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each. According to the introduction, it seems as if the witches had disregarded a compact or covenant (mamitu, “oath”) to which they were bound, and which was guaranteed by heaven and earth, a theme that is sometimes sounded in Biblical literature as well (see e.g., Joshua 24, where it is brought into the covenant between God and Israel). Therefore, the gods of heaven and earth became the enforcers of the oath. The speaker of the incantations attempted to gain the assistance of the heavens in support of his cause and to persuade the gods of the netherworld that the shades of the witches should be denied safe harbor. This ritual also gives us added background to stories of divination, necromancy, and exorcism in the Bible, such as the famous story of Saul and the witch of Endor in 1 Samuel 28.

Interestingly, Gilgamesh’s name and reputation were invoked against the dead witches:

Netherworld, netherworld, yea netherworld,

Gilgamesh is the enforcer of your oath.

Whatever you have done, I know,

Whatever I do, you do not know,

Whatever my witches do, there will be no one to overlook [it].

Gilgamesh made an appearance in his official capacity as a judge in the underworld. It was Gilgamesh himself who would enforce the oath. To make sure that Gilgamesh’s aid did not go astray, the actor called upon another underworld goddess, Belet-Seri, the Akkadian name for Geshtinanna, the co-hostage in the Inanna story. Probably this is connected to Gilgamesh’s harsh refusal of marriage with Inanna. In order to visit her, he had to be appointed a messenger of the gods, an emissary of the heavenly court, someone like Adapa who ascended to heaven. Indeed, in the Old Babylonian texts, the exorcist claimed to be Adapa: “I am Adapa, exorcist of Eridu.”48 In order to be both on earth and in heaven, the speaker made several performative statements in the form of incantations and embarked on several purifying ritual actions.

The ritual was meant to protect the adept from witchcraft but also to provide the speaker with an incubated prophetic dream. It served as preparation for entering the world of the gods, which meant to ascend heavenwards, essentially to become a star or a god of the night sky and thus become inviolable (Maqlu 5.11-20 and 7.55-57). The identification is stated expressly in 7.50-57, where the actor asserts that the heavenly powers with whom he identifies, the stars, are “the great gods who are visible in the heavens” (attunu ili rabuti ša ina šame naphnatunu). The location of the experience, Zabban, was both a terrestrial place and a cosmic intersection between the world, the heavens, and the underworld. Evidently it was located at the horizon where the sun descended during the late summer season.

The Maqlu ceremony was performed during Abu (late July, approximately), at the season when ghosts came back to the world. The dead were awakened and, although not all became threats, some would become very dangerous indeed. The ritual actor took on his astral identity partly in order to stay awake through the first two ceremonial divisions but he rested between those parts and the morning rituals. In effect, he was asking for a dream, stimulated by incubation. If the dreams were evil, they could be nullified by Shamash, the sun, and the powers of water, Ea and Asalluhi.

Interestingly enough, these rites and rituals seem similar to the stories about Enmeduranki, another wise man who figures as the eponymous ancestor of the diviners just as Adapa is the ancestor of the exorcists. Diviners (baru priests) and exorcists (asipu priests) are separate functionaries, though many ancient practitioners were accredited to perform both rituals.49 In both cases, human beings wish to convene the divine assembly, though humans are not authorized to command those with such high offices. In extispicy rituals, the diviner analogizes himself to the divine but in exorcism the agent becomes a divinity through a ritual transformation.

It is extremely relevant that these rituals are directly dependent upon the Gilgamesh epic, the Adapa myth, and the famous