BURTAL— r//£" HOUSE OF THE DEAD 385 



shade, ran the common behef, could not reach Arallu, but 

 wandered disconsolately about the earth. When driven by 

 pangs of hunger it perforce ate the offal or leavings of the street. 

 As the Egyptians, to ensure the continued existence of the 

 dead and his ka, provided sepulchral offerings (the depictments 

 of which included fish '), so did the Babylonians, not only for 

 a similar but also for the additional purpose of preserving them- 

 selves from torments. 



To leave a body unburied was not unattended with danger 

 to the living. The shade of the dead man might bewitch any 

 person it met and cause him grievous sickness. The wandering 

 shade of a man was called ekimmu, i.e. spectre. Only sorcerers 

 possessed the power of casting a spell whereby the ekimmu 

 might be made to harass a man. On the other hand, the spectre 

 sometimes settled on a man of its own accord, in the hope that 

 its victim would be driven to give it burial to free himself from 

 its clutches.2 



The Babylonian conception of the condition of the dead 

 was an utterly joyless one. Arallu, or the House of the Dead, 

 was dark and gloomy. Its dwellers never beheld the light of the 

 sun, but sat in unchanging gloom. The Babylonians possessed 

 no hope of a joyous life beyond the grave, nor did they imagine 

 a paradise in which the deceased would hve a life similar to 

 that on earth. 



The nature of the under-world can be gathered from the 

 description given to Gilgamesh by the spirit of Enkidu risen 



hardly warranted, at any rate by the O.T. passages which he adduces in support 

 of this statement, in attributing to Israel the idea of the unburied dead being 

 condemned to miserable wandering. For the Greek conception see inter alia 

 the Antigone of Sophocles. 



^ See Egyptian Book of the Dead (London, 1910), ch. LIII., with reference 

 to the deceased being obliged, from lack of proper food in the under-world, to 

 eat filth — •" Let me not be obliged to eat thereof in place of the sepulchral 

 offerings." To provide food for the dead, asphodel was planted near 

 tombs {Odyssey, XL 539 and 573) by the Greeks. From Hesiod {Op. 41) we 

 learn that the roots of the asphodel were eaten as a common vegetable, as was 

 the mallow. Merry states that in the Greek islands, where customs linger 

 longer than on the mainland, this " kind of squill is still planted on graves." 

 If the Homeric ' mead of asphodel ' turns out, as some editors maintain, to 

 have had a strictly utilitarian significance, how many poets and poetasters 

 have mistaken ' greens ' for ' greenery ! ' 



* King, Babylonian Religion {op. cit.), p. 45, and Babylonian Magic and 

 Sorcery (London, 1896), pp. 119 ft., where the incantation appropriate for 

 exorcising demons is set out. 



