Ḫulbazizi, inscribed in cuneiform phonetically ''Ḫul.ba.zi.zi'', “the Evil is Eradicated” or more literally "Evil (be) gone", is an ancient
Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia is a historical region of West Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the Fertile Crescent. Today, Mesopotamia is known as present-day Iraq and forms the eastern geographic boundary of ...
n exorcistic incantation series extant in earlier Sumerian and later Akkadian forms, the language switch taking place in the late Bronze Age, directed at every sort of evil (''mimma lemnu''), including a spell (''ša malṭi eršiya'', see below) against everything scary that hides below one's bed at night, depicted on an amulet with the terrified subject seated upright on his bed while a small dragon emerges from beneath to be confronted by a third figure.
The text
The title by which the series is now known comes from the rubric on the last line, which may only actually refer to a couple of the preceding incantations rather than the composition as a whole. The final incantation in the collection entreats the planet
Jupiter
Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the List of Solar System objects by size, largest in the Solar System. It is a gas giant with a Jupiter mass, mass more than 2.5 times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined a ...
, the
Pleiades
The Pleiades (), also known as Seven Sisters and Messier 45 (M45), is an Asterism (astronomy), asterism of an open cluster, open star cluster containing young Stellar classification#Class B, B-type stars in the northwest of the constellation Tau ...
and the deity Irragal (another name for
Nergal
Nergal ( Sumerian: d''KIŠ.UNU'' or ; ; Aramaic: ܢܸܪܓܲܠ; ) was a Mesopotamian god worshiped through all periods of Mesopotamian history, from Early Dynastic to Neo-Babylonian times, with a few attestations indicating that his cult surv ...
) to deflect evil from the subject. The title appears on line seven of one of the manuscripts of the Exorcists Manual, the only one legible at this point. The opening incipit of the series begins Sil7-lá lúérim-ma.
Two Ḫulbazizi incantations appear on Kassite seals depicting the fish-sage apkallu and its incantations were frequently invoked on amulets and charms, decorated with suitable apotropaic illustrations such as that of Ugallu, the lion-headed demon, during the Neo-
Assyria
Assyria (Neo-Assyrian cuneiform: , ''māt Aššur'') was a major ancient Mesopotamian civilization that existed as a city-state from the 21st century BC to the 14th century BC and eventually expanded into an empire from the 14th century BC t ...
n period:
Some of its incantations were later to be sampled in the Muššu'u, "rubbing", compendium.
Primary publication
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See also
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Ancient Mesopotamian religion
Ancient Mesopotamian religion encompasses the religious beliefs (concerning the gods, creation and the cosmos, the origin of man, and so forth) and practices of the civilizations of ancient Mesopotamia, particularly Sumer, Akkad, Assyria and B ...