Zisurrû, meaning “ magic circle drawn with

flour Flour is a powder made by Mill (grinding), grinding raw grains, List of root vegetables, roots, beans, Nut (fruit), nuts, or seeds. Flours are used to make many different foods. Cereal flour, particularly wheat flour, is the main ingredie ...

,” and inscribed ZÌ-SUR-RA''-a'', was 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 means of delineating, purifying and protecting from evil by enclosing a ritual space in a circle of flour. It involved ritual drawings with a variety of powdered cereals to counter different threats and is accompanied by the gloss: SAG.BA SAG.BA, Akkadian: ''māmīt māmīt'', the curse from a broken oath, in '' The Exorcists Manual'', where it refers to a specific ritual on two tablets the first of which is extant.

The ritual

The ''zisurrû'', a word ultimately derived from Sumerian, was used as a defensive measure and drawn on the ground around prophylactic figurines as part of a Babylonian ritual to thwart evil spirits, around a patient's bed to protect against ghosts or demons in much the same manner in which bowls thwart demons and curses, or as a component of another elaborate ritual. It was a component in the ''Ritual and Incantation-Prayer against Ghost-Induced Illness: Šamaš'', and also the ''

Mîs-pî Mîs-pî, inscribed KA-LUḪ.Ù.DA and meaning “washing of the mouth,” is an ancient Mesopotamian ritual and incantation series for the cultic induction or vivification of a newly manufactured divine idol. It involved around eleven stages: in th ...

'' ritual. In the ritual tablet of the ''

Maqlû The Maqlû, “burning,” series is an Akkadian incantation text which concerns the performance of a rather lengthy anti-witchcraft, or ''kišpū'', ritual. In its mature form, probably composed in the early first millennium BC, it comprises eigh ...

'' incantation series, it instructs “Thereafter, you encircle the bed with flour-paste and recite the incantation sag.ba sag.ba and the incantation ''tummu bītu'' (“Adjured is the house”).” It occurs in a '' namburbi'' performed when preparing to dig a new well and appended to tablet seventeen of the '' Šumma ālu'' series. It is incorporated into the '' Kettledrum rituals'', where the circle of flour surrounds the bull whose hide forms the drum skin. The also appears in the '' Muššu’u'' ritual tablet, line thirty-eight. The circle is rationalized in commentaries as representing certain protective deities, LUGAL.GIR.RA and Meslamtae’a according to one. In other rituals a circle might be painted in whitewash or dark wash on either side of a doorway for apotropaic purposes. The choice of flour was crucial to the purpose of the ritual, with ''šemuš''-flour reserved (níĝ-gig) for repelling ghosts, wheat-flour for rituals invoking personal gods and ''šenuḫa''-barley to encircle beds, presumably to counter disease-carrying demons. In the ritual against broken oaths, a catalogue from Aššur gives the incipits of the two tablets as én (abbreviation for én é- nu-ru) sag-ba sag-ba and én sag-ba min sil₇-lá-dè. The colophon line of the first of these tablets, which has been recovered, reads KA-INIM''-ma'' ZÌ-ŠUR''-ra'' NIG-ḪUL-GÁL BÚR.RU.DA''-kam''. The text describes measures to repel, thwart or imprison demons, such as trapping them in a covered fermentation vat.

Primary publications

* pl. 16 no. 1 * pl. 34–36, line-art. * transliteration, translation. * * transliteration, translation * * text: A1.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Zisurru Akkadian literature History of magic