Melammu

Workshops and
Monographs
7

Ceremonies, Feasts
and Festivities in
Ancient Mesopotamia
and the Mediterranean
World

Performance and
Participation

Proceedings of the 11th Melammu Workshop,

Barcelona, 29–31 January 2020

Edited by Rocío Da Riva, Ana Arroyo

and Céline Debourse

Zaphon
Ceremonies, Feasts and Festivities
in Ancient Mesopotamia and
the Mediterranean World

Performance and Participation

Proceedings of the 11th Melammu Workshop,

Barcelona, 29–31 January 2020

Edited by Rocío Da Riva,

Ana Arroyo and Céline Debourse
Melammu Workshops and Monographs

Volume 7

Edited by
Sebastian Fink and Robert Rollinger

Scientific Board
Alberto Bernabé (Madrid)
Josine Blok (Utrecht)
Rémy Boucharlat (Lyon)
Eckart Frahm (New Haven)
Mait Kõiv (Tartu)
Ingo Kottsieper (Göttingen)
Daniele Morandi Bonacossi (Udine)
Sabine Müller (Marburg)
Simonetta Ponchia (Verona)
Kurt Raaflaub (Providence)
Thomas Schneider (Vancouver)
Rahim Shayegan (Los Angeles)
Shigeo Yamada (Tsukuba)
Ceremonies, Feasts and Festivities
in Ancient Mesopotamia and
the Mediterranean World

Performance and Participation

Proceedings of the 11th Melammu Workshop,

Barcelona, 29–31 January 2020

Edited by Rocío Da Riva,

Ana Arroyo and Céline Debourse

Zaphon
Münster
2022
The Melammu Logo was drawn by Rita Berg from a Greco-Persian style seal found
on the north-eastern shore of the Black Sea (Dominique Collon, First Impressions:
Cylinder Seals in the Ancient Near East (London: British Museum Publications
1987), no. 432).
Illustration on the cover: © Ramón Álvarez Arza, based on Franz Heinrich
Weißbach, Babylonischen Miscellen. Wissenschaftliche Veröffentlichungen
der Deutschen Orient-Gesellschaft 4. Leipzig 1903, p. 16.

Ceremonies, Feasts and Festivities in Ancient Mesopotamia and

the Mediterranean World. Performance and Participation.
Proceedings of the 11th Melammu Workshop, Barcelona, 29–31 January 2020

Edited by Rocío Da Riva, Ana Arroyo and Céline Debourse

Melammu Workshops and Monographs 7

© 2022 Zaphon, Enkingweg 36, Münster (www.zaphon.de)

All rights reserved.

Printed in Germany. Printed on acid-free paper.

ISBN 978-3-96327-188-5 (Buch)

ISBN 978-3-96327-189-2 (E-Book)

ISSN 2698-8224
 Table of Contents

Introduction
Rocío Da Riva / Ana Arroyo / Céline Debourse ...................................................7

Hittite Open-Air Cult Places and their Relation to the Community

During Festivals
Ana Arroyo..........................................................................................................13
Greco-Anatolian Identity-Making in the Milesian Molpoi-Procession
Mary R. Bachvarova ...........................................................................................51
The New Year Festival in Seleucid Babylon: A Historical Assessment
Céline Debourse .................................................................................................85
Neo-Assyrian Victory Celebrations: A Spectacle for the People
Sebastian Fink ..................................................................................................115
Sacrifice and Feasting in Papyrus Amherst 63
Tawny L. Holm..................................................................................................135
Hera at Argos: Sanctuaries, Festivals, Myths and Stately Power
Mait Kõiv ..........................................................................................................171
Gods in the Archival and Other Middle Assyrian Texts: An Overview
Jaume Llop-Raduà ............................................................................................209
Weapons and Divine Symbols: Expressing the King’s Legitimacy
during Hittite Cultic Festivals
Alice Mouton .....................................................................................................227
Religious Travel and Pilgrimage in Mesopotamia and Anatolia:
Problems of Evidence and Typology
Ian Rutherford ..................................................................................................241
Slaves and Rituals in Ancient Societies
Kostas Vlassopoulos .........................................................................................257

Index .................................................................................................................293
 Religious Travel and Pilgrimage
in Mesopotamia and Anatolia
Problems of Evidence and Typology

Ian Rutherford*

Pilgrimage is a broad concept comprising any journey undertaken for a religious

reason, and it can be seen as a function of the tendency of places to be endowed
with religious significance. A good working definition would be: “a journey to a
sacred place to participate in a system of sacred beliefs” (McCorriston, 2011: 19).
Key variables in it are:
• Distance: Pilgrimages can be longer or shorter, and we can also ask, what is
the minimum distance required for a journey to count as a pilgrimage?
• Regularity: People may go on a certain pilgrimage once or many times.
• Participants: Who does it? Ordinary people? A king? An elite? Someone act-
ing for the state?
• Geography: Is the destination in the centre of a territory, easily accessible to
many, or is it at the edge?
• Ritualisation of journey: Is the journey heavily ritualised, with rituals per-
formed with “way-stations” along the route? or at least along a “sacred way”
leading immediately to the sanctuary?
• Special motivations: There are a number of special factors that can motivate
a pilgrimage, such as healing, consulting an oracle, or performing a rite of
passage.
• Social context and politics: In the modern world we usually make a distinc-
tion between politics (which is public) and religion (which is personal), but in
fact religion and politics are often mixed up, particularly in the ancient world.
Thus, pilgrimages were often undertaken by kings, with overt political sym-
bolism; alternatively, it has been argued that pilgrimage tends to bring groups
of people together in a sort of intense experience of “communitas,” reinforcing
a sense of community and identity (see Turner, 1974).
Not everyone agrees with the general way in which I am using the term “pilgrim-
age.” Some scholars have felt that pilgrimage should be seen as a phenomenon of
the great monotheistic religions – Christianity and Islam – in which it is under-
stood as a duty or a penance, with some ritualization of the journey. The alterna-
tive view that the term can be applied to forms of sacred travel in almost all human

*
Thanks to the organisers, to members of the audience (also to the audience of an online
paper on a similar subject at SOAS in December 2020) and to the anonymous readers.
242 Ian Rutherford

cultures is, however, well established by now.1 In the end, we should perhaps not
get too hung up on terminology – words are after all just tools – and it would be
possible to use alternative terms such as “sacred travel” or “cultic journey.”
In this paper I shall distinguish several types of pilgrimage in the Ancient Near
East and Anatolia, focussing mostly on the 3rd–2nd millennia BCE. I shall have
little to say about the Greco-Roman period, when (for example) there was a major
pilgrimage to the Syrian Goddess at Membig-Hierapolis, according to the Greco-
Syrian writer Lucian;2 nor shall I touch on the rich traditions of pilgrimage in
Judaism.
Pilgrimage in the Ancient Near East is comparatively under-researched, alt-
hough some work has been done recently.3 One reason for the lack of attention
may be the tendency already mentioned to associate pilgrimage exclusively with
later monotheistic cultures. Secondly, it has been argued by Joy McCorriston
(2011) that the fundamental social structures of Mesopotamia were incompatible
with pilgrimage which is instead distinctive of pastoralist societies, for example
that of Southern Arabia where regular journeys to religious sites and meetings
there are the basis of social life. In Mesopotamia, by contrast, the social “mega-
structure” was the royal household, around which the economy was based.
McCorriston is clearly right to distinguish different forms of social organisation,
but there is surely no need to insist that pilgrimage is a defining feature of one and
absent from the other; a more reasonable approach might be to say that a pastor-
alist society is defined by pilgrimage of a certain type, leaving open the possibility
that other forms of society might have other types.
At the outset we need to address certain issues of definition and scope. As I
suggested above, we need to decide how long a journey needs to be to count as a
pilgrimage; for example, the latter part of the great akītu festival in Babylon and
elsewhere took place at the akītu-house, which is usually assumed to have been
just outside the city, so that the journey there and back would not count as a pil-
grimage.4 Secondly, if the motive of pilgrimage is “to participate in a system of
sacred beliefs,” does it matter if, from a modern perspective at least, the journey
has other motivations as well, with religion providing only the pretext or frame?
Some royal pilgrimages have seemed to modern scholars political gestures rather
than genuinely religious activities (see on Mari below). A related problem is
posed by the famous sprint Shulgi of Ur claimed to have made from the sacred
city of Nippur to Ur and back again in one day, despite bad weather (the claim

1
See on this Rutherford, 2013: 12–14 and below p. 244.
2
Lightfoot, 2003.
3
See for example Ristvet, 2015, to which I shall refer frequently. Chelini / Branthomme,
1986 includes papers by Bottéro on Mesopotamian pilgrimage and Lebrun on Hittite pil-
grimage.
4
Bidmead, 2002: 6, 94–101. See Fleming, 2000: 135–136; Pongratz-Leisten, 2015: 418–
422.
 Religious Travel and Pilgrimage in Mesopotamia and Anatolia 243

was false since the journey each way is 100 miles). The overt motivation here was
religious, since he celebrated the eses-festival on the same day in both cities, but
Shulgi’s true aim may have been self-promotion and to advertise the opening of
a new road.5
In what follows I will distinguish five types of pilgrimage, where the definition
is reasonably uncontroversial: royal pilgrimage, pilgrimage where the gods are
represented as the agents, first fruit offerings, healing pilgrimage and communal
pilgrimage.

Royal pilgrimage
Some of the best early evidence comes from Early Dynastic Lagash, a complex
“bipolar” state comprising two main centres at Lagash itself and at Girsu, about
25 km to the West. Girsu seems to have been a religious centre, seat of the god
Ningirsu. A third centre 5 km to the East was Nigin, seat of the goddess Nanshe.
Perhaps the earliest explicitly recorded pilgrimage anywhere in the world was
made by Gudea, governor of Lagash (2nd Dynasty, 22nd or 21st century BCE) who
reports he went from Lagash to Nigin to have his dream interpreted by Nanshe,
stopping at Bagara on the way to pray (Cylinder A. ii. 4–19).6 The religious nature
of this journey seems to be clear from religious elements at the beginning, middle
and end.7 Administrative texts from the First Dynasty, two centuries earlier, allow
scholars to reconstruct several multi-day cultic festival processions starting from
Girsu (Rey, 2016: 46–47). One, the “festival of the barley consumption of Nan-
she,” led by the wife of the governor, went East to Lagash and Nigin.8 To the
West, there was another route that led to the area between Girsu and the city of
Umma, which Eannatum of Lagash defeated in battle.9 It seems likely that one
purpose of this journey, and of the others, was to establish symbolic religious
control of the territory. For those familiar with ancient Greece these resemble the
religio-political geography of a Greek city state, where visits to external sanctu-
aries served to mark out and confirm the state’s borders.10
At Ebla similar perambulations of territory can also be reconstructed. In one,
part of a coronation ritual, the king and queen, having been married in Ebla, make

5
Klein, 1981: 180–181 on Sulgi A; 239 on Sulgi V; Frayne, 1983 aims to dramatise the
opening of the road: Frayne, 1983: 744. Sulgi also claimed to have visited temples before
military campaigns: Klein, 1981: 49 n. 114, 54 n. 130 on Sulgi D, 287–320.
6
See translation in Edzard, 1997: 70–71. Visits by farmers to Nanshe’s temple to receive
dreams are also mentioned in the Sumerian Song of the Plowing Oxen; see Civil, 1976;
reference thanks to Renberg, 2017: 48 n. 30.
7
Averbeck, 1987: 286–287; cf. also Renberg, 2017: 47–48.
8
See also Selz, 1995: 191–198; for the Nanshe festival, see also the earlier account in
Cohen, 1995: 44–46; Cohen, 2015: 34–37, who talks about “pilgrims.”
9
See also Selz, 1995: 237–238.
10
De Polignac, 1995; a parallel noted by Rey, 2016: 1 and 67.
244 Ian Rutherford

a four day journey, accompanied by statues of the two chief gods of Ebla, Kura
and his consort Barama. They stop at six towns on route, and arrive in Binas (per-
haps 20 km North of Ebla), site of a mausoleum of earlier kings, and they pass
the night there, seated on the throne of the royal ancestors. This ritual is repeated
for three weeks, and then they return to Ebla, having taken on the mantle of king-
ship (Ristvet, 2015: 36, 41–42, 68).11 Other pilgrimages in the region honoured
the god 'Adabal, who was mainly worshipped at cult centres some distance from
Ebla, e.g. in the Orontes Valley to the South; for example the ritual confraternity
known as the ses-II-ib started at Luban and visited thirty-five other towns, includ-
ing Ebla. Ristvet argues (2015: 69–71) that all these journeys had the effect of
unifying the territory of Ebla, albeit in the case of the more distant places the
effect was more tenuous.12 She also points to several other sites in North Syria
which could have served as pilgrimage centres for local communities in the mid
3rd millennium BCE (Ristvet, 2015: 74–87).
A ruler whose journeys – religious or otherwise – are particularly well docu-
mented is Zimri-Lim of Mari. Cinzia Pappi (2012) distinguishes three categories:
first, Urban Processions (siḫirtum); secondly, regional journeys, such as the fes-
tival of Ištar Dēritum at Dēr and the journey, culminating at Terqa; and thirdly
“long-range” journeys, such as to Ḫušlā in the North and to Aleppo and Ugarit in
the West. Pappi (2012: 587–588) raises the issue of definition (see above), argu-
ing that while regional journeys may qualify as pilgrimages, the long-range jour-
neys do not, since they are motivated mainly by political factors, and lack various
features essential to pilgrimage: communal participation, inclusion in a cultic cal-
endar, and the symbolic character of the journey. In the end different scholars may
disagree about terminology; for me, the idea that the presence of political factors
disqualifies a journey from having the status of “pilgrimage” seems to arise from
the modern assumption that an easy distinction can be made between religion and
ordinary life. In the ancient world religion and politics are very much mixed up,
often being two sides of the same thing. In any case, even Zimri-Lim’s long jour-
ney to the West could have had a significant religious motivation, because the
Storm God of Aleppo must have been important in his world view.
Elaborate politico-religious journeys were also undertaken by Hittite kings and
other members of the royal family. They formed part of some of the main state-
festivals: in the spring the AN.TAH.SUM festival which took its name from a
type of plant, perhaps a crocus, and in the autumn the nuntarriyasḫa (festival of

11
Ristvet, 2015: 36: “The kingdom’s coronation ritual … illustrates the dynamic relation-
ship among pilgrimage, territorial definition, and political power. In order to ascend Ebla’s
throne, the king, queen and their divine counterparts undertook a pilgrimage around the
kingdom, ending with a long ceremony at the royal mausoleum, in which they were re-
made in the image of their ancestors ….” See also Archi, 2013.
12
Ristvet, 2015: 71: “Like the coronation ceremony, these yearly pilgrimage served to knit
the land together, underscoring the shared religious experience of diverse places.”
 Religious Travel and Pilgrimage in Mesopotamia and Anatolia 245

“haste” or “timeliness”), both of them over a month long, in which the king and
other members of the royal family moved between locales, starting and ending in
the capital. Another spring festival was the purulli (perhaps “festival of earth”),
celebrated among other places at Nerik in the North (modern Oymaağaç) there
was a royal pilgrimage to Nerik (the “Festival of the Road”), stopping at way-
stations en route, with a certain amount of ritualization, such as putting on white
clothing, and taking part in sacrifices, and feasts.13 It may be objected that Nerik
was under foreign occupation for much of the Hittite period, so this pilgrimage
could not in fact have happened, at least on a regular basis. But that hardly mat-
ters; in fact, its inaccessibility may have increased its desirability as a pilgrimage
destination.
Symbolic royal pilgrimage in the Ancient Near East can be followed right
down to the classical period. Esarhaddon visited the temple of Sîn in Harran in
667 BCE before his campaign against Egypt.14 Alexander the Great famously vis-
ited the oracle of Zeus Ammon at the Siwa Oasis when his armies invaded Egypt
in 331 BCE. Roman emperors often visited religious centres; for example, Cara-
calla who like Esarhaddon visited the temple of the moon god Harran in 217 AD;
he was killed on the way back when he supposedly stopped to urinate.15

Divine journeys and human journeys

In another type of sacred journey attested in Mesopotamia the primary travellers
were represented as being led by gods and goddesses. These are best known from
colourful Sumerian narrative texts, but administrative and economic records
prove that these journeys took place, with divine statues probably representing the
gods.16 Many divine journeys were quite short, such as that of Ninlil from Nippur
to Tummal during the Tummal festival,17 but some were longer, with Nippur and
Eridu as the main destinations. Key examples include:
• Inanna’s journey from Uruk to Eridu to obtain Enki’s powers.
• Nanna-Suen’s journey from Ur to Nippur.
• Nin-isina’s journey from Isin to Nippur.
Typically, the journey is represented as joyous with way stations and it culminates
in communal feasting at the destination.
Could at least some of these journeys be described as pilgrimages? It might be
thought counter-intuitive for a deity to be a pilgrim, if the main point of pilgrim-
age is to visit the gods; but it perhaps makes a difference if the pilgrim-god is

13
Corti, 2018b: 54 on KBo 23.89. See also Lebrun, 1987.
14
Letter of Marduk-sumu-usur; Parpola, 1993: no. 174, 136–137.
15
On the journeys of Roman emperors see Halfmann, 1986.
16
Wagensonner, 2005; Bottéro, 1987; Sauren, 1969; Sjöberg, 1957: 71; Feuerherm, 2011.
Penglase, 1994 discusses possible reception of Sumerian divine journeys in Greek hymns.
17
See Paszke, 2014: 33–34.
246 Ian Rutherford

accompanied by a human contingent. Jean Bottéro saw Nanna-Suen’s journey to

Nippur with its joyful way-stations as a “seasonal rite of pilgrimage” led by the
king along with a flotilla of “priests, dignitaries and devotees.”18 So too Klaus
Wagensonner has observed that when the goddess Nin-isina(k) set out from Isin
for Nippur, there was a well organised procession including her family members
and apparently participation by the city of Isin, which he suggests resembles a
Christian pilgrimage (2005: 159).
One divine journey may have not been entirely joyful and in fact may have
had a funeral aspect. Consider the mythological text the Descent of Inanna where
Inanna heads for the underworld, abandoning her temples in a number of towns,
which follow a geographical sequence:
• She abandoned the E-ana in Unug, and descended to the underworld.
• She abandoned the E-muš-kalama in Bad-tibira, and descended to the un-
derworld.
• She abandoned the Giguna in Zabalam, and descended to the underworld.
• She abandoned the E-šara in Adab, and descended to the underworld.
• She abandoned the Barag-dur-ĝara in Nibru, and descended to the under-
world.
• She abandoned the Ḫursaĝ-kalama in Kiš, and descended to the under-
world.
• She abandoned the E-Ulmaš in Agade, and descended to the underworld.
It has been suggested by Giorgio Buccellati (1982) that this list comprises way-
stations on a ritual journey the next stop on which would have been Cutha, abode
of the Lord of the Dead. If Inanna’s Descent actually was acted out as a ritual
journey to Cutha, then we might expect it to have had a sombre tone, though this
could have been balanced by a celebratory return journey if the goddess was rep-
resented as re-emerging into the land of upper world. It may be noted that an
association between pilgrimage and death has been documented in other cul-
tures.19

Conveying first fruit offerings

First fruit offerings (nesaĝ) are often mentioned as being conveyed to Nippur.20
They are mentioned in a number of texts, including the Lamentation over the De-
struction of Sumer and Ur which sees the absence of first fruit offerings as a sign
of disaster (325–326, tr. Michalowski):

18
Bottéro, 1987: 53; id., 2001: 130. In the Neo-Babylonian period we know that divine
statues visiting Uruk were accompanied by “cultic assembles” (kiništu) from different cit-
ies (Zaia / Cauchi, 2019).
19
See Turner, 1975.
20
Klein, RlA 9 (1998–2001) s. Nippur A.1: 532–538, at 536.
 Religious Travel and Pilgrimage in Mesopotamia and Anatolia 247

“The boat with its first fruit offerings no longer brings its first fruit offer-
ings to the father who begat him (Nanna) / Its food offerings could not be
taken to Enlil in Nippur.”
In another text, Sîn-Iddinam of Larsa says he brought first fruits to the god Nanna
at Ur, and then these were conveyed to Nippur.21 So we have here a sort of two
stage sacred journey, Larsa to Ur and then Ur to Nippur. It is not clear whether
the king was involved in bringing the offerings to Nippur.

Communal pilgrimage and common sanctuaries

In many cultures pilgrimage brings together larger numbers of people in a com-
munal celebration. The great national pilgrimages in Judaism are an example, as
are the national and regional festivals of Ancient Greece.22 In the Hittite world
there are a few traces of people or delegates from a region meeting at festivals.23
From Mesopotamia there is less evidence. It has sometimes been suggested there
was mass pilgrimage to a festival at Nippur,24 but direct evidence is lacking. Nor
does evidence survive from Assyria. In the Neo-Assyrian empire there were great
meetings of foreign delegates called “ṣīrāni” (from singular ṣīru) who feasted
together (5000 of them attended the inauguration of a new palace and temple at
Kalhu (Nimrud) under Assurnasirpal II in 879 BCE),25 though the context was
not a festival.
The best evidence for communal pilgrimage comes from Mari, where the great
festival of Ištar is known to have drawn large numbers of vassals (who seem to
have been obliged to attend) and diplomats, and maybe other people as well.26
Zimri-Lim of Mari seems to have used divine festivals as meeting places, since
according to one letter he has his “kings” assemble at a festival of Ištar at Tar-
manni.27 Also important are two temples of the deity Dagan on the Euphrates,

21
See the edition by Wagensonner, 2007; also in Sallaberger, 1993: 154–155.
22
Jewish: see Rutherford, 2017; Greek: see Rutherford, 2013: 264–266.
23
See Rutherford, 2020: 244.
24
Hilprecht, 1904: 40: “Apparently the large mass of pilgrims, having no access to the
holy of holies of the temple, was permitted in this court, where at certain times of the year
they assembled from all parts of the country, after the fashion of the Mecca pilgrims, in
order to lay down their offerings and to perform their prayers at the most renowned sanc-
tuary of Babylonia.” Gibson, 1993: 4: “As is the case with the world’s other holy cities,
such as Jerusalem, Mecca, and Rome, Nippur was a vibrant economic centre. Besides the
economic benefits derived from gifts and on-going maintenance presented by kings and
rich individuals, there was probably a continuing income from pilgrims.”
25
See Postgate, 1974: 123–128; Wiseman, 1982: 315–316.
26
Durand, 2000: 124–129, with references; Maniaczyk, 2014: 64; Ristvet, 2015: 92;
Charpin / Durand, 1997: 31–32.
27
Postgate, 1994: 46, after Dossin, 1938: no. 114; cf. Ristvet, 2015: 93. The name of the
town was previously read as Sarmeneh, but see Durand, 1987: 230 and Ziegler / Langlois,
248 Ian Rutherford

Terqa in the orbit of Mari, and Tuttul in that of Emar to the West. Jean-Marie
Durand has called these “villes de pèlerinage” (2008: 370). Kings of Mari and
Mariote officials visit Terqa, but surviving texts give the impression that other
people wanted to sacrifice there as well, including local kings, of whom the au-
thorities are suspicious. Here are three examples:
1) A letter to Zimri-Lim from minister Sammetar, apparently relating to Tuttul:28
“Daddi-Hadun wrote to me saying: ‘I want to sacrifice to Dagan’; and
I replied by way of a pretext saying: ‘The sacrifices offered by the
people of the country are immense; come back in three days and sacri-
fice at night ….”
This text implies that a large number of people wanted to sacrifice.
2) According to a letter from Lanasum who represented Zimri-Lim at Tuttul,
Bunuma-Addu, a king of Zalmaqum, wanted to sacrifice there;29 the priest of
Tuttul, Yakbar-Lim, wrote to the people of Emar who told him that Bunuma-
Addu can only do so if he limits his entourage to 20 men.
3) Most interestingly, another letter from Sammetar30 reports the case of Yagih-
Addu who wanted to sacrifice at Terqa but was prevented from doing so; he
complains:
“Before when we resided at Terqa, we declared ‘Terqa is free (waššur)
for Dagan’. Before, the Subareans and the people of Hahhum guarded
the front of the Great Gate. Now, it’s the people of Larsa who do it.
What access could I have?”
Two general observations may be made about these texts. First, we only know
about pilgrimage to Dagan at these sites because Mariote officials wrote letters
concerning problems that arose; when the pilgrimage took place without incident,
as usually happened no doubt, it went unrecorded.31 More broadly, there must
have been many other “villes de pèlerinage” for which no evidence survives. Sec-
ondly, the expression in the third letter “is free for Dagan” is worthy of note.32 It
calls to mind religious practice in ancient Greece, where some sanctuaries are
owned by one city, others are shared (“common,” koina), and problems can hap-

2016: 360–361.
28
Durand, 2008: 1.371 (cf. A3019); Feliu, 2003: 102–103 thinks it refers to Terqa.
29
ARM 26/1 no. 246 (cf. Feliu, 2003: 83).
30
Durand, 2008: 1.367 (A2552).
31
Sallaberger, 2008 comments on a text with a comparable incident from the late 3rd mil-
lennium BCE: a man attached to the royal house of Ebla claims that he went to Tuttul to
sacrifice when the son of the king of Mari also went there to sacrifice, and was physically
assaulted and robbed by a man from Mari.
32
On the term, see CAD U–W: 315, s.v. ussuru 2c.
 Religious Travel and Pilgrimage in Mesopotamia and Anatolia 249

pen when a common sanctuary is blocked to one group. For example, the Mace-
donian queen Olympias is said to have blocked access to the sanctuary of Zeus
and Dione to Athens in 331 BCE.33

Healing pilgrimage
Healing pilgrimage is common in many religious traditions, but it is not attested
in Mesopotamia. There were certainly deities who specialised in healing, such as
Gula of Isin; Itūr-Mēr is supposed to have performed a healing function at Mari.34
Healing pilgrimage to Isin seem to be the context of a text from the Kassite period
worked on by Andrew George (1993), Ninurta-paqidat’s Dog Bite:
“Ninurta-paqidat … was bitten by a dog and went to Isin, the city of the
Lady of Health (Bēlet-balāṭi), to be healed. Amel-Baba of Isin, the high
priest of Gula, saw him, recited an incantation for him and healed him.”
And then Ninurta-paqidat invites the priest to Nippur, which sets up the main
story which exposes the priest’s limitations. Ninurta-paqidat’s interest in Gula
may have been motivated by the fact that she was a dog specialist; but on balance,
this does suggest the practice of healing pilgrimage, and not just for dog bites.
Possibly the ritual involved touching a dog: metallic figurines found at the site
may represent suppliants with animals,35 and a ritual text says: “If a man goes to
the temple of his god, and if he touches …?, he is clean (again?); Likewise if he
touches the dog of Gula, he is clean (again?).”36 Another indication of healing
pilgrimage to Isin may be the votive models of body parts that have been found
there; similar votive models have been found in the context of pilgrimage in other
cultures.37 Finally, there may be indirect evidence for pilgrimage in a text from
Larsa recording a dedication made on behalf of king Rim-Sin and his daughter
Liris-gamlum by his wife Rim-Sîn-Sala-Baštašu (18th century BCE). The purpose
of this dedication may have been to secure the health of the daughter, protecting
her from various demons, and since it also asks that she be protected from bandits,
the suggestion has been made that the daughter was being sent on a journey to
Isin.38

33
Hyperides 4.24–25; Rutherford, 2013: 119. Common sanctuaries: Neer, 2007: 226; Bas-
lez, 1999: 389 n. 5. Cf. the dispute between Hierapytna and Itanos over the sanctuary of
Zeus Diktaios in 140 BCE, Chaniotis, 1996: no. 49 (= ICret. 3.4.9); Chaniotis, 1988c: 26–
28.
34
Durand, 1998: 631–632; Nakata, 2011.
35
Hrouda, in Ayoub et al., 1977: 52 on IB 29 = Taf. 12.25.
36
CT 39, 38 r 8’, see CAD K: 71ss, s.v. kalbu.
37
Spycket, 1990; Charpin, 2017: 34–39.
38
RIM E4.2.14.23 (= Frayne, 1990: 302–303), especially lines 30–31; see also George,
2011: 113–114, no. 53.
250 Ian Rutherford

Conclusion
To sum up: first, pilgrimage is well attested in Mesopotamia, though the form it
takes varies from place to place and period to period. The most common form
attested is that made by kings and other members of the elite, sometimes with
gods represented as leading the way. At Mari the evidence is particularly rich,
with both royal pilgrimages, mass attendance at major festivals, and pilgrimage
to common sanctuaries of Dagan in Tuttul and Terqa. It is worth repeating that
surviving evidence most likely under-represents the true volume of pilgrimage,
particularly since the texts are mostly written from the point of view of ruling
elites.
Secondly, it is clear from many of the examples collected here that pilgrimage
in Mesopotamia often involved a performance with an implied audience compris-
ing both humans (including perhaps ancestors) and, potentially, gods. People in
towns must have seen the processions as they passed by, even if they did not take
part.39 Religious performances such as this can be thought of as elaborate forms
of signalling, where the agents and organisers advertise their devotion to the gods
as a way of demonstrating their status and power.40
Finally, the typology suggested here is of course subject to revision and/or
expansion partly because new evidence may arise but also because of the crucial
issue of definition and scope mentioned earlier. Take the example of the ritual of
the river ordeal, which in the early 2nd millennium BCE (Old Babylonian Period)
seems to have been carried out at Hit on the Euphrates between Mari and Babylon.
This site had a transregional reputation, drawing people who wanted to resolve
disputes from as far as Carchemish and Elam. There clearly was a religious di-
mension here in so far as a god (the River God, or perhaps behind him Enki) was
believed to decide the issue.41 In this respect the whole process resembles the
operation of a Greek oracle, such as that of Apollo at Delphi or Zeus at Dodona,
with consultants traveling journeys of many days to submit a question to the god.
From a modern perspective it seems counter intuitive to apply the term “pilgrim-
age” to what seems a practical matter of dispute resolution, albeit within a reli-
gious frame. But can it be legitimately excluded, if we adopt the broad definition
of pilgrimage suggested at the start?

39
Similarly, kings were aware of the impact of convoys accompanying royal brides, cf.
EA 11, 16–22 (Moran, 1992: 21): too few chariots; and Ramesses II’s Marriage Stele
(Kitchen, 1993–2014: 2.95): Egyptian and Hittite troops mingling together.
40
For the idea of “costly signalling” in the study of pilgrimage see Kantner / Vaughn,
2012. They study two early pilgrimage traditions in the Americas: one in Chaco Canyon
N. New Mexico, where there is evidence for transregional ceremonial activity in the period
800–1100 AD, and another in S. Peru, Cahuachi, which belongs to the Nasca culture, a
major centre in the first five centuries AD.
41
Van Soldt, 2003 (for gods: 126–127); Durand, 1988: 509–539 (for the catchment area:
522).
 Religious Travel and Pilgrimage in Mesopotamia and Anatolia 251

Abbreviations
ARET Archivi reali de Ebla – Testi. Roma.
ARM Archives Royales de Mari. Paris.
CAD I.J. Gelb et al. (eds.): The Assyrian Dictionary of the Oriental Institute
of the University of Chicago. Chicago 1956–2010.
CT Cuneiform Texts from Babylonian Tablets in the British Museum. Lon-
don.
EA J.A. Knudtzon, Die El-Amarna Tafeln. Leipzig 1915.
ICret M. Guarducci, M., Inscriptiones Creticae. I. Tituli Cretae Mediae prae-
ter Gortynios. II. Tituli Cretae Occidentalis. III. Tituli Cretae Orien-
talis. IV. Tituli Gortynii. Roma 1935, 1939, 1942, 1950.
MARI Mari, Annales de Recherches Interdisciplinaires. Paris.
RlA Reallexikon der Assyriologie. Berlin 1928–2018.
RIM The Royal Inscriptions of Mesopotamia. Toronto 1981–.

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