Zu-buru-dabbeda

What it is

Zu-buru-dabbeda is an ancient Mesopotamian spell series written in Akkadian, the tongue of that land's scribes. Its adversary is not a demon but the swarm: locusts, grasshoppers, weevils, mice and grubs that strip a growing crop. The text gathers many spells of this kind into one place and is the fullest survivor of a small group of series built around the same fight. Scribes filed it among the works of the exorcist, the trained expert who dealt with unseen harm. The creatures it targets carry a name of their own, the 'great dogs' of Ninkilim. The whole ran to perhaps four tablets and ends with a list of the equipment its rites call for.

Where it comes from

The work carries a credited author: Papsukkal-ša-iqbû-ul-inni, a learned priest who served at Babylon and Borsippa. Copies have been recovered across the old cities of the region, and the fullest one was held in the Library of Ashurbanipal at Nineveh, a royal collection that preserved many magical works found nowhere else. Ancient readers knew the series well enough to list it: it appears in the Exorcist's Manual, a record of a ritual expert's working texts, and in a Nineveh inventory of Namburbi ceremonies, rites meant to turn harm away before it arrives. Scribes set the text out on as many as four tablets.

How it is done

The series runs from speech to action. Its prayers follow a set pattern: šuilla-prayers, a named Mesopotamian form of petition, and incantations tagged ka.inim.ma, addressed to a range of gods and to the four winds. One plea asks the East Wind, the averter of storm damage, to eat and drink, then to lead the pests off the plot and haul them away to the latch of the heavens. The latter part adds rituals: the infested field is fumigated with juniper smoke from a censer, a rite that King Sargon II is recorded ordering for a struggling field. A closing ceremony allows seven days' pause, offers a white lamb and burns a heaped fire of gifts.

Tools and materials

Juniper leads the toolkit: burned in a censer, its smoke is what treats the afflicted ground. The final rite requires a white lamb given in sacrifice, and a bonfire stacked with a variety of offerings; the charred remains are handled with care rather than discarded. The text closes with a written inventory of the equipment the ceremonies call for.

What it is for

The goal is a saved harvest. Every spell bends toward one outcome, that Ninkilim's creatures quit the farmer's plot. The prayers recruit the winds to lure the animals off, and they lean on great names to give the order force: Marduk, lord of exorcism; Adad, king of plenty; Ninurta, foremost of E-kur. The imagery is drastic, the invaders' mouths likened to the Deluge and a tempest, so the field's defence is framed as a cosmic struggle rather than simple pest control. The series saw live use too: King Sargon II instructed his governor at Assur, Ṭab-ṣilli-Ešarra, to have the fumigation carried out.

Who does it

The credited author, Papsukkal-ša-iqbû-ul-inni, is a learned figure holding a priestly office at Babylon and Borsippa, which places the work with literate specialists rather than household custom. Its listing in the Exorcist's Manual points the same way: this was a handbook for the exorcist, the temple- and court-trained ritual expert. The copy guards its own circle. It carries a plea that a scholar ignorant of the wise arts, unskilled in wisdom, be kept from seeing it, wording that marks the knowledge as closed to the untrained. Practice also reached high office: Ṭab-ṣilli-Ešarra, governor of Assur, corresponded with King Sargon II about performing the fumigation.

Peoples and places

The series is Mesopotamian and travels across that world's map. Copies have been recovered at Babylon, Nineveh, Sippar, Uruk and Aššur, so the spells moved with the profession rather than belonging to one town. The fullest exemplar comes from the Library of Ashurbanipal at Nineveh, one of many magical works preserved only there. The credited author sat on the Babylonian side, at Babylon and Borsippa, while the surviving letter about the fumigation comes from Ṭab-ṣilli-Ešarra, governor of Assur, writing to King Sargon II. Writer, keeper and user thus span the Babylonian and the Assyrian sides of the old country.

What people believe

Behind the spells stands an ordered divine world. The pests are not stray animals but the 'great dogs' of Ninkilim, the god whose creatures they are, so clearing a field means moving a god's property on. Their force is pictured in flood terms, mouths like the Deluge and a tempest, and the remedy is sent far away, to the latch of the heavens. Authority runs through named powers: Marduk stands as lord of exorcism, Adad as king of plenty, Ninurta as foremost of E-kur. The four winds appear as beings who can be invited to eat and drink, then sent on an errand, and the East Wind carries the title of averter of storm damage.

Compare and confuse

Ancient cataloguers filed the series in two companies. The Exorcist's Manual sets it among the working texts of the exorcist, while a Nineveh list of Namburbi rituals groups it with apotropaic and prophylactic ceremonies, rites whose task is to turn harm aside before it lands. It also heads a small family of Mesopotamian series aimed at field pests in the same spirit, of which Zu-buru-dabbeda is simply the most complete to come down.

Questions people ask about Zu-buru-dabbeda

Good reading and sources

• Zu-buru-dabbeda on WikipediaEncyclopedia
• Wikidata recordOpen data