The Dream Book, iškar
dZaqīqu (“core text of the god Zaqīqu”), is an eleven tablet compendium of
oneiromancy written in
Akkadian. Tablets two to nine form the manual of deductive divination, while tablets one, ten and eleven provide rituals to alleviate bad dreams.
Zaqīqu, which means "spirit" or "ghost," is a name of the dream god.
The text
Dream interpretations first appear in texts from
Mari, whether solicited by the incubation ritual or spontaneous. The iškar
dZaqīqu is one of the few texts to have survived in fairly complete form from the
library of Ashurbanipal
The Royal Library of Ashurbanipal, named after Ashurbanipal, the last great king of the Assyrian Empire, is a collection of more than 30,000 clay tablets and fragments containing texts of all kinds from the 7th century BCE, including texts in ...
, and is believed to have been copied from an old Babylonian original. Visions from dreams came in three types: messages from a deity, reflections of the dreamer’s state of mind or health, and prophetic dreams. The ''šā’ilu'' “questioner” or dream diviner could be a professional drawn from any of the disciplines of Mesopotamian scholarship, the ''ašipu'', “exorcist,” the ''bārû'', “diviner,” ''ṭupšarru'', “astrologer,” ''muhhûm'', “ecstatic,” or ''raggimu'', “prophet,” or commonly a woman, ''ragintu'' “prophetess.” Records of the library at
Nineveh
Nineveh ( ; , ''URUNI.NU.A, Ninua''; , ''Nīnəwē''; , ''Nīnawā''; , ''Nīnwē''), was an ancient Assyrian city of Upper Mesopotamia, located in the modern-day city of Mosul (itself built out of the Assyrian town of Mepsila) in northern ...
show inclusion of tablets from the collections of a diviner and also of an exorcist from
Nippur
Nippur (Sumerian language, Sumerian: ''Nibru'', often logogram, logographically recorded as , EN.LÍLKI, "Enlil City;"I. E. S. Edwards, C. J. Gadd, N. G. L. Hammond, ''The Cambridge Ancient History: Prolegomena & Prehistory'': Vol. 1, Part 1, Ca ...
. The similarity with the traditions of Egyptian New Kingdom dream
hermeneutic
Hermeneutics () is the theory and methodology of interpretation, especially the interpretation of biblical texts, wisdom literature, and philosophical texts. As necessary, hermeneutics may include the art of understanding and communication.
...
oracles suggest a shared origin.
The omens take the form of – one sentence, highly formalized units – with a protasis in which the portentous event is described, and an apodosis in which the meaning or consequence is given. They make extensive use of puns to explain the symbolism of the dream, for example, “If a man dreams he is eating a raven (arbu); he will have income (irbu),” "If a man dreams he is eating human flesh (šēru); then he will have great riches (šarû)” and “If (someone) has given him miḫru-wood; he shall have no rival (māḫiru).”
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ishkar Zaqiqu
Akkadian literature