Earliest “ghost painting” found on exorcism tablet in Babylon

A few days ago, a museum curator found the oldest known depiction of a ghost on a 3,500-year-old Babylonian stone tablet, which even included instructions on how to exorcise it. The drawing depicts a bearded, ferocious-looking male ghost being dragged down to the underworld by a woman using a rope, with a note attached - the way to get rid of the unpleasant male ghost is to give him a lover.

Stone tablet with oldest ghost drawing found in Babylon

Irving Finkel, senior curator of the Middle East department at the British Museum (London), discovered the tablet and translated the inscription on it while examining ghost-related artifacts there. In the 19th century, the museum acquired the tablet and thousands of other tablets from Babylon, an ancient city about 100 kilometers south of modern-day Baghdad, to help archaeologists better understand the living conditions of ancient residents in Babylon and Mesopotamia.

The small stone tablet, which fits in the palm of a hand, and the cuneiform writing on it, an ancient Middle Eastern script that describes human rituals involving ghosts. Upon closer inspection, Finkel discovered an intricate painting that was almost invisible to the naked eye, and realized that the ghost and the woman in the painting were tools to assist in some kind of exorcism ritual, performed by an exorcist.

According to research, the exorcism ritual in ancient Babylon was very special. The exorcist would make a stone drawing of a man and a woman, and prepare daily necessities for them. Then, these stone tablets would be buried at sunrise.

At the same time, the exorcist will chant an incantation, but the incantation engraved on this stone tablet is incomplete, starting with the summoning of the ancient Babylonian sun god Shamash, who was responsible for transporting human ghosts to the underworld in mythology.

"It's not a symbolic ritual, the exorcist transforms the ghost into an image on a stone tablet so that the deceased can pass away with the blessing of the sun god Shamash," says Finkel. "The final words of the exorcism ritual are: 'Don't turn back!', given as a warning to the ghosts as they enter another world."

Ngo Nhung (Source: Sina)

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