The Cult of Dead Kin in Assyria and Babylonia

Abstract

Assyriologists have long been aware of the evidence for a cult of the dead in Assyria and Babylonia, but there is at present, to the writer's knowledge, no systematic study of the subject. She has therefore examined the evidence relating to the cult of the dead, and attempted to compare the attitude towards dead kin shown in the cult with what we know of relations between living kin and of concepts of descent. In this study, comparisons are occasionally made with other societies not culturally connected with Mesopotamia. The writer's interest here lies in the application of social anthropology to the study of Mesopotamian society. Traditionally anthropologists have studied the type of society formerly called “primitive”, now more often called “small-scale” or “pre-industrial”. Ancient Mesopotamia was not a society of this type, but a peasant society, with a comparatively elaborate technology and a wide field of social relations, at least among the power-holding groups. Social anthropologists have only recently begun to study peasant societies. It will be appreciated that the writer has no formal training in social anthropology, and that this attempt is, therefore, highly tentative.The factors determining the existence and importance of a cult of dead kin in a society have not been clearly revealed by comparative study. Scheinfeld has indeed shown that all societies that have such a cult have also the institution of inheritance of property, but the evidence examined by him does not permit the conclusion that inheritance is a precondition for the existence of a cult of deceased kin.