The Divine/Demonic Seven and the Place of Demons in Mesopotamia

Erscheinungsjahr 2023
ISBN: 978-90-04-54614-1
Verlag: Brill

Buch, Englisch, Band 20, 356 Seiten, Format (B × H): 163 mm x 239 mm, Gewicht: 682 g

Reihe: Ancient Magic and Divination

In The Divine/Demonic Seven and the Place of Demons in Mesopotamia, Gina Konstantopoulos analyses the Sebettu, a group of seven divine/demonic figures found across a wide range of textual and artistic sources in Mesopotamia from the late third to first millennium BCE.


The Sebettu appeared both as fierce, threatening demons and as divine, protective, figures. These seemingly contradictory qualities worked together, as their martial ferocity facilitated their religious and political role. When used in royal inscriptions, they became fierce warriors attacking the king’s enemies, retaining that demonic nature. This flexibility was not unique to the Sebettu, and this study thus provides a lens through which to examine the place of demons in Mesopotamia as a whole.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Konstantopoulos, Gina

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Religionswissenschaft Alternative Glaubensformen Okkultismus und andere religiöse Praktiken

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Acknowledgments

List of Figures and Tables

Abbreviations

List of Appendices

Frequently Cited Texts and Their Editions

Introduction

Terminology and Defining the Demonic

Previous Studies and Writing the Sebettu

Seven as a Number of Significance

Overview of the Book

1 The Variable Nature of Demons

1 The Mostly Malevolent Udug

2 The Ambiguous Alad

3 The Benevolent Lamma

2 Early Foundations of Literary Evidence and Cultic Use

1 Third Millennium References

2 The Sumerian Narrative of Gilgameš and Huwawa

3 Lugalbanda in the Wilderness: The Torches of Inana

4 The Malevolent Sebettu in Old Babylonian Incantations

5 The Hymn to Hendursaga

6 Literary Tropes and the Subservience of Demons

7 Second Millennium Cultic Evidence

3 The Escalated Use of the Sebettu in the First Millennium

1 First Millennium Literary Texts

2 Expansionist Politics: The Initial Stages of the Assyrian Empire

3 Initial Decline

4 Returning to Strength

5 The Last Great Kings of Assyria

6 Ritual and Cultic Connections

4 The Sebettu in Incantations and Household Use

1 The Sebettu in Incantations

2 The Sebettu and the Udug Hul Incantation Series

3 Malevolence and Benevolence: A Survey of the Incantations as a Whole

5 Iconography and the Pleiades

1 The Behavior of the Pleiades

2 Astral Imagery and the Pleiades

3 Iconography and Representations of the Sebettu

4 Seals and the Pleiades

Conclusion: Concerning Demons

Appendix A: Comparative Epithets of the Sebettu

Appendix B: Birds, Deities, and Cries in the Birdcall Text

Appendix C: Textual Attestations to the Sebettu

Appendix D: Star Maps

Appendix E: Catalogue of Cylinder Seals

Works Cited

Index

Über Autor(innen)

Gina Konstantopoulos, Ph.D. (2015), University of Michigan, is an Assistant Professor in Assyriology and Cuneiform Studies at the University of California Los Angeles. She has published on magic, religion, and literature in Mesopotamia.