My Ancestors

Omens: Seeing 

and Hearing a Ghost 

Tablets XIX and XXI of the compilation If a City have a good deal to say about ghosts, with extensive coverage of what might be expected by a person who actually sees, or hears, one. 

The omens explicitly distinguish very carefully between a ghost, an eṭemmu, and a dead man, mītu, the distinction being between a familiar ghost, that is, a family member or acquaintance, and a completely unfamiliar ghost from somewhere outside. 

It is clear, on reflection, that ghosts, even of grandparents or other close relatives, could not always be identified, and probably no one at all would remember further back than grandparents. 

Perhaps they relied on the human feeling that a visiting ghost was not inimical towards them but somehow part of the clan. 

Who actually are you? was a pressing question addressed to what was probably a family ghost, but possibly not: 

Spell. You, dead person who keeps appearing to me, whether father or mother, whether brother or sister, whether family or clan … 

CT 23 15–22 

It is easy to imagine that deceased members of extended or extending families who had long inhabited the same place would not only feel close to their descendants but also tied to the rooms and passages where they had spent so much of their lives. 

What, then, do the omens predict for the family ghost-spotter? 

Familiar Ghost Omens 

• If a ghost in a man’s house makes an appearance: dispersal of the house 

• If a ghost in a man’s house constantly causes fear: dispersal of the house 

• If a ghost in a man’s house constantly cries out [variant: constantly cries out at the gate]: dispersal of the house 

• If a ghost in a man’s house cries out and one who can hear hears it: overthrow of the house: the man will die and mourning [follow] 

• If a ghost in a man’s house constantly causes terror: end of days 

• If a ghost in a man’s house moans above the bed: relocation of bed and house 

• If a ghost in a man’s house moans below the bed: relocation of bed and house (from If a City, Tablet XIX) 

Each of these seven ghosts is already in the house, family ghosts who have come up from below and are intermittently or openly ‘residing’ in their former premises. Some have obviously already been seen more than once. In four cases the ghost makes sounds. Seeing a ghost is one thing, but to the Babylonian, hearing a ghost was always something else, for it seems that any sound they might come out with would be dangerous. The automatic fear generated by hearing a ghost, I imagine, interprets the sound as clamour by the dead for the living to come and join them. Only in the fourth of these omens is the death of the house-owner predicted, and that is when the ghostly cries are heard by ‘one who can hear’. This means an individual who can hear such things, as if the ghostly pitch could be like that of a dog whistle or a hard-to-discern bass rumble that most persons would not notice; it does not mean simply a person who is not deaf. • If a ghost in a man’s house constantly cries out during the evening watch that man will not grow old • If a ghost in a man’s house constantly cries out during the midnight watch: attaining a wish [variant: end of days] • If a ghost in a man’s house constantly cries out during the daylight watch that man will experience a god’s mercy • If a ghost in a man’s house constantly cries out at midday hardship will afflict the owner of the house • If a ghost in a man’s house constantly cries out at midday brightness a mortally sick person will die in the man’s house • If a ghost in a man’s house constantly cries out in the evening: for a high-born, end of days; for a poor man, he will experience reconciliation with the gods • If a ghost in a man’s house constantly cries out in the morning, divine anger against the man will be dispelled • If a ghost in a man’s house rumbles: Hand-of-Lugalbanda; that house will experience hardship • If a ghost in a man’s house constantly cries out very much: Hand-of-the-Anunnaki; he will experience trouble (from If a City, Tablet XIX) To the specialist the time of the experience is thus highly diagnostic, and nine possibilities are covered. Interestingly, Mesopotamian ghosts are perfectly visible in a daylight hour sighting as well as in the – to us conventional – dead of night. The second omen in this section includes the contradictory options of attaining a wish or end of days. This does not mean that the diviners could not make up their minds, but reflects how the scholars who compiled the omen manual from the older tablets at their disposal included disparate textual traditions in a space-saving way. Your Babylonian would, if asked, either acknowledge that some people believe one thing and others another, or, if pressed, would suggest that a simple omen does not always predict a simple outcome, for diverse factors at a given moment could have their effect. Hand-of-Lugalbanda and Hand-of-the-Anunnaki are two terms from a Mesopotamian attributive system of medical diagnosis in which the ‘hand’ responsible for the patient’s condition can be that of a god, a demon or even a ghost. • If a ghost in a man’s house enters the ear of the owner of the house: dispersal of the house • If a ghost in a man’s house enters the ear of the mistress of the house mourning will fall on that man’s house • If a ghost in a man’s house enters the ear of a son of the house his father will die • If a ghost in a man’s house enters the ear of a daughter of the house her mother will die (from If a City, Tablet XIX) These four very focused omens deal with a family ghost’s entering a person’s ear, always something to be afeared of. Serious diseases and medical conditions were attributed to the worst kind of ghosts, who, bent on evil, entered the porches of the ear of a sleeping victim, giving rise to the diagnosis of Hand-of-a-Ghost. There were established procedures to combat this, of course. • If in a man’s house ghosts growl; Hand-of-the-Anunnaki gods; that house will experience evil • If in a man’s house ghosts weep; Hand-of-Shamash; that house will experience disease • If in a man’s house ghosts cry out; Hand-of-Shamash; that house will be dispersed (from If a City, Tablet XIX) These three omens speak of voluble ghosts, plural. Perhaps they all share the same grievance against the family. Shamash, the sun god, normally benevolent, is behind it all, too, overlapping with the ‘set on’ reference in the incantation above. Two other omens, in contrast, document ominous ghosts who enter the house from outside. It sounds as if they are unlikely to belong to the family. • If a ghost enters a man’s house the owner of the house will die • If a ghost enters a man’s house and constantly cries out, the mistress of the house will die (from If a City, Tablet XIX) Unfamiliar Ghost Omens The omen handbook also documents face-to-face encounters with a dead man, mītu. This dead man is seen in the house, but it is hardly possible that the word refers to a recently deceased but still unburied family member. The very deep-seated ancient Semitic compulsion to bury the dead as quickly as possible applied likewise among the Babylonians, so a corpse in anyone’s house would never be there for long. These dead men, as already mentioned, must be ghosts seen in the house whose identity is unknown or unrecognisable. • If a dead man in a man’s house like a living one is seen, that man will die: dispersal of the house • If a dead man in a man’s house like a living one is constantly seen … • If a dead man in a man’s house like a living one constantly causes fear: dispersal of the house • If a dead man in a man’s house like a living one constantly cries out towards the house at the gate: dispersal of the house (from If a City, Tablet XXI) The phrase ‘like a living one’ probably means the spectre must be clothed, and so, for a minute, could be thought to be a living – but unfamiliar – person. The succeeding omens, as well as dwelling morbidly on the consequences for the household, include close details of such a dead man’s clothing and even his ring: • If in a man’s house a son of the house sees a dead man, his brother will die • If in a man’s house a daughter of the house sees a dead man, his sister will die • If in a man’s house the owner of the house sees a dead man, his son will die • If in a man’s house the mistress of the house sees a dead man, the owner of the house will die • If in a man’s house the steward of the house sees a dead man, whatever he owns will be lost • If in a man’s house the housekeeper of the house sees a dead man, whatever he owns will be lost • If in a man’s house his brother sees a dead man, whatever he owns will be lost • If in a man’s house his grandfather sees a dead man, that man … • If in a man’s house the owner of the house sees a dead man adorned with a ring … • If in a man’s house the owner of the house sees a dead man wrapped in cloths: uprising, claims … • If in a man’s house the owner of the house sees a dead man and there is a smell: no attaining of … and, finally, the omen that seems to reflect fear of premature burial, as indicated in Chapter 3: • If a dead man in his grave comes back to life with people nearby, that city … (from If a City, Tablet XXI) How did these Ghost Omens Function? Most ghosts, probably, were of the local and family type, but what must have been especially frightening was the idea that a dangerous ghost might be unconnected with anyone at all in one’s personal world – a killer bent on random street murder – or a ghost fastened on his or her victim through mistaken identity. When the Mesopotamian ghost literature available to us is taken at face value as answering human need in stressful circumstances – rather than docketed as a byway corner of man’s curious history – the drawing-up of ghost lists and their behaviour had more than a technical use. Whether you are a such-and-such ghost worked most effectively if the listening ghost, smugly immune and anonymous in the rafters, suddenly hears his identity declaimed and realises he is under the searchlight. In practice the effective exorcist is likely to have questioned his patient along the lines of: Has anybody in your family gone missing? or, Did any of your aunts, or great aunts, die in childbirth? or, à la Scotland Yard, Can you think of anything else you can tell me that might be helpful? A gentle coaxing of that kind might bring out an unmade connection or a realisation of ‘who it must be’ that would be halfway to a cure. Undeniably, a sighting did not usually add up to good news. In fact, almost all of these cases, notwithstanding that the ghosts might be familiar, are reckoned to bode ill. The implications to the modern ghost investigator bred on later, fear-laden literature require clarification. Ghosts that have appeared over the last two hundred years or more to titillate in stories, books and films, clanking in chains, almost inevitably herald bad news or imminent personal disaster. It would be a grave misjudgement to take these faraway Mesopotamian scenarios as comparable in this way, implying an unswerving, backdated historical rule that ghosts mean bad news. The crucial point behind the Mesopotamian welter of ominous predictions is that they were compiled to enable and facilitate solution: they lead to avoidance, prevention or deflection of misfortune through ritual. There is no flirting here with spine-chilling, ineluctable Hollywood fate; this is a practical handbook to deal with a real and common problem among human beings. Underneath is the idea that ghosts who came back often wanted the living to return with them. You ignored ghost omens, in other words, at your peril! Ghost Omens in Use How did this authoritative ghost-visit and tomb-building omen assemblage come into being to account for a whole calendar year, and how were the omens really used? The mass of predictions cannot be arbitrary inventions, for how would they ever come to obtain the status of authority or dogma? Odd associations between, say, a frightening ghostly visit paired with a contemporary disaster – such as could occur in any family – would always survive in people’s memory. Documentation of such matters was meat and drink to diviners, who were always looking for associated phenomena where underlying cause and effect could be perceived, indicating that a repeat outcome was always possible. Ghost records, alongside the other very different omen compilations, would begin to accumulate and extend themselves. The fully finished system would not only encapsulate coincidences or strange events over the recallable history of the wider social community, but surely also be the result of protracted ‘door to door’ data collection, literally proactively interviewing old people with long memories, for the overarching plan was to establish some entry for each month and each day of the month. If we are instructed that a person who starts tomb-construction on the fifteenth of any month of the year will not only become ill with dropsy but, in the end, will not even get buried themselves, it is a fairly safe bet that no one ever did start such a construction. For that matter, if everyone who lived in a city on a hill was fated to find life chronically unpleasant, no one would live in such a city. We are compelled, accordingly, to interpret these one-line omens not so much as fixed cause-and-effect rulings, but as a set of warnings. If someone encountered a ghost under particular conditions there should always be an omen that clarified the potential corresponding danger that could be looked up and, all being well, averted. When a pater familias undertook to construct a hospitable tomb for his extended family, the possible consequences (in view of what had happened in the past) had to be considered in consultation with those who knew, and pious, preventative or protective steps taken, as the case may be. Avoiding bad omens and burying the dead with or without flattering ostentation did not, however, guarantee domestic tranquillity. Ghosts who needed or wanted to come back, came back, notwithstanding. Whenever an omen clearly predicted misfortune or evil, it was necessary to act. Customised cuneiform rituals called namburbû (‘its release’) provided the right procedure to dispel a particular predicted danger. Really serious threats enshrined in the omen tradition, once identified, could always be deflected in that way, but for some unexplained reason by no means every individual omen had a matching ritual waiting in the wings. Ritual instructions were usually carried out by an āšipu-exorcist, or his apprentice, acting for the affected person. Just How Unpleasant Can Ghosts Really Be? The ghostly visits itemised one by one in If a City omens are a useful index in our investigations, but as flat one-liners they hardly bring such episodes to life. It is easy, reading them through, to forget that each entry embodied real fear, apprehension, horror, nightmare, sweat – hot and cold – and panic in the breasts of their poor victims all that time ago. We are fortunate that one magical spell in the incantation series Evil Demons brings all this much more vividly to life, for it describes in ninety-nine lines of text exactly what it was like to be visited by an unknown, unidentified ghost of the roaming, malicious hooligan type. I translate the whole cuneiform thing unapologetically in full. It is a little black book of ghosts; they are all there. The unique ghost-hunter’s document. In lines 5 and 7 and 23–4 these ghosts spy on people; in lines 25–63, in contrast, they are right inside the house, right in the sick-room of someone already ill, with a range of torments and vindictive actions (including pulling faces and sticking out tongues!) designed to hasten the sufferer’s end; in the hope that they will give up their own ghost and follow their torturers to the Netherworld. Lines 85–99 complement our established roll-call of revenants who came to a sticky end with one or two new cases, and confirm the classic disturbed cases for whom there is no comforting family in the background. Certain lines within the spell could technically apply to any of a group of evil demons, but I think the whole of this wonderful passage is concerned with ghosts. There are several blocks of closely related lines, and the very structured content clearly derives from a different background tradition from texts that we have already looked at. The qualification ‘So-and-So’ indicates that this text was for recitation, where the name of the sufferer (and that of his father) would be inserted. This shows that a ghost is certainly the problem and represents a detailed, persistent attempt to foil its every mean trick. The opening words, ‘I adjure’, are followed by some broken lines, but we can tell that the exorcist is speaking this long but irresistible list out loud: Whether you are one who constantly clambers over mud walls … 5     who are the owl (?), the Watcher, who has evil at his disposal who … whose god … who are bennu, the Watcher of the night who constantly scratch like a wolf who constantly flash like lightning 10   who constantly flicker like a flame, who constantly … like fire who constantly shine like daylight who constantly shine like a star who are constantly obscure like a black spot 15   who overwhelm constantly like an alû-demon who constantly pick on victims like a lilû-demon who constantly enter houses who constantly pass over thresholds who constantly clamber over roofs 20   who constantly stroll about house foundations who are constantly present in holes who constantly seek a fine young man or fine young woman in the street who are the Watcher at noon who are the Watcher of what people say 25   who constantly stand at the head of a sick person who constantly sit before the head of a sick person who constantly walk before the head of a sick person who eat with him when he eats who drink with him when he drinks 30   who constantly frighten the sick person, So-and-So who constantly scare the sick person, So-and-So who constantly terrify the sick person. So-and-So who scare the sick person, So-and-So who constantly create obstacles before a sick person who constantly wrinkle the nose before a sick person 35   who bare the teeth before a sick person who constantly sit before a sick person who constantly grind your teeth before a sick person who constantly put out your tongues before a sick person who constantly open your mouths before a sick person 40   who constantly pretend to be lame before a sick person who butt like an ox before a sick person who display might like a wild ox before a sick person who are massive like a wild pig before a sick person who bark like a dog before a sick person 45   who constantly moan like a badger (?) before a sick person who roar like a lion before an invalid who constantly slither like a snake before a sick person who constantly slither like a viper before a sick person who constantly slither like an adder before a sick person 50   who constantly slither like a chameleon (?) before a sick person who constantly slither like worms before a sick person who constantly slither like a lizard before a sick person who are always dark like pulled-out hair before a sick person who are always a dark billy-goat before a sick person 55   who are always dark like a she-goat before a sick person who are always black like a kid before a sick person who are always dense like a lamb before a sick person who are always … like a fox before a sick person who always fly like a wasp before a sick person 60   who always mingle like a cord before a sick person (?) who cover yourselves like a naked man before a sick person who are ever black like bitumen before a sick person who are white like gypsum before a sick person who constantly walk in the street 65   who constantly sit in the streets who constantly recline in the squares who constantly pick on the city of an evening who constantly prowl in the city of an evening who constantly seek out the city of an evening 70   who constantly clamber over walls who constantly spread yourself in toilets who constantly squat in the foundations who constantly frequent houses who constantly leap over ditches 75   who constantly hide in crevices who are exposed in the river who are slaughtered in the river who are divided at the river who are constantly doused in the river 80   who prowl in the river when in flood who prowl in a river who constantly walk in forests who constantly sneak about in forests who tread paths 85   who have no guide in the steppe who have been killed in battle who have been smitten with a weapon who have been smitten with a might weapon who have been slaughtered with a dagger 90   who have been killed with a mooring pole who have been threshed with spikes who have been impaled on poles who have perished during destruction who have neither father nor mother 95   who have neither brother nor sister who have no family, kith or kin who have neither son nor daughter who have no heir to libate water who have been laid to rest among peers Evil Demons Tablet 11  Section 2 Probably there were others, too … Responsibilities to the Dead The Mesopotamian dead, then, were entitled to due care and attention on an enduring basis. Responsibility for discharging these obligations rested on the oldest son in the family, often resident in the family house, or some substitute if need be; in this context, the individual was known as the ‘caretaker’. Tradition had it, as we will see, that the Netherworld regimen was not all that it might be, and one cannot help but see these family offerings as supplements, rather like home cooking delivered to people who are struggling to recover in a ward on hospital meals. That the ghosts had clear rights in this regard is explicit and there were three distinct obligations that had to be met: 1. Funerary offerings, kispu. 2. Water-pouring, naq mê. Ideally, this was cold water, and clean too. Delivery downwards was facilitated by a pipe. 3. Pronouncing their name aloud, šuma zakāru. This was a good way to ensure that dead individuals were not forgotten, and is to be understood both literally and metaphorically. Most fathers unashamedly preferred sons, and medical texts concerned with the unfulfilled desire for a child refer to it by the same word, šumu, ‘a name’, clearly illustrating the awareness of family continuum, backwards into the past, forwards into the future (as we have seen in Chapter 3). Girls, I’m afraid, were never in the first rank for expectant Mesopotamian fathers. This recitation typically accompanied the kispu offering: You, the ghosts of my family, creators of all of us, of my father, my mother, my grandmother, my brother, my sister, of my family, kith and kin, who all sleep in the Netherworld, I have made the offering to you, I have treated you with respect, heaped praise on you, honoured you. Today do you stand before Shamash and Gilgamesh; Judge my judgement, help with my decision! The link with deceased ancestors as family creators is very direct. It is clear that there was a certain quid-pro-quo element involved; in this spell, dead family members are supposed to intercede on the speaker’s behalf with Shamash the sun god, lauded administrator of justice Above and Below; acting, in this case, as sometimes occurs with Gilgamesh, as judicial denizen of the depths. The text goes on to request also the ghostly family’s protection against evil and troublesome forces as well. Such an inscription enlarges our understanding of the diaphanous milieu in which family ghosts operated, since, on the one hand, the dead were in some sense literally accessible beneath their feet, buried even on the premises; and, on the other, far below in the Big Underworld, interacting with or avoiding very powerful forces of which we today have knowledge from the literary Netherworld texts. Nobody who repeated the words of this recitation believed that Shamash or Gilgamesh actually lived in their family cellar, nor did they believe – had anyone held a gun to their head – that their water pipe went all the way down to the Netherworld. We encounter here an example of the very human capacity to combine parallel beliefs, complementary or contradictory as they may be, whose function is shared and whose reality is supported by ritual, without apparent difficulty. Passages in cuneiform leave us in no doubt that sliding into interrupted or erratic offering service was a fatal mistake vis-à-vis the equanimity of the dead, to the point that they would likely make an appearance in the house, where, not meeting with satisfaction, they would become clamorous and troublesome. Family ghosts of those buried below who decided to make an appearance were considered to ‘live’ on or within domestic premises for the duration, or at the very least have free access to it; but, like Victorian children, they were to be unseen and unheard. This view of things probably reflects multiple-generation family residence in one spot quite as much as burial within the house and the obligations it bestowed on the living. Family ghosts, when they did choose to make an appearance, did not always meet with fear or hostility if they were not too much of a nuisance: not infrequently they were regarded with sympathy. A sudden manifestation, of course, would make anybody jump, but it seems that, for a Babylonian, just seeing a family ghost at first was a little like finding a mouse in the kitchen – a bit of a fright, a sense of irritation and the knowledge that something would have to be done about it. Encounter with a ghost, however, always had its implications, often varying far beyond simple fright to extreme ominous danger and physical or psychological sickness. A Gentle Answer … Consider, finally, the following item of homely but revealing advice: If somebody in bed sees a dead person, he should say, ‘I have mentioned your name with the ghosts, I have mentioned your name with the funerary offerings.’ With these words, the speaker shows us that he can distinguish for certain a ghost that is part of his family and one that is not. This dead person is a definite outsider. It exemplifies the transparent ‘ours or theirs’ view that underpins ghost texts. It also shows that a dissatisfied ghost from an uncaring household on the loose can try and adopt a new family, rather like cats do in London. The outside ghost is befriended and treated like the others: trouble is avoided all round.