, 2015 7:30:07 GMT -5
from A Manual of Sumerian Grammar and Texts by J.Hayes
p.126
It is difficult to say how literally the expression "He restored it to its place" should be understood.
The Sumerian phrase (and the corresponding Akkadian phrase) is ambiguous; it can
mean either "to restore to a former spot" or "to restore to a former state". Woolley says that "It
was customary in Mesopotamia, when rebuilding a temple, to incorporate the earlier one within
the core of the platform upon which its successor was to be set. This often meant largely
dismantling it" (1982:109). And as was discussed in Lesson One, the verb du3 is ambiguous; it
can mean to build from scratch or to rebuild.
Nabonidus has left several inscriptions in Ur in which he boasts of having restored the ziggurat
of Ur-Nammu, Etemenniguru. He states, in fact, that Ur-Nammu started the work on the
ziggurat, but did not finish it; Ur-Nammu's son and successor Shulgi also worked on the
complex, but did not finish it; only he, Nabonidus himself, completely finished and restored it.
.....
Ur-Nammu's ziggurat itself was built over an earlier temple, which itself was built over an even
earlier temple.
As another example of temple rebuilding, the Ishtar Temple of Assur was in existence some
two thousand years, and was frequently rebuilt. Ellis says "It was always in about the same
place, though sometimes the new version would be placed to one side of the earlier ruins"
(1968: 12). The temple of Inanna at Nippur had an even longer history. As described by Richard
Zettler,
The temple of Inanna occupied a site just southwest of the ziggurat complex for
more than three thousand years from Early Dynastic I through the Parthian era.
In those years the temple was built and rebuilt at least ten times and the individual
structures altered and/or repaired on countless occasions. Although the layout
of the building changed over time, certain features, for example, the double
cellae arrangement, persisted (1992:54).
This temple varied in size from period to period, usually getting bigger. The new sanctuaries
were normally built over the previous ones.
The temple dedicated to the god Sin at Khafaje, on the Diyala, goes back to the Jemdat
Nasr period; it was frequently rebuilt. Before the very first foundations were laid, the entire
area was dug down to a depth of almost five meters and was then filled in with clear pure sand,
brought in from somewhere outside the city. It has been estimated that some 64,000 cubic
meters of sand were thus moved. This was all done to ensure a pure foundation (Seton Lloyd
1984:93-96).
The principles behind the orientation of Mesopotamian temples are not at all clear, especially
in the older periods; some of the evidence is contradictory. Nor are the means by which
the Mesopotamians determined the orientation known. Günther Martiny, writing in 1940, said
that:
Astronomical orientation is.. .especially noticeable in the case of late temples.
The direction of orientation should probably be understood as the direction in
which the god's statue faced.. .In Neo-Babylonian times orientation based on
individual stars assigned to spechc deities came into vogue (1940:92).
Sally Dunham, however, writing almost fifty years later, is less sanguine:
Very little is known about how the ancient Mesopotamians oriented and measured
off the ground plans and precincts of their temples, although we do know
such measuring was important enough to be mentioned in their royal inscriptions
and religious texts ... Still today nothing is known about if and how the ancient
Mesopotamians used astronomy to orient their temples (1986:39 and n.37).
Martiny thinks that the Gimilsin (that is, Shu-Sin) Temple in Eshnunna was oriented toward
the city of Ur:
Exactly along the projected axis of the Gimilsin Temple in the direction in which
the god's statue faced, at a distance of about 300 km. toward the southeast, lies
Ur, the residence of Gimilsin. Is it possible that the deified ruler, in whose honor
the temple in Eshnunna was to be built during his lifetime, had demanded orientation
of the temple toward Ur?. . .The Gimilsin Temple confronts us with what
appears to be a case of geographical orientation toward the capital of the overlord
( 1940:95-96)
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Post by sheshki on Apr 17, 2016 14:26:12 GMT -5
Some additional information on siskur 2from: A Manual of Sumerian Grammar and Texts by J.Hayes siskur 2 
This has such meanings as "sacrifice" and "blessing". Its Akkadian equivalents are most commonly niqû, the general word for "offering, sacrifice", and ikribu, glossed by the CAD as "1. blessing, benediction, 2. money or goods pledged by a vow to a deity, 3. prayer". It is normally written by the sign, written twice. This sign is the amar-sign  inside of which is the barley-sign,še  . Thus, the original pictographic significance of the sign may have been "grain-fed cattle" or something similar. It is possible that /siskur/ originates from a reduplicated form expressing plurality or intensity, such as */sikur-sikur/; this would explain why the word was written with the same sign twice. One would then assume a change along the lines of */sikursikur/ > */sisikur/ > /siskur/. Unfortunately, the ultimate etymology of the word */sikur/ is unknown. The first /kur/ segment was lost because of some phonetic or morphological process now opaque to us. Although the pronunciation changed, the word continued to be written with two signs. ... Occasionally /siskur/ is written with only one, instead of two, signs. In such a case it is properly transliterated siskur. Early scholars thought that the writing with one sign was a singular and the writing with two signs was a plural; this means that the writing with two signs is sometimes transliterated siskur-siskur. Other inconsistencies in transliterating this sign occur. The pronunciation of the sibilants is unsure, and so it is also transliterated sizkur 2, šiskur 2, and so on. |
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I have particularly enjoyed the Katz material and have pondered the funerary stuff from time to time. Katz is the only scholar I know of to publish and discuss in detail these funerary ritual which, those scarce, provides crucial information for Mesopotamian understanding of afterlife beliefs. Often I am critical of the Necronomicon groups and criticize their ideas of i.e. forming gates to summon demons and so forth, usually I see this is opposite of how Mesopotamian magic and ritual worked. With Katz discussions we do get the sense that a 'gate to the underworld,' in some way, was part of the funerary rituals. But the word gate could be replaced by passage, pathway, whatever. Against popular ideas (ideas inspired by the Necronomicon) the purpose of such "gates" was entirely the sending of harmful things away from this realm and not summoning things to the world of the living. 
Above I related to the one based on the Babylonian mythology.