Bīt mēseri at Aššur

: A 191, a Neo-Assyrian tablet from the Haus des Beschwörungspriesters in Aššur, preserves instructions for the performance of an apotropaic ritual called Bīt mēseri (“house of enclosure”). The tablet, which is edited here for the first time, offers a version of the ceremony that is markedly different from the standard Bīt mēseri ritual known from other first-millennium sources found at Nineveh, Aššur, and various Babylonian sites. Whereas the core rites with their apotropaic images (figurines and paintings) are far less complex than their counterparts in the standard ritual, the ceremony attested on A 191 also includes elements that are absent in other Bīt mēseri sources. These elements include a Pazuzu rite, ointments, and the burning of incense, all of which are known from other āšipūtu (exorcistic) text series, such as Muššuʾu, Qutāru, the Zi-pà Compendium, and the Pazuzu Compendium.

of the ritual, whose main purpose was the expulsion of demons from a patient's house, relies to a large extent on the relevant fragments that have been identified and rejoined among the remains of the royal tablet collections at Nineveh.2 All Bīt mēseri manuscripts from Nineveh known to me at present are written in the Neo-Assyrian script. They can be attributed to a ritual tablet, counted as the first tablet of the series (here referred to as Bīt mēseri RT [Ritual Tablet]),3 and probably three different types of tablet sequences that contained the wording of the recitation texts4 (here referred to as Bīt mēseri IT [Incantation to a "house of (ritual) enclosure" is directly related to the ritual of the same name or rather to other types of ritual confinement that the king had to undergo (see Ambos 2013a). 2 For a provisional overview of the manuscripts, see Borger (1974), with additions and corrections in HKL II 195-96 and Wiggermann (1992, 106-13). Borger's full edition of Bīt mēseri was never published, and I have no information on how far his work on the text had advanced when he passed away. In any case, Borger's work will remain foundational to any editorial work on Bīt mēseri. 3 Only two manuscripts of the Nineveh ritual tablet of Bīt mēseri (tablet I) have been identified so far: K 6310 + Sm 263 + 678 (+) K 6390 + 6668 + 8189 + 8980 + Sm 2004 (+) Sm 1939 (+) ? 1881-7-27, 279 and the small fragment K 9738 (identification T. Mitto). The following fragments have been published: K 6310 (BBR 2, 53); K 6390 (AMT 34/2); K 8189 (AMT 2/5); K 8980 (AMT 94/9); Sm 263 (AMT 71/4); Sm 1939 (Frank 1925); Sm 2004 (BBR 2, 48); 1881-7-27, 279 (AMT 96/5). Photographs of all fragments are available on https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection and https://cdli.ucla.edu (last accessed 12 vii 2021). 4 Bīt mēseri includes 20 ritual-specific recitations with the following incipits: (1) Gašru šūpû etel Eridu; (2) L u g a l -i r 9 -r a a l a n s u ḫ -Tablet]).5 Whereas the details of the proceedings during the first and second day of the ritual are still largely unknown, the Nineveh ritual tablet preserves a fairly full account of the agenda of the third day and, in a more fragmentary passage, of the following night.
Important information not least on the proceedings during that night and the final rites on the morning of the fourth day is provided by first-millennium manuscripts from Babylonian libraries, in particular from Babylon and Uruk.6 The Babylonian subdivision of the text into serialized tablets differs from the tablet sequences attested in Nineveh and seems to have transmitted the final ritual instructions together with the text of the first seven incang i r 11 -g i r 11 -r e ; (3) Lugalirra šuršudu ilu gašru; (4) E n k u m m a ḫ d u 6 k ù -g a u b -b a a l -g u b -b a ; (5) E n k u m m a ḫ k i k ù -g a u b -b a a l -g u b -b a ; (6) Á-í l -l a -z u -n e -n e t ú g s a 5 i n -l áe -d è ; (7) A-r u -u b m a š k i m ḫ u l ; (8) U 4 -a n -n a ĝ e š -ḫ u r a nk i -a š u -d u 7 ; (9) U 4 -n a m -t i -l a ù -t u -u d -d a Ú r i -m a ; (10) U 4 -a n -n é -d u 10 -g a n a m d u 10 t a r -r a -b i ; (11) E n -m e -d i -k u 5 l ú n a m d u 10 ù -[(x)] x x ; (12) G a b a -g i l ú -é r i m -m a ; (13) Ina ṭīd Ea ēpuškunūši; (14) Attunu maṣṣarū Ea u Asalluḫi; (15) Kalbu peṣû kalbu ṣalmu kalbu sāmu kalbu arqu; (16) U r b a b b a r u r g e g g e u r s a 5 u r s i 12 -s i 12 ; (17) Á r ḫ u š ĝ a r -r a k a b a -a b -t u ḫ ; (18) Nūru ana Marduk kurub; (19) Nuska šar mūši munammir ukli; (20) Akk. prayer addressed to Maštabba (incipit lost; Mayer 1976, 396, 'Lugalirra und Meslamta'ea 2'). At present, there are still two breaks in the text, one probably within recitation 16 and one between recitations 19 and 20, but it seems very unlikely that further recitations have to be restored. 5 The extant fragments show that the recitation texts were transmitted at Nineveh in at least three different formats: (1) Single-tablet format: This is conclusively shown by the three-column tablet K 2538+ (+) K 3622+ (+) K 5119+ (+) K 6922+ (+) K 7664+ (+) K 13506+ (+) K 14089 (+) ? Sm 1839, which preserves the opening prayer in o. i and the final prayer in r. vi. (2) Two-tablet format, with recitations 1-7 on tablet II and recitations 8-20 on tablet III: This is suggested by K 4644+ (+) K 10403 (+) K 13453, a two-column tablet that begins with the opening prayer and finishes with recitation 7. (3) Short-tablet format, with every tablet containing only one or a small number of recitations: This arrangement is evidenced by a number of single-column tablets, most importantly BM 134513, a single-column tablet that contained only recitations 4-5 and was counted, according to its colophon, as tablet IV of this type of series. This suggests that recitations 1-2 constituted tablet II, whereas the long recitation 3 took all of tablet III; an exemplar of such a tablet III may be K 2407+ (+) K 12828, whose colophon, however, does not include a tablet number. 6 BM 40621 (probably from Babylon, unpublished) contains a complete set of ritual instructions for the final morning of the ritual. Important information on the night of the third day and on the final rites is offered by the Uruk tablet W 22762/2 (SpTU 2, 8). This is supplemented by the text passages extant in the Nineveh fragments K 8986 and K 6922+(+). tations, followed by incantations 8-20 on a final tablet.7 Some tablet types are, as yet, known only from Babylonia, most importantly a tabular inventory of the ritual's figurines and paintings from Uruk8 and a tablet containing only the incantations addressed to the urigallu-standards.9 The fragment of a school text, presumably from Babylon, shows that at least some of the recitation texts of Bīt mēseri found their way into the curriculum of scribal education.10

Bīt mēseri at Aššur
The reconstruction of the series of tablets into which ancient scholarship subdivided the texts of the agenda and recitanda of Bīt mēseri was much influenced by G. Meier's (1941-44) edition of what he considered "Die zweite Tafel der Serie bīt mēseri". Meier provided an edition of recitations 1-6 of Bīt mēseri, establishing his reconstruction of the text on the basis of the Nineveh fragments known to him at the time and, as the main source, the two-column Aššur tablet VAT 13666 + 13680.11 While the article included neither a handcopy nor a separate transliteration of VAT 13666+, the scope of the edition was determined by the fact that VAT 13666+ originally comprised recitations 1-6 (extant: 2-6). The tablet ends with a catchline to recitation 7 (A-r u -u b m a š k i m ḫ u l) and a fragmentary colophon that states: [dub x].⸢kám⸣.ma é me-se-r [i]. Since the Nineveh series was known to count the ritual tablet as the first tablet of the series, Meier restored the tablet 7 The fragment BM 40621 (cf. preceding fn.) comes from a two-column tablet that contained the final ritual instructions (morning of day 4) and incantations 1-7. The fragment preserves (portions of) recitations 1, 6, and 7. It concludes with a catchline to recitation 8: [é]n u 4 -a n -n a : (r. iv 16′). This evidence is complemented by SpTU 2, 8, a two-column tablet that comprised recitations 8-20. The fragment W 22729/6 (SpTU 2, 11) probably comes from a tablet that had the same format and portions of text as BM 40621.  (Pedersén 1986, 74, N4: 572;cf. also Heeßel 2019). This is the only Bīt mēseri incantation tablet that has been recovered at Aššur so far. VAT 13839 (LKA 76, Pedersén 1986, N4: 516), contains a version of U 4 -a n -n a ĝ e š -ḫ u r a n -k i -a š u -d u 7 (r. 1′-7′; Bīt mēseri, recitation 8), but the text is transmitted together with extraneous material. LKA 76 should therefore not be considered a Bīt mēseri manuscript. number in VAT 13666+ as the second tablet. This conclusion is still valid, even though the extent of the Aššur tablet II, covering recitations 1-6, does not agree with any of the tablet sequences that can be reconstructed for the Nineveh manuscripts (cf. supra with fn. 5), and also does not conform with the tablet subdivision of the text attested in Babylonia (cf. supra with fn. 7).
Meier further argued that the Aššur incantation catalogue VAT 13723+ (Ass. 13956 ak, Pedersén 1986, 66, N4: 291) provided evidence confirming the following tablet sequence: ritual agenda (tablet I), recitations 1-6 (tablet II), recitations 7-… (tablet III). He further argued that the catalogue proved the Bīt mēseri series at Aššur to comprise four tablets in total. Meier, who perished in World War II, never published a full edition of the catalogue VAT 13723+, which was finally edited by M. J. Geller based on the original fragments (2000,. Geller, however, read the lines identified by Meier as catalogue entries for Bīt mēseri differently and considered Meier's identification "questionable". According to Geller, the restoration of the incipit of the recitation A-r u -u b m a š k i m ḫ u l was "unfounded" (2000,234 of the incipits and, in contrast to Meier, did not use the excavation photograph of the tablet (Ph. Ass. 4580), the passage bears renewed scrutiny. The relevant lines are preserved on a small fragment that was inventorized as VAT 14097 and has been detached from the main tablet since its transport to Berlin. Geller published the fragment separately ("cannot be placed"), but as already indicated by Meier, the excavation photograph shows the fragment still attached to the main tablet and in its original position.12 Accordingly, the side published by Geller as VAT 14097 "o. ii" actually belongs to r. iii and should be placed near the bottom of the reverse with a distance of 2-3 lines to the first line extant on the fragment VAT 14096 + 14101, which preserves the bottom edge of r. iii. Collation of VAT 14097 and VAT 14096 + 14101 in conjunction with the consultation of the excavation photograph confirms Geller's corrections and the accuracy of his handcopy, but also lends plausibility to Meier's (1941-44, 139) basic reconstruction, even though the traces and text indicated by him for the fourth incipit and the summary line can neither be verified on the excavation photograph nor on the originals. I would propose to reconstruct the passage as follows:13 13 VAT 14097 'o. ii' 1′ in Geller's copy is r. iii 23 according to the excavation photograph. The lines quoted here correspond to VAT 14097 'o. ii' 4′-6′ and VAT 13723+(+) r. iii 20″-22″ in Geller's edition. According to this reconstruction, the Aššur catalogue VAT 13723+ subdivided the text of Bīt mēseri, as argued by Meier, into four tablets. The first of these tablets represents the Ritual Tablet with the incipit tukum.bi lú (h ̮ ul), which is otherwise attested at the beginning of the Nineveh Ritual Tablet.18 Since the reading in r. iii 28 remains 14 Meier reads lú h ̮ ul, in line with the beginning of the Nineveh RT (Sm 1939 o. i 1, ed. Frank 1925), but Geller (2000, 232) rightly points out that the sign following lú is ù, not h ̮ ul. This may be a simple mistake, but lú.ù may also be considered a fuller representation of lú, inspired by the Sum. ergative form l ú -ù . 15 Geller (2000, 232) reads šu-⸢pu-u x ku⸣. Collation shows that the Winkelhaken at the end of the line is the final u of šūpû, whereas the trace of a Winkelhaken closer to the beginning of bu indicated by Geller's copy is the combination of a slight break with the tail of the first vertical of ù in the line above. The trace of a further Winkelhaken below the u of šūpû together with the ku belong to the following line (see fig. 1). 16 Geller (2000, 232) reads én x and takes the traces at the end of the line with the preceding line. As rightly pointed out by Geller, Meier's reading ⸢a⸣ -[r u -u b is excluded, and the line can therefore not have referred to A-r u -u b m a š k i m ḫ u l , the incipit of recitation 7 of Bīt mēseri. None of the known Bīt mēseri incantation incipits fits the combination of traces at the beginning and end of this line. The incipit of recitation 11 is only fragmentarily preserved: én e n -m ed i -k [u 5 ] / l ú n a m d u 10 ù -[(x)] x x (SpTU 3, 69 o. 14). While the beginning of the line here could be read én e [n -m e -d i -k u 5 , there is no obvious reconstruction of the end of the line ending in the sign ku, and the traces at the end of the relevant table field in SpTU 3, 69 o. 14 (visible on an excellent photo kindly provided to me by Anmar A. Fadhil) do not support a reading ku (nor do they entirely exclude it). Another possible reconstruction may be the incipit én u [d u g ḫ u l e d e n -n a -z] u -š è , a standard exorcistic incantation that was recited within the framework of Bīt mēseri according to A 191 o. 21, edited infra. For the time being, however, the correct reading of the present line remains unknown. 17 For these lines, see also Schramm 2001, 1 with fn. 4. 18 Sm 1939o. i 1 (Frank 1925; for the fragments of the Nineveh Ritual Tablet, see supra, fn. 3. unclear, the further subdivision of the tablets according to VAT 13723+ is unknown, though it cannot have matched (contra Meier) the subdivision evidenced by the Aššur tablet II manuscript VAT 13666+ (recitations 1-6, tablet III beginning with recitation 7 = A-r u -u b m a š k i m ḫ u l). It also seems to differ from the subdivisions of the recitation texts as found at Nineveh and in the manuscripts from Babylonian libraries. In VAT 13723+, the Bīt mēseri entries are immediately followed by the series Saĝ-ba, which comprised two incantations for drawing apotropaic flour lines. In this regard it is worth noting that the recitation of Saĝ-ba I and II forms part of Bīt mēseri according to the ritual instructions of A 191 (see infra, notes on o. 56-r. 5).

A 191: A new Bīt mēseri ritual tablet from Aššur
Apart from VAT 13666+, no Bīt mēseri manuscript from Aššur that can be directly related to the catalogue entries in VAT 13723+ has become known so far. O. Pedersén, however, drew attention to the tablet Ass. 13955 xy (Ph. Ass. 4128), which he listed as "bīt mēsiri?" among the tablets from the Haus des Beschwörungspriesters (Pedersén 1986, 65, N4: 254 Ass. 4127, "literary?"). The tablet A 191 itself only bears the excavation number Ass. 13955, but the note in the box specifies the number as Ass. 13955 gm, with "gm" being an apparently secondary addition in blue ink to the original record in black ink, which simply read "Ass. 13955". A 191 is a single-column tablet inscribed in Neo-Assyrian script and written, according to its colophon, by the well-known āšipu-expert Kiṣir-Aššur in the course of his studies when he was still an apprentice scribe (r. 19-25). The text contains instructions for the performance of a ritual that is explicitly referred to as bīt mēseri in the opening line of the text (o. 1) and, once more, at the beginning of the final part of the instructions (r. 8). The more than thirty incantation texts to be recited during the performance are quoted by incipit. The ritual instructions indeed exhibit many similarities and parallels to the Bīt mēseri ceremony as known from the Nineveh RT and from the ritual instructions included in the various IT manuscripts. The first line of the text, however, is different from that of the Nineveh RT (tukum.bi lú h ̮ ul; see section 2), and only three of the incantations of the Bīt mēseri standard ritual are also included in A 191.20 The tablet should therefore not be considered a manuscript of the standard Bīt mēseri RT, but rather represents the agenda of another Bīt mēseri ceremony, which, in many ways, is less complex and much shorter, but also includes elements that are absent (or go unmentioned) in the standard Bīt mēseri ritual. These elements include a Pazuzu rite, ointments, and the burning of incense, all of which are known from other āšipūtu text series, such as Muššuʾu, Qutāru, the Zi-pà Compendium, and the Pazuzu Compendium.21 Even though much of the text in the bottom half of the obverse has been lost, the overall structure of the Bīt mēseri ceremony according to A 191, which seems to stretch over one day from morning till nightfall, can be conclusively established from the extant text passages:22 The house of the patient is protected by painting seven apotropaic apkallu-sages on its exterior walls, four on the corners, two on the door jambs of the entrance gate, and 20 U r b a b b a r u r g e g g e u r s a 5 u r s i 12 -s i 12 (o. 13; Bīt mēseri recitation 15 or 16); Nūru ana Marduk kurub (r. 11; Bīt mēseri recitation 18); Nuska šar mūši munammir ukli (r. 12; Bīt mēseri recitation 19). 21 For more detailed references, see the notes on the individual incantation incipits. 22 In the following, the parallels in the standard Bīt mēseri ritual are only briefly summarized; for detailed references, see the notes on the relevant passages of A 191. one on the gate's lintel and the wall above (o. 4-5). The same apotropaic paintings form part of the standard Bīt mēseri ritual, but there they are only one of seven sets of seven apkallu images and figurines.23 The gate is further protected by paintings of five watchdogs (o. 6-8), again a feature shared with the standard ritual, even though there eight dogs are employed and distributed between the main entrance and the door of the patient's room. At the patient's bed, the exorcist erects a single apotropaic reed standard (urigallu, o. 2). Further paraphernalia near the bed include the lamp, i. e., the god Nuska (o. 10-11), and possibly the figurine of a corpse that represents a personification of Death (o. 12). All these elements are also included in the standard ritual, even though there paintings of standard bearers are used (14 on the walls of the patient's room and another 14 or 7 in the doorways).24 The bed is protected with pegs of ēru-wood25 and surrounded with an apotropaic ulinnu-cord (o. 8-10). Then the mouth-opening and mouth-washing rites are performed on the images of the sages and the dogs (o. 11), Nuska is provided with offerings in the morning and evening (o. 13), whereas the apkallusages receive incense offerings and are addressed with the incantation "Enmegalama, who entered [the house]" (o. 14-15).
After the house and the bedroom have been thus prepared, the exorcist turns to the patient and performs a mašḫulduppû ('scapegoat') rite on him, which probably included covering the patient with the goat's hide and wiping him with its meat. The incantation "Evil udug-demon in the wide steppe" is recited, which is regularly employed in the context of this rite (o. 16-20). Finally, the exorcist takes the impure ritual materials out of the house and afterwards protects the entrances with apotropaic flour lines (o. 21-22). The following fragmentary passage may suggest that a second mašḫulduppû-rite followed before the site of the wiping rites is ritually cleansed 23 The present text does not specify which type of apkallu is to be used. In the standard Bīt mēseri ritual, the apkallu images that are painted on the corners and entrance of the house represent fish apkallu-sages; see SpTU 3, 69 o. 14: ṣalmū(nu) meš apkallī(abgal) meš purādī(suh ̮ ur) ku 6 "images of the sages, the carps". For a discussion of the fish apkallu, see Wiggermann 1992, 76-77; for the apkallu tradition more generally, cf. also Kvanvig 2011, 136-58. 24 For a discussion of the urigallu, including its use in Bīt mēseri, see Seidl and Sallaberger 2005-6. 25 The choice of wood is not accidental: ēru is a hardwood native to Mesopotamia that is used for sticks and also serves as the material for the weapon of the exorcist (cf. here note on o. 46). In the standard Bīt mēseri ritual there is a clear pattern: Pure tamarisk wood (bīnu) is employed for figurines with a mainly purifying function, whereas figurines of warlike, apotropaic forces are made of ēru-wood.
(o. 23-25). The hypothesis of two scapegoat rites finds support in the fact that the standard Bīt mēseri ritual too prescribes the use of two different mašḫulduppû.
After the evil besetting the patient has thus been expelled, the following ritual actions, which are described in the very fragmentary part of the obverse, all have the common purpose to protect the body of the patient from any further harm. Various materials, including amulet stones, pure palm leaflets, and tufts of wool are attached to or laid out around the patient, who then undergoes a series of rubbings with ointments and fumigations with incense (o. 27-53). The text summarizes these measures in r. 6 as "ritual procedure for rubbing and incense burning" and deems them effective against all illness (r. 7). Like the ritual arrangement before Nuska, the rubbings and fumigations are performed twice in the same fashion, once in the morning and once in the evening (r. 7).
As soon as the body of the patient has been protected in this way, the patient's bed and house are surrounded with apotropaic flour lines. The drawing of the lines, possibly to be performed in the morning and evening, is accompanied by the recitation of the two Saĝ-ba incantations, which represent the standard recitations for this rite. This is followed by another set of standard āšipūtu-recitations for the final stages of a ritual performance. Then the exorcist prepares the patient for the night with the two Nuska prayers that also form part of the standard Bīt mēseri ritual. The prayers invoke the divine lamp as the protective light during the night and, like in the parallel passage in the Nineveh Bīt mēseri RT (95″-97″ = K 6390+(+) r. iv 14-16), the exorcist recites the first prayer, whereas the patient speaks the second prayer while facing the lamp that is standing at his bedside:

Transliteration
The handcopy (figs. 2-3) and colour photographs (figs. 4-5) of A 191 reflect the present state of the tablet. The excavation photograph Ph. Ass. 4128 (figs. 6-7)27 shows the tablet in a slightly more complete state of preservation before its transport to the museum, though in o. 18-30 many of the signs still visible on the excavation photograph remain undecipherable due to their insufficient preservation or encrustation with dirt. Any signs only visible on the excavation photograph and not preserved any more today are marked by underlining in the following transliteration.
28 Very possibly the scribe would have read the list of dogs, which is derived from an incantation incipit (see note on o. 13), in Sumerian rather than Akkadian. 29 Akk. mīs pî pīt pî, but probably these two technical terms of āšipūtu lore were simply read in Sumerian. 30 As is often the case in first-millennium manuscripts, the logogram abgal is written without the plural determinative because the sign combination itself ends in 'méš' (abgal = nun.me). [én] s a ĝ-⸢b a s a ĝ-b a ĝ e š -ḫ u r⸣ n u -b a l -⸢e⸣ [tamannu(šid) nu ] r. 1

nuska šar(lugal) ⸢mu-ši⸣ tu-šad-bab-š[u] 13 ṣalam(nu) pà-zu-zu a-⸢na⸣ qātī(šu) min lú marṣi(gig) tašakkan(gar) an -m[a] 14 én at-⸢ta⸣ dan-nu šalāši(3)-šú lú marṣu(gig) imannu(⸢šid⸣) n [ u ] 15 arkī(egir)-šú ⸢én⸣ šam-ru ez-zu šalāši(3)-šú ana muḫḫi(ugu) qaqqad(sag.du) lú mar[ṣi(gi[g) tamannu(šid)] 16 arkī(⸢egir⸣)-šú ⸢én e n -ĝ a r ḫ é -s i -s i⸣ tamannu(šid)[ nu ] 17 ⸢a⸣-na bīti(é)-ka te-eš-[šir]
32 The Akk. equivalent of an.ta.šub.ba was miqit šamê (Stol 1993, 7-14), but probably this technical term was often simply read in Sumerian, possibly in an Akkadianized form (antašubbû The exorcist stands in front of the patient and recites the incantation "Pure spell", 17 the incantation "I am a pure man" up to the incantation "In order to provide water from the deep". [I]f you perform (these rites as part of the ritual) 'House of Enclosure', 9 you arrange [af]ter (the recitation of) the incantation "Enki, king of the subterranean ocean, counsellor" 10 [i]n the evening a portable altar before Nuska. 11 You pour a libation of first-quality beer (and) recite the incantation "O lamp, greet Marduk". 12 You have the patient declaim the incantation "Nuska, king of the night". 13 You Notes o. 1 The restoration at the beginning of the line remains uncertain, but we expect a word for "ritual" or "ceremony" that is connected to the following ritual title by ša. For the use of NA/NB dullu rather than SB nēpešu on the present tablet, cf. r. 6; also the limited space available in the break suggests the restoration of only two signs. At the end of the line, the break affords space for the restoration of two more signs, but since the initial purpose clause ends with ana epēši, it seems likely that the final horizontal wedge of -ši was simply drawn out to the end of the line. 2-3 It is uncertain whether bītu in this line refers to the house as a whole or to the specific room in which the bed of the patient is set up for the ritual proceedings. Consequently, it is also doubtful whether bābu, here neutrally translated as "entrance", refers to the door of a room or the main entrance gate of the house. The instructions in o. 9-10 show that the one urigallu-standard employed in the present ritual is set up near the patient's bed. Whereas the standard Bīt mēseri ritual uses a group of 14 urigallu-standard bearers that are painted on the bedroom's side walls, a single urigallu-standard is mentioned in Bīt mēseri incantation no. 17, which is to be whispered into the ear of a scapegoat: [ g i ù r i -g a l s a ĝ] -ĝ á -š è m u -u n -d ag u b -g u b -b u | u[rigal]la ina rēšišu u[zaqqip] "He erected an u [rigal]lu-standard at his head" (IT 330′ = K 7664+(+) r. v 2′ // K 8008 r. iii 9; cf. provisionally Gabbay 2015). It is therefore very likely that the urigallu-standard here was set up at the head end of the patient's bed in one of the house's rooms, and the instruction regarding the orientation of the entrance of the bītu in l. 2 may well refer only to that room.
3 The word šiplûtu "depression, pit", which is attested here for the first time, should probably be interpreted as an abstract noun derived from the adjective šaplû (with variant šiplû in BAM III 248 r. iii 47); a derivation from an unattested pirs pattern noun *šiplu ("deep" vel sim.) > šiplūtu seems less plausible. For the usage of šakānu in phrases referring to the design of dimension, see CAD Š I 130b; the literal translation here would be "you set 7 fingers width (and) 7 fingers depth". The text is silent on the exact location and further use of the little pit. As pointed out to me by C. Ambos, it may have served as a receptacle for a libation (for a libation into a pit for the rising sun-god, cf. Ambos 2004, 168: 1-5).
7 The placement of the miniature ritual chains between the front and back legs of the the painted dogs probably imitates the place where chains for guard dogs would be found at the gate of a house. The fact that the dogs themselves are not depicted as being chained by the neck could be motivated by the intention to make them appear even more fearsome to possible (demonic) intruders.
9 The excavation photograph seems to show the sign á at the beginning in a slightly better preserved state, with the upper rank of oblique wedges still extant, but possibly our eyes are misled by a deceptive shadow.
10-11 The god Nuska stands here, as elsewhere, for the lamp that the exorcist places at the head of the bed. The two prayers Nūru ana Marduk kurub and Nuska šar mūši munammir ukli, which are recited in the last part of Bīt mēseri, are addressed to the divine lamp Nuska (see here r. 11-12). The text of the two prayers, which were also used in other ritual contexts, is found in Bīt mēseri IT 342′-60′ and 363′-75′ (see provisionally Mayer 1976, 482-84. 485-86).
15 I am not aware of any other attestations of an incantation with the incipit E n -m e -g a l a m -m a l ú [é] k u 4 -r a -b i . The apkallu-sage Enmegalama is mentioned in three Bīt mēseri incantations. In all three passages, he is associated with the "house" (é | bītu): e n -m eg a l a m -m a l ú é -a ù -t u -u d -d a | min ša ina bīti ibbanû (IT 211 = K 2538+(+) o. iii 30 // SpTU 2, 8 o. i 4); [e n -m e -g a l a m -m a l] ú é -a t u -u d -d a | ša ina bīti ibbanû (IT 239 = K 5119+(+) r. iv 4′ // K 19957+ o. i′ 6′); e n -m [e -g a] l a m l ú é -a g u b -b a (IT 247 = K 5119+(+) r. iv 12′ // 82-3-23, 67 o. 3′). The restoration [é] in the present incipit is based on this association of Enmegalama with the house in his other epithets. An emended reading E n -m e -g a l a m -m a l ú [é] t u -d a ! (⸢ra⸣) -b i is worth considering, but should await confirmation by a duplicate.
16-17 For third-person references to the exorcist (mašmaššu, āšipu) in āšipūtu-rituals, see Abusch et al. 2016, 267-68. The incantation Tû ellu is the first entry in the incantation catalogue BM 66565+ (ed. Geller 2000, 237; in o. i 1 one should read [én t]u 6 el-lu). The same catalogue lists Ĝ e 26 -e l ú k ù -g a -m e -e n in o. i 5, an incantation that is well known as the first recitation in Šurpu and Muššuʾu and is also attested in Udug-ḫul (Geller 2000, 238, note on i 3-5;idem 2016, 486 fn. 207). In o. i 8, BM 66565+ then includes the incipit A i d i m ĝ á -ĝ á -e -d è . This suggests that the instruction of the present text to recite the incantation Ĝ e 26 -e l ú k ù -g a -m e -e n "up to and including" (adi muḫḫi) the incantation A i d i m ĝ á -ĝ á -e -d è implies the recitation also of the two incantations catalogued in between these two incantations in BM 66565+ o. i 6-7, namely I r -b i e n n a m -t i -l a and Ĝ e 26 -e l ú a n -n a d + e n -l í l -l á .
The incantation U d u g-ḫ u l e d e n -n a d a ĝ a l -l a is regularly recited for the scapegoat rite and is best known as the first incantation of Udug-ḫul XII (ed. Geller 2016, 399-428).
20-22 Bīt mēseri RT 26′-28′ = K 6390+(+) r. iv 16-18 // K 9738: 4′-6′ describes the purifying takpirtu wipings in the context of the scapegoat rite in some more detail: (uzu) urī[ṣi(⸢máš⸣.g[al)] (28′) lú marṣa(gig) ⸢tu⸣-kap-par tak-pir-ta i-sa-an-niq-šum "As soon as you have recited (it), you put the hide as a cover over [him]. Then it is ready for you: With the meat of the go[at] you wipe off the patient. The wiping comes close to him." These instructions suggest that the patient, while covered with the hide of the slaughtered scapegoat, is wiped off with its meat. After the patient's impurity has thus been transferred onto the goat, the meat and hide are removed from the house. The recitation of the incantation U d u g ḫ u l e d e n -n a -z u -š è is regularly attested in the context of the removal of impure ritual materials outside the patient's house (cf. Abusch / Schwemer 2011, 397;Abusch et al. 2020, 182;Schwemer 2017, 15). For the text of the incantation itself, see Schramm 2008, 84-85. 181-86;Geller 2016, 282-86 (Udug-ḫul VII).
23-24 The verbal forms that are crucial for the understanding of these two lines are largely lost. At the end of the first sentence, the excavation photograph seems to show two vertical wedges preceding what is probably -ma. Apparently further rites are carried out with a scapegoat, but the relationship of this mašḫulduppû to the one mentioned in o. 18 is not entirely clear. It should be noted, however, that also the standard Bīt mēseri ritual includes two scapegoat rites, one on the roof (RT 23′-28′ = K 6390+(+) r. iv 13-18) and one at the patient's bed (RT 82″-83″ = K 6390+(+) r. v 1-2). Unfortunately, both passages here give very little detail on the treatment of the mašḫulduppû. Also the phrase it-ti dalti ša bīti is difficult, since itti "(together) with" usually refers to persons. The translation "at the side" assumes that itti here is a variant of idāt (possibly á ti for idāti), as also seems to be the case in SpTU 3, 69 o. 6 (see Sallaberger 2005-6, 67, fn. 42). The verbal form of the second sentence is written with a one-sign logogram; dul "you cover" is certainly possible, but so are many other restorations. A further difficulty is posed by the abbreviated incantation incipit in o. 24. If our restoration is correct, it seems most likely that the instruction refers to a repeated recitation of the scapegoat incantation U d u g-ḫ u l e d e n -n a d a ĝ a l -l a (cf. o. 19). In this case, the phrase ana maḫrišu would refer to the recitation of the incantation in front of the scapegoat.
25-27 The recitation of Anamdi šipta ana puḫur ilī kalāma accompanies the ritual sprinkling of water in Muššuʾu, Maqlû, and elsewhere (see Böck 2003, 10;Abusch/Schwemer 2011, 397-98). A combination with the final part of an incantation Ĝ e 26 -e k ù -g a -m e -e n is attested here for the first time. Whether Ĝ e 26 -e k ù -g am e -e n is really, as indicated above, intended to represent the same recitation as Ĝ e 26 -e l ú k ù -g a -m e -e n (here o. 17) remains as uncertain as the correct translation of adi in the present context ("up to" or "including"?).
28 giš ninni 5 is epigraphically clear, but otherwise unattested. The writing may be a simple variant of ú ninni 5 (ašlu) "rush(es)", though the object in question here seems to be put on or attached to the patient's head. Ḫḫ XVII 57 (MSL 10, 85) lists kilīlu, an otherwise unattested designation of a kind of rush and apparent homophone of kilīlu "headband", as one of the possible Akk. readings of ú ninni 5 , but this does not provide a sufficient basis for an interpretation of the present giš ninni 5 as a logogram for kilīlu "headband". Note that the reading of dù uš , traces of which are still recognizable on the excavation photograph, is particularly uncertain. Therefore, the overall syntactic structure in ll. 28-29 is difficult to ascertain.
29 At the beginning of the line, a reading ⸢ṭi-mi-ta⸣ "twine, yarn" seems possible, but the third sign ta may also be interpreted as the beginning a verbal form. The two fragmentary signs after ta look like ba (not an) and bad (probably not nu). These two sign are covered with dirt and invisible on the excavation photograph, which shows, however, an undeciphered sign (perhaps tim?) between the two fragmentary signs and the following na 4 meš . The two undeciphered signs following na 4 meš are lost today; the photograph suggests numun or mu for the first sign, and just enough is still visible of the second sign to exclude a reading meš.
30 The traces visible on the excavation photograph in the middle of the line are too indistinct for decipherment without a duplicate manuscript. At the beginning of the line, one could read x meš -šú "his …s", but it is not excluded that one should rather read šú-nu or even šú-nu-t[i …].
33 An incantation incipit ending in ayyābī lemnūti seems to be unattested otherwise; the reading is therefore particularly uncertain.
34-35 For the incantation Ĝ e š n i m b a r -t u r d a l l a k ù -g a , see Udug-ḫul XIII-XV 122-42 (ed. Geller 2016, 469-74) and Muššuʾu, ritual tablet 27-28 (Böck 2003, 6-7). According to the ritual instructions in Udug-ḫul and Muššuʾu, palm leaflets are tied to the hands and feet of the patient. The text in l. 34 should probably be restored accordingly, though a reconstruction of the exact wording is not possible at present (note that the traces at the end of the line do not match the expected tarakkas "you tie"). Following the incantation sequence in Udug-ḫul and Muššuʾu, further instructions for the recitation of the incantation M u ḫ u l -l u -b i s a r -a are expected in the second half of l. 35.
36-37 For the incantation S i p a k i k ù -g a , see Udugḫul XIII-XV 167-81 (ed. Geller 2016, 478-81) and Muššuʾu, ritual tablet 29 (Böck 2003, 6-7); in both texts, the incipit is given as S u 8 -b a k i k ù -g a . According to the ritual instructions in Udug-ḫul and Muššuʾu, the incantation is to be recited while the bed of the patient is surrounded with the wool of a female lamb and kid that have not yet mated. The text in l. 36 is to be restored accordingly, though a reconstruction of the exact wording is not possible at present.
52 For the incantation Rūʾūʾa kaššāpat anāku pāširāk, see Maqlû IV 123-51. 54-55 The incantation occurs in the same ritual context in Muššuʾu (ritual tablet 37, ed. Böck 2003, 6 and 8). The text of the incantation is partially preserved in Udug-ḫul I 54′ff. (see Geller 2016, 51). 56-58 The fragmentary passage gives instructions for the drawing of apotropaic flour lines (zisurrû) around the bed and includes the recitation of the incantation S a ĝ-b a s a ĝ-b a ĝ e š -ḫ u r n u -b a l -e (Saĝ-ba, tablet I) that regularly forms part of this rite. For the incantation and the associated rites, see Schramm 2001, with an edition of Saĝ-ba I on pp. 20-72. 58-r. 5 The sequence of incantations in this section is well known from the closing rites of various āšipūtu rituals (cf. Schramm 2001, 8-9). The final sequence of incantations in Lamaštu III represents an almost exact parallel, and the last incantation incipit there can now be fully restored based on the present text (cf. note on r. 4): Lamaštu III (Farber 2014, 192-93): -S a ĝ -b a s a ĝ -b a (apotropaic zisurrû flour line around the patient's bed) -Tummu bītu (without explicit ritual instructions) -A b -t a n a m -m u -u n -d a -k u 4 -k u 4 -e -d è (without explicit ritual instructions) -E n -k i l u g a l a b z u -k e 4 s á p à -d a (without explicit ritual instructions) In Muššuʾu, the final Enki incantation is absent from the sequence; there, the incantations Tummu bītu and A b -t a may have referred to the calculation of the lines by the scribe (comm. C. Ambos).
19-25 For Kiṣir-Aššur and his career, see Maul 2010 and Arbøll 2020. The colophon in this exact form is so far without parallel.
19 For the term uʾiltu, which Kiṣir-Aššur employs several times with reference to 'portrait format' tablets, see Maul 2010, 312. 20 Note the use of the Babylonian form of the sign é here in the colophon.
24 Note the grammatically wrong and Assyrianizing vetitive form ay išamme instead of expected ay išme (or prohibitive lā išemme), a rare glimpse into Kiṣir-Aššur's apparently still limited active command of Standard Babylonian at this stage of his career.