The Devils And Evil Spirits Of Babylonia, Being Babylonian And Assyrian Incantations Against The Demons, Ghouls, Vampires, Hobgoblins, Ghosts, And Kindred Evil Spirits, Which Attack Mankind. Volume II

R. Campbell Thompson

Description

Volume II of “The Devils And Evil Spirits Of Babylonia”, a 1903 work by Reginald C. Thompson that looks at the religion and spiritual beliefs of Babylon, the powerful kingdom in ancient Mesopotamia that existed from the 18th to 6th centuries BC. It includes English translations of various 'Evil Spirit Texts', which form large and important sections of the native literature concerning Babylonian and Assyrian demonology. Reginald Campbell Thompson (1876 – 1941) was a British archaeologist, cuneiformist, and Assyriologist. He is famous for his work on excavations at Nineveh, Ur, Nebo and Carchemish. Other notable works by this author include: “The Devils and Evil Spirits of Babylonia” (1903–1904), “Semitic Magic: its Origins and Development” (1908), and “Archaeologia, Vol LXX” (1921). Many vintage books such as this are increasingly scarce and expensive. It is with this in mind that we are republishing this volume now in an affordable, modern, high-quality edition complete with a specially-commissioned new biography of the author.

Sujets

• Religion
• Satanism
• Demonology

Informations

• Publié par: Read Books Ltd.
• Date de parution: 07 mars 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781447483199
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

THE DEVILS AND EVIL SPIRITS OF BABYLONIA,
BEING BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN INCANTATIONS AGAINST THE DEMONS, GHOULS, VAMPIRES, HOBGOBLINS, GHOSTS, AND KINDRED EVIL SPIRITS, WHICH ATTACK MANKIND .
TRANSLATED FROM THE ORIGINAL CUNEIFORM TEXTS IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM, WITH TRANSLITERATIONS, VOCABULARY, NOTES, ETC .
BY
R. CAMPBELL THOMPSON, M.A.
ASSISTANT IN THE DEPARTMENT OF EGYPTIAN AND ASSYRIAN ANTIQUITIES, BRITISH MUSEUM.
WITH TWO PLATES.
VOL. II.
FEVER SICKNESS AND HEADACHE, ETC .
1904.
Copyright 2018 Read Books Ltd. This book is copyright and may not be reproduced or copied in any way without the express permission of the publisher in writing
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Reginald Campbell Thompson
Reginald Campbell Thompson was born on 21 st August 1876, in Kensington, London, England. He is best known as a British archaeologist, but also as an assyriologist - which involves the study of ancient Mesopotamia and of its related cultures, and a cuneiformist - the study of cuneiform the earliest system of writing, utilised in Mesopotamia.
Campbell Thompson spent his early education at Colet Court (an independent preparatory school in London), St. Paul s School (an independent boys secondary) and Caius College, at Cambridge University. During his degree, the young man read Oriental Languages including Hebrew and Aramaic. This knowledge of ancient languages served Thompson in good stead in his later career; serving as a Captain in the Intelligence Service in Mesopotamia (modern day Iraq, Kuwait and Syria) with the British army. Mesopotamia had fallen into British hands in 1918, and the Trustees of the British Museum applied to have an archaeologist attached to the Army in the field to protect antiquities from injury.
As a Captain in the Intelligence Service serving in the region and a former assistant in the British Museum, Campbell Thompson was commissioned to start the work. After a short investigation of Ur (an important Sumerian city-state, and home of the ruins of the Ziggurat of Ur ), Thompson dug at Shahrain - argued to be the oldest city in the world, and also at Tell al-Lahm, an archaeological site in Dhi Qar Province, Iraq. He also investigated Nebo, Carchemish and Nineveh, finding a bronze head of an Akkadian king at the latter site. The writer Agatha Christie was invited by Campbell Thompson, along with her husband, the archaeologist Max Mallowan, to the excavation of the Nineveh site (which took place in 1931). As a result of the kind invitation, she dedicated her story Lord Edgware Dies (1933) to Dr. and Mrs. Campbell Thompson.
Following the end of the First World War, Thompson held a fellowship at Merton College, Oxford. He taught at the university and continued his archaeological career. The celebrated scholar also published several academic studies, among them The Devils and Evil Spirits of Babylonia (1903-4), Semitic Magic: Its Origins and Development (1908) and The epic of Gilgamish (translation, 1930). Reginald Campbell Thompson died on 23 rd May 1941, aged sixty-four, while serving in the Home Guard River Patrol on the River Thames.
Luzac s
Semitic Te t and Translation Series.
Vol. XV.
Luzac s Semitic Te t and Translation Series.
VOL. I: T HE L AUGHABLE S TORIES COLLECTED BY B AR -H ER US . Syriac Text and Translation, with Notes, Introduction, etc,. By E. A. Wallis Budge. 21 s . net.
VOL. II: T HE L ETTERS AND I NSCRIPTIONS OF AMMURABI . K ING OF B ABYLON, ABOUT B.C . 2200; to which is added a series of letters of other kings of the First Dynasty of Babylon. Vol. I: Introduction and Babylonian Texts. By L. W. King. 21 s . net.
VOL. III: T HE L ETTERS AND I NSCRIPTIONS OF AMMURABI . K ING OF B ABYLON, ABOUT B.C . 2200; to which is added a series of letters of other kings of the First Dynasty of Babylon. Vol. II: Babylonian Texts, continued. By L.W. King. 18 s . net.
VOL. IV: T HE H ISTORY OF THE V IRGIN M ARY, AND THE H ISTORY OF THE L IKENESS OF C HRIST . Vol. I: Syriac Texts. By E. A. Wallis Budge. 12 s . 6 d . net.
VOL. V: T HE H ISTORY OF THE V IRGIN M ARY, AND THE H ISTORY OF THE L IKENESS OF C HRIST . Vol. II: English Translations. By E. A. Wallis Budge, 10 s . 6 d . net.
VOL. VI: T HE R EPORTS OF THE M AGICIANS AND A STROLOGERS OF N INEVEH AND B ABYLON . Vol. I: Cuneiform Texts. By R. C. Thompson. 12 s . 6 d . net.
VOL. VII: T HE R EPORTS OF THE M AGICIANS AND A STROLOGERS OF N INEVEH AND B ABYLON . Vol. II: English Translation and Transliteration. By R. C. Thompson. 12 s . 6 d . net.
VOL. VIII: T HE L ETTERS AND I NSCRIPTIONS OF AMMURABI , K ING OF B ABYLON, ABOUT B.C . 2200; to which is added a series of letters of other kings of the First Dynasty of Babylon. Vol. III: English Translations, with Transliterations, Commentary, Vocabularies, Introduction, etc. By L. W. King. 18 s . net.
VOL. IX: T HE H ISTORIES OF R ABBAN H ORMIZD THE P ERSIAN AND R ABBAN B AR - I DT . Vol. I: Syriac Texts. By E. A. Wallis Budge. 12 s . 6 d . net.
VOL. X: T HE H ISTORIES OF R ABBAN H ORMIZD THE P ERSIAN AND R ABBAN B AR - I DT . Vol. II: English Translations. By E. A. Wallis Budge. 12 s . 6 d . net.
VOL. XI: T HE H ISTORIES OF R ABBAN H ORMIZD THE P ERSIAN AND R ABBAN B AR - I DT . Vol. III: English Translation of the Metrical Life of Rabban Hormizd by Sergius of dh rb j n. By E. A. Wallis Budge, 10 s . 6 d . net.
VOL. XII: T HE S EVEN T ABLETS OF C REATION . Vol. I: English Translations, Transliterations, Glossary, Introduction, etc. By L. W. King. 18 s . net.
VOL. XIII: T HE S EVEN T ABLETS OF C REATION . Vol. II: Supplementary [Babylonian and Assyrian] Texts. By L. W. King. 15 s . net.
VOL. XIV: T HE D EVILS AND E VIL S PIRITS OF B ABYLONIA , transliterated and translated, with Introduction. Vol. I. By R. C. Thompson. 15 s . net.
VOL. XV: T HE D EVILS AND E VIL S PIRITS OF B ABYLONIA , transliterated and translated, with Vocabulary, Indexes, and an Introduction. Vol. II. By R. C. Thompson.
VOL. XVI: T HE H ISTORY OF B ARAL M AND Y W S F . The Ethiopic Version, translated from the Arabic by Enb m, for the Ethiopian king Gal wd w s, A.D . 1553. Vol. I, Part 1: the Ethiopic Text. By E. A. Wallis Budge. ( In the Press .)
VOL. XVII: T HE H ISTORY OF B ARAL M AND Y W S F . The Ethiopic Version, translated from the Arabic by Enb m, for the Ethiopian king Gal wd w s, A.D . 1553. Vol. I, Part 2: the Ethiopic Text, continued. By E. A. Wallis Budge. ( In the Press.)
VOL. XVIII: T HE H ISTORY OF B ARAL M AND Y W S F . The Ethiopic Version, translated from the Arabic by Enb m, for the Ethiopic king Gal wd w s, A.D . 1553. Vol. II: English Translation, Introduction, etc. By E. A. Wallis Budge. ( In the Press .)
VOL. XIX: A C ONTRIBUTION TO B ABYLONIAN H ISTORY , being a series of Babylonian Historical Texts with English Translations. By L. W. King. ( In the Press .)
Bronze animal-headed figure of one of the Babylonian Powers of Evil. The inscription upon it reads: (1) Mu-kil pi (?) (2) - tik limuttim ( tim ) (3) ur-ru- u (4) la-pit pagr ni pl (5) mu- ar-bu (6) la-si-mu (7) la mu-ki-ia (8) a a i pl (9) ep II limuttim (10) i rus ( us ). He that raiseth an evil . . ., rushing headlong, upheaving the dead, exalting, galloping, never stopping, whose brothers stretch forth (?) feet for evil. (No. 93,078.)
TO MY FATHER , REGINALD E. THOMPSON, M.D.
Preface.

T HE Series of Cuneiform Texts which are transliterated and translated in this, the second volume of my work on the Devils and Evil Spirits of Babylonia, are of a magical character, except for the interesting descriptions which, are given of supernatural beings which form the concluding portion of the book. In contents, construction, and phraseology they closely resemble the documents relating to Evil Spirits, which will be found in the preceding volume.
A careful examination of the documents makes it almost certain that they were originally written in the ancient non-Semitic or Sumerian language of Mesopotamia, and we shall probably be not far wrong if we assign to them an antiquity of not less than six thousand years. It will, of course, be understood that the versions which are rendered into English in the following pages do not belong to this early date, but it is more than probable that they represent substantially an extremely ancient recension. Since they were drawn up for the Royal Library at Nineveh by the command of Ashurbanipal about the first half of the seventh century before Christ, we are fully justified in assuming that due care was shown by the court scribes in the choice of their materials.
The various groups of texts translated herein may be briefly described as follows:-
(1) The A AKKI MAR TI , i.e., a Series of tablets which were composed with the view of curing the Fever-sickness. The number of tablets in the Series was not less than twelve, and the material consisted of exorcisms and spells, which were directed against the disease A akku . I have here translated this word by fever, because the symptoms exhibited by a man suffering from the A akku -disease closely resemble those of one smitten by intermittent fever, or by malaria. It must, however, be remembered that the translation of A akku by fever is tentative.
(2) The I I , i.e., a Series of tablets which were composed with the view of curing headache; the number of tablets in the Series consisted of nine, and their contents are charms and incantations which were used to drive away pains of all kinds in the head. In the present state of our knowledge it is impossible to say whether the early Sumerians distinguished between the various forms of headache which are accompanied by nausea, vomiting, etc.
(3) A series of miscellaneous texts containing charms, spells, and incantations, similar in character to that of the texts described in paragraphs (1) and (2). It is perfectly clear that they were written for the purpose of driving diseases of various kinds out of th