Medicine and Religion in Ancient Mesopotamia

This paper discusses magic and divination in ancient Mesopotamia, and how these topics intertwined with medicine and religion at that time. In this context, magic can refer to the supernatural causes and explanations that these early civilizations had for different life events or natural disasters. To overcome these challenges in life, they developed rituals and practices that today we refer to as magic, despite not necessarily being witchcraft. The number of tablets and artifacts referring to these topics show how common these beliefs were and how they influenced people’s day to day life, their culture, their different roles and jobs within the society and their decision-making.

Evidence shows that ancient Mesopotamians assumed different gods/goddesses and mythical creatures to be responsible for different aspects of life and the natural phenomena, because the real reasons behind them were unknown at the time. In order to protect themselves from the undesirable circumstances, they would try to predict the future, or to keep the gods satisfied and repel evilness. This resulted in different kinds of magic being used for solutions to their problems, such as diseases and natural disasters. One example of this is the use of certain objects such as stones and figurines in medicine. A clear evidence for this is a cuneiform tablet dated to mid-to-late 1st millennium BCE (currently kept in Metropolitan Museum of Art), which shows a list of hundreds of stones that were used to treat or prevent different medical conditions due to the magical effects that were believed to be associated with them.

Based on cuneiform evidence, medical healers existed in Mesopotamia since the middle of the 3rd millennium BCE. At the time, all diseases were believed to be caused by supernatural powers such as gods, goddesses, ghosts, demons, etc. Therefore, the treatments they sought were designed to please gods or repel evil spirits. These methods were carried out by healers, who were mainly of three kinds: barû (seers) who practiced medicine through divination, âshipu (exorcists) who dealt with diseases believed to be caused by ghosts, and asû (healing priests) who took care of the patients.

An evidence for involvement of magic in medicine is the Maqlû series, which translates to “Burning”. This is the description of an anti-witchcraft ceremony, held to help a patient regain their health. The ceremony was held in multiple divisions, and consisted of burning the figurines of an anonymous witch, fumigation, washing the patients over figurines of the witch, etc. This could also be considered a religious ritual as the participants hoped that by burning the figurines representing the witch, they could gain the attention and mercy of the gods, who would be able to cure the patient and protect the family and others from falling victim to the disease.

Evidence from Mesopotamian prescriptions show that they believed ghosts were to blame for a variety of physical and mental problem. These diseases and health issues would range from mild problems such as ringing in the ear and headaches to digestive issues or even strokes. On top of that, mental issues such as depression were believed to be caused by ghosts. A lot of the symptoms were also considered to be directly related to how the ghost died, for example if the patient had trouble breathing, it was assumed that the ghost afflicting the patient had died by drowning or suffocating. For each of the problems, a specific prescription would be given which consisted of a recitation addressed to a god of relevant power, or specific actions to be done to dispel the ghost, such as food and drink offerings. Most gods and goddesses were believed to have healing powers, but “Ninib” and “Gula” were especially considered to be gods of healing. According to Reteif (2007), people who had healing roles within the society were generally very respectable and had different ranks based on their importance. The role was so significant that royal healers in the Assyrian Empire would even have to an oath of office. All of these considered, it is clear how medicine was influenced by the theocratic state, priestly fraternities and the religious beliefs of the public.

A topic that also falls under the broad term of magic in the ancient Mesopotamia is divination. Mesopotamian temples and the personal diviners of the kings would try to predict the future and avoid harm through divination and astrology. A notable issue is that these prophecies were usually used by kings and higher classes within the society, and the people of the lower classes were not involved in this type of magic on a daily basis, though they participated in magical and religious rituals. The influence of divinations and prophecies is shown when we see that Mesopotamian kings consulted their diviners and the priests before making important decisions. For example, if the king was intending to invade a neighbour state, he would ask his diviners if the gods approve of his decision, so he could be assured that he is not angering the gods by his actions. Then he would make the decision based on the response, because if the gods were not happy with the king’s plan to invade, they could turn the events against him and result in his defeat. This shows how divination was heavily based on the religious beliefs and the gods.

Assyrian divination could be put into two categories of “omina oblativa” and “omina impetrative” which, as Cryer (1994) describes, are “which simply present themselves to the attention of the observer” and “those which the observer himself provokes” respectively.

Examples of “Omina oblivata” are lunar eclipses and any natural phenomena, which are events that happened independent of humans and were observed by the diviners. In Assyrian culture, these types of events could convey prophecies or actions and feelings of gods. On the other hand, “Omina impetrative” were actions taken by diviners and priests in order to obtain prophecies and avoid harm, which could include omen sacrifices, as well as offerings to the gods for preventing the consequences of their anger and disasters that were predicted.

Another method of obtaining prophecies was through extispicy, in which an animal would be purified during a ceremony and then slaughtered in specific manners. An autopsy would be done afterwards and some of the organs such as liver would be inspected and marked by the diviners, which would then be used for predicting different things, such as weather, current or upcoming health issues and political events. Sometimes if the results obtained by the predictions were not desirable, they would repeat the rituals and extispicies until they achieved results that were in favor of them, mostly the king’s. This can possibly mean that they did not have a clear line of reasoning behind these forms of magic, except for hoping that the gods will change their mind after more and more sacrifices. These animal sacrifices also suggest that this type of magic and divination were mostly exclusive to higher classes of the society, because animals such as sheep were expensive, and the lower classes would not be able to afford sacrificing them. Evidence from old Babylonian period shows that this was common practice for kings’ diviners as they wrote regular reports based on omens, stating the observation and whether the signs carried a positive or negative message.

A common method of divination throughout the history, including ancient Mesopotamia, has been celestial and astrological prophecies. Many reports have been found from 7-8 centuries BCE that prove Assyrian kings received regular reports of such, including observations of the movements of planets and stars and interpretations of them as well as quotes from a series of omens called “Enūma Anu Enlil”. An example of such report is this piece from a scholar called Nabu-Ahhe-Eriba “If the Goat star produces a mishu: the gods will forgive the land, they will have mercy on the land.”, which shows that this type of the divination were also based on the action of the gods and religious figures.

Astrological divinations, though more accessible than extispicy to lower classes, might have still been hard for the common people to obtain, as they didn’t have the knowledge to interpret their observations.

There were also reports of abnormal birth, strange animal behaviors, etc. that were sent to the kings. These reports claim that such events were specific signs and included interpretations of them. Sometimes they would also quote from “Šumma izbu”, which was a series of omens used as reference for these reports to predict the future.

Another magical practice in Mesopotamia although less common than the other methods) was necromancy. Necromancers were even mentioned in two versions of the list of professions, though referred to by different terms in each. There were multiple methods used by necromancers for summoning or communicating with the ghosts. One method was anointing of the eyes and an incantation that would be read, and then the person would be in a half-awake state to be inspired and able to summon a ghost. Another method of necromancy was to use a skull, in which the necromancer would conjure the ghost through a ritual, and have it resided inside the skull. The skull was believed to allow the ghost to be able to communicate with the necromancer. This method is rooted in Mesopotamians’ belief in afterlife and ghosts.

The purpose for the practice of necromancy was mainly to obtain prophecies and sometimes blessings from the ghosts. In a royal letter from the late Assyrian period, the author wrote that they intend to give a tablet to the king, containing a prophecy from a necromancer. Although there are different translations of this tablet, both mentioned two Assyrian gods, Assur and Samas, as well as including blessings from the ghost of the dead queen and her wish that the crown prince’s descendants “shall rule over Assyria”. This also shows that they believed gods were involved in every matter and each of those gods had specific roles that could be relevant in different scenarios.

In conclusion, magic and divination had important roles within the societies of ancient Mesopotamia, such that there were professional jobs defined for different magical purposes, including medical healers, diviners, necromancers, etc. Even though these solutions and methods might seem superstitious and useless to us today, it helped these ancient communities shape their culture and deal with the many problems that they faced. They established religions to find explanations for the unknown and based on their religious beliefs developed magical solutions. The medical practices of that time also revolved around the religious beliefs about gods and goddesses and their roles and characters. They also built divination on the belief that gods were responsible for different aspects of life and the events in the future. Moreover, their beliefs about afterlife led to necromancy and believing that ghosts were the cause of their illnesses.

Therefore, I believe religion, magic, divination and medicine in ancient Mesopotamia can’t be seen as separate topics as they are all rooted in the same systems of beliefs that were applied in different situations.

All of this is evidence for how advanced the Mesopotamian societies were, that despite the limitation of early civilization were eager to find answers and develop knowledge that they passed on for generations.