The use of a skull in necromancy (1)

Text
The most remarkable element in the Mesopotamian necromantic texts is the use of a skull to house the conjured ghost and furnish him with the mechanical means for communication. Skulls are prescribed in rituals as a magic ingredient to be ground up with other materia medica. Whole skulls too are used as ritual appurtenances in medical and magical passages, e.g. in LKA 84, where the skull of a dog is used to pour a libation to dispel a ghost. In other contexts it plays a different role, e.g. in black magic, as cryptically revealed in Maqlû 4.18 and 32: “you (f. pl.) have handed me over to a skull” (ana gulgullati tapqidāinni). More relevant are the texts in which a skull is used as a deterrent against ghosts and demons. A particularly interesting text is BAM 30, partly duplicated by BAM 157, which describes the use of a skull in four rituals to prevent the grinding of teeth during sleep. In one ritual the sufferer is required to kiss the skull seven and seven times. In another, he is to kiss it seven times, and lick it seven times. The rationale behind such practices may be the idea that a dead member of the family is trying to communicate with somebody while they are asleep. A human skull is explicitly used in the exorcism of ghosts in the lengthy tablet KAR 227 (and dupls.), edited by E. Ebeling (1930: 124-133). After an exorcistic incantation adressed to the haunted person (eṭim kimti), he is instructed in line 52 to recite incantation beginning atta eṭim mār mammanāma “you, ghost of someone … “ before a skull (ana IGI gulgulli). No further details are given. It may be noted that the texts here referred to offer no information as to whose skull was to be used, or whence it was to procured. It would be interesting to know whether a ritual for exorcism or necromancy relying on a skull was held to be more effective utilising the skull of the person concerned. It seems reasonable that for necromancy more or less any skull would prove a suitable medium. One further text that should be considered is a Neo-Assyrian royal letter LAS 178 that asks after the usual introductory phrases “Shall we bring these skulls that are prescribed in the ritual?” It is perhaps worth asking whether the ritual in question might not be for necromancy. The use of skull as a vehicle for communication with ghosts, whether to summon them or dispel them is thus well attested in the Mesopotamian sources.

For the necromantic praxis there is an illuminating parallel from Jewish sources. In the Mishnah, the tractate Sanhedrin 7.7 mentions that “He that has a familiar spirit – such as the Python which speaks from his armpits –, and the soothsayer – such is he that speaks from his mouth –, these are (to be put to death) by stoning”. The corresponding tractate Sanhedrin of the Babylonian Talmud (65b) in its discussion of the passage preserves the following description of the two kinds of necromancer: “Our Rabbis taught: Baˁal ˁōb denotes both him who conjures up the dead by means of soothsaying, and one who consults a skull.” Mediaeval Jewish commentators provide further details to complete the picture, cf. e.g. the Mishnaic commentary composed by Bar-tenura (ca. 1450 CE): “He takes a skull of a dead person after the flesh has decomposed, and he offers incence to it, and asks of it the future, and it answers.” Maimonides in his commentary on the Mishnah describes a perhaps contemporary practice closely parallel to that of Bar-tenura, and there are rabbinic discussions on whether the skull really speaks or whether the voice just appears in the mind of the necromancer. It is open to question whether the testimony of such late commentators is to be afforded any weight in the interpretation of a simple Talmudic statement such as that of Sanhedrin 65b. Nevertheless, a remark such as is presented in a Baraitha or Tannaitic teaching of this kind may be dated to before 220 CE, and it is at least possible that the Talmud has preserved some trace of Babylonian ideas.

Sources (list of abbreviations) (source links will open in a new browser window)
Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 65b
BAM 30
BAM 157
KAR 227
LAS 178
LKA 84
Maqlû 4.18
Maqlû 4.32
Mishnah, Sanhedrin 7.7

Bibliography

Amar Annus

URL for this entry: http://www.aakkl.helsinki.fi/melammu/database/gen_html/a0001438.php