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mostlydeadlanguages · 7 years

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Two Old Aramaic Curse Litanies (KAI 309 and KAI 222)

These inscriptions are two of the oldest documents we have in Aramaic, and both offer vivid examples of Semitic curse formulas. In situations where it would be difficult to punish someone with human courts, divine appeals were paired with magical curses to strike the offending party.

The first inscription was written on the skirts of a statue of King Hadd-yit’i, to warn future generations against defacing or removing the statue. The inscription is bilingual, written in both Akkadian (the international lingua franca of the time) and Aramaic (the local vernacular). It was carved around the 9th century BCE in northeast Syria, near modern Ras al-Ayn.

The second inscription comes from a group of 8th-century stelas near Aleppo that documented a treaty between an Aramean city-state and a Mesopotamian ruler. The treaty’s terms are decidedly imbalanced; Mati’el is required to stay loyal to his Mesopotamian allies, but no reciprocal terms are mandated. (Many biblical scholars have compared the treaty to aspects of the book of Deuteronomy.)

I’ve said this before, but it’s impossible for me to research these texts outside the context of the recent situation in Syria, where the “clamor of screaming and wailing” is far too strong. If you can, please support the World Food Program, a non-partisan organization that has been sustaining Syrian refugees and is now addressing widespread famine in Africa. Any amount helps.

The Inscription of Hadd-yit’i’s Statue (Aramaic Version)

[This is] the statue of Hadd-yit’i, which he set up before Hadad-of-Sikkan — who supervises the waterways of heaven and earth, who pours down abundance, who gives pasture and irrigation to all lands, who provides wells and jugs to all the gods, his brothers, who supervises the waterways of all rivers, who turns all lands into a paradise, Merciful God whose hears prayer kindly, who dwells in Sikkan, great lord, lord of Hadd-yit’i, king of Gozan, son of Sas-nuri, king of Gozan — in order to revive his spirit, lengthen his life, multiply his years, preserve his house, preserve his heirs, preserve his people, ward misfortune from him, hear his prayers, and accept his requests. He constructed it, and he gave it to him.

If it should ever crumble, may later generations restore it and put my name upon it. But if anyone strips my name from it and puts down his own name, may mighty Hadad prosecute him!

[This is] an image of Hadd-yit’i, king of Gozan, Sikkan, and Azran. In order to undergird his throne, lengthen his life, and ensure that gods and humans would accept his requests, he made this statue; he improved on the earlier one. He placed the image before Hadad, who dwells in Sikkan, lord of the Habur.

If anyone strips my name from the implements of my lord Hadad’s temple:

May my lord Hadad refuse bread and water from his hands. May my lady Suwala refuse bread and water from his hands. May he sow but not harvest. May he sow a thousand rows of barley and gain back only one. May a hundred ewes suckle a lamb without sating it. May a hundred cows suckle a calf without sating it. May a hundred women suckle a baby without sating it. May a hundred women bake bread in a tandoor without filling it. May his people forage in trash piles for barley to eat. May plague, the agent of Nergal, never depart from his land.

The Sefire Inscription (Excerpts)

[The first section lists the treaty’s parties — Bir-Ga’yah, king of KTK, and Mati’el, king of Arpad — and reiterates that it also applies to all their descendants and peoples.] [1]

They set up the stele with this text as this treaty.

Divine Witnesses

Bir-Ga’yah has forged this treaty before Ashur and Mullesh, and before Marduk and Zarpanitu, and before Nabu and Tashmet, and before Erra and Nuska, and before Nergal and Laṣ, and before the Sun and the Light, and before the Moon and the Moon’s Bride, and before NKR and KD’H, and before all the gods of Raḥbah and Adam [2], and before Hadad of Aleppo, and before the Seven, and before El and Elyon, and before Heaven and Earth, and before the Abyss and the Fountains, and before Day and Night.

All the gods of KTK and the gods of Arpad are witnesses.

Consequences of Betrayal

If Mati’el bar Attarsamak, king of Arpad, proves false to Bir-Ga’yah, king of KTK, or if a descendant of Mati’el proves false to a descendant of Bir-Ga’yah:

[About five lines are missing here.]

… a ewe, may she not conceive. If seven nurses grease their breasts to suckle a boy, may he not have enough. [3] If seven mares suckle a colt, may it not have enough. If seven ewes suckle a lamb, may it not have enough. If seven widows go seeking vengeance, may they kill nothing. [4]

If Mati’el proves false to Bir-Ga’yah, his son, or his descendants, may his reign become like a reign of sand — a reign of sand! — for as long as Ashur reigns. May Hadad send forth everything evil in earth or in heaven, and everything harmful. May he send hailstones onto Arpad.

For seven years, may the locust consume. For seven years, may the maggot consume. For seven years, may chaos (?) rise up on the earth’s surface.

May no grass sprout, so no green is seen. May no plants be seen. May the sound of the lyre not be heard in Arpad. May its people have a cacophony of oppression and a clamor of screaming and wailing. May the gods send everything that consumes to Arpad and its people. May snake, scorpion, bear, moth, and mold consume. […] a serpent’s gullet. May its plants be utterly annihilated. May Arpad become a den for [wild creatures:] the gazelle, the fox, the hare, the wildcat, the owl, […] and the magpie. May they speak of this city no more — nor of MDR’, MRBH, MZH, MNLH, ŠRN, Tu’im, Bethel, BYNN, […] Arneh, Ḥazaz, or Adam.

Sympathetic Curses [5]

Just as this wax burns in fire, so may Arpad and her many satellites be burned.

May Hadad sow them with salt and weeds, and may they speak of her no more.

This thief (?) and this […] are Mati’el; it is his spirit. [6]

Just as this wax burns in fire, so may Mati’el burn in fire.

Just as this bow and these arrows are smashed, so may Anahita (?) and Hadad smash the bow of Mati’el and the bows of his chiefs.

Just as (this) wax man is blinded, so may Mati’el be blinded.

Just as this calf is cleaved, so may Mati’el be cleaved and his chiefs be cleaved.

Just as (this?) prostitute is stripped naked, so may Mati’el’s wives be stripped naked — and his descendants’ wives, and his chiefs’ wives. [7]

Just as this wax woman burns and is struck in the face, so may they take Mati’el’s wives and […]

[The remainder of the treaty contains the actual terms of agreement, which include provisions like fighting Bir-Ga’yah’s enemies and providing a tribute. However, the text is extremely broken.]

[1] Arpad was a city-state in Syria, near modern Aleppo. KTK was apparently a city or region in Mesopotamia, but a hundred years of scholars have been unable to figure out where.

[2] “Adam” is likely the name of an unknown city, despite its resemblance to the biblical character and his namesake (adamah, the ground).

[3] Seven may seem a little unimpressive, compared to the hundreds in the previous set of curses. My theory is that the author of this curse was engaging in a little wordplay. Instead of a hundred, they wrote seven (שׁבע); instead of “to sate,” they wrote “to satisfy” (שׂבע).

[4] This line is rather difficult and uncertain. “Widows” is literally “weeping women”; women in the ancient Near East were also hired as professional mourners. My own guess is that this line means that after the babies die of starvation, their mothers will be unable to enact revenge. Another alternative is, “If seven hens go seeking food, they shall kill nothing.” The word for “war” or “food” is also the word “bread,” and so the parallelism with the Fekherye curse sequence above makes me want to translate this as a similar attempt to bake bread. However, the word for the female actors isn’t connected to baking (that I could find), and the word for killing also isn’t used in a culinary context, so it would take substantial new evidence to show that.

[5] I mean “sympathetic” in the magical sense, exemplified in popular culture by the “voodoo doll”: the idea that a magical connection exists between similar things, so that things done to one will affect the other. This sort of curse was very common in the ancient Near East — Hittite treaties in particular often featured it. Most likely, each part of this section was accompanied by a physical ritual in the initial treaty agreement.

[6] This line is both broken and confusing. Something appears to be identified with Mati’el and his spirit (i.e. his personhood), but “thief” would only make simple sense if a human thief were punished as part of the ritual, which would be unusual. No better suggestion has been made, unless the term refers to an unknown kind of wax figurine.

[7] The context would seem to imply that an actual prostitute would be stripped at this point in the ritual, but it could merely intend to evoke a well-known mental image, as “this prostitute” is not stated explicitly.

#aramaic #old aramaic #northwest semitic #translation #curses #vassal treaties #Law and Treaties #inscriptions #sefire #tell fekherye

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herchainsaregone · 11 years

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why did u discharge urself ama?

because of my mom

#Monte Nido #MNLH #treatment #residential #messages

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brunchbitch · 7 years

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So I went to get the bandages/stitches taken off which hurt more than I thought it would. Some stitches have to stay in bc they’re dissolvable which is annoying bc I can’t stop touching (tonguing?) them. But the doc said I was an “all-star healer”, that he was pleased with how it looks so far but wants to see me back in six weeks to check again on healing and then we’ll schedule the next procedure. When he first took the bandage off, he was like “wow. That looks great. It healed well! How nice it is to be young and healthy!” And I sort of wanted to laugh bc idk if I’ve ever heard a doc call me healthy between my back issues and all the medical complications from cutting, OD’s, and the ED. But he doesn’t know about that stuff so it makes sense. I was like “man if you could’ve seen me a year ago...” bc today is my one-year anniversary of going to MN with a cane and unable to talk. I feel so far from that girl, though, so it was kind of cool to hear him call me healthy. (Yes there were SOME disordered thoughts there of course but fuck them).

#gum graft #gum surgery #personal #update #recovery #ed recovery #anorexia recovery #mnlh

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brunchbitch · 7 years

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Had a tough talk with T today. Group was really good - the topic was recovery sabotaging behaviors - which is always weirdly the topic they choose when I'm starting to slip. When I told T about the weight fears after I gave blood she was like "ginny... are you serious? You didn't lose weight! Your blood is not your weight!" And I was like "um... it kind of is though? It's part of your mass! I should've lost the amount of weight that my blood weighed." She said "do you hear how ridiculous you're being right now?" And I know she didn't mean it in a hurtful way but I got kind of defensive and was like arguing why I was right. She said "who are you defending yourself to?" I paused and said "idk... everyone? ... maybe myself." She asked how I was doing with behaviors and I said I've kind of started cutting corners. She said "like what?" I told her, and then said it's been hard since family therapy last week re: my dinner not being "nutritious" enough. She said "ginny you HAVE to bring this up in family therapy. Brandon and Karen and your parents need to hear when they have said something hurtful or triggering or they'll never learn." When we talked about the ways in which I'm cutting corners, I said "but I'm having a hard time playing the tape out bc a big part of me doesn't care about the consequences, like then I can just dive right back into what's familiar and comfortable and easy. Brandon said he would totally understand if I chose to go that direction so now I sort of feel like I have permission." T said "well if you can't play the tape out forward, let's play it backward. Less than a year ago, you literally could not talk or walk. You were using a cane, it took you forever to walk or go up the stairs, and nobody could hear you when you tried to talk. Do you remember that?" I don't think I could ever forget it, but I think she was making a good point that I need to remember how terrible I felt in the fall. She said "I will leave you with this thought - you are living your own life right now. You're not living with your parents, they're not watching you like a hawk, they don't have medical guardianship (which is a possibility)" and I kind of laughed. She said "why did you scoff? You don't think that may happen?" And I was like "no. The GR team would say that's enabling." She said "ok whatever but the point is that right now you are in control of your life and you've made choices to start doing really exciting things that you love, like the play and the cat shelter and going back to school, which I know can also be scary for you bc it's unfamiliar and entails more responsibility, but you are in charge of how your life looks right now. Don't let that be taken away bc of your ed." As she hugged me goodbye she said "I'm always so happy when I get to see you. I hope you know everything I say is trying to encourage you even if it may not feel like it." I said "I love you" and she said "I love you too" and just squeezed me for a little bit. Next weekend is family weekend so I probably won't go bc I find it annoying and unhelpful to have so many supports there. But it was really nice to go today to see T bc I haven't seen her for three weeks. She gave me a lot to think about.

#tw ed #tc #t #mnlh #personal #update

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brunchbitch · 7 years

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You mentioned that Brandon/Karen's approach is very different from the MN approach. Did you ever have a hard time adjusting to the MN approach?

Yes I did! It felt sooooo weird. I remember the day of my first family session it was a REALLY hard one. We spent like 50 min on the phone with my parents and I totally shut down and was sobbing. We ended the call and I was expecting T and the clinical director to pass me off to a recovery coach and they would help me calm down but T just sat there with me as I was sobbing and sobbing and she talked to me for literally like at least another half an hour, then took me downstairs to the kitchen to do ice diving and sat by my side the whole time rubbing my back and talking to me. All in all I think it was close to two hours that she spent with me and at the end she gave me a loooong hug and was like “every time I hug you, I always imagine the GR team going ‘noooo’” and that made me laugh. It felt like I was almost doing something “wrong” at first, like that the GR team would be so unhappy with all the attention and love I was getting. I felt guilty for taking up so much of T’s time. So it was definitely hard to adjust to.

I think if this had been like 3-4 years ago, it may have turned unhealthy - like that I would’ve become more juvenile and dramatic and needing a lot of attention which wouldn’t have been helpful. But luckily since the GR helped me so much with stuff like that, I was USUALLY able to express myself through words (although the second time I went back, that was not the case and I was using behaviors left and right, but that had more to do with me feeling so entrenched and enmeshed with my ED and less that I was doing it for attention. But it also obviously did communicate a message that I was pissed at my team, I can’t deny that). If it had been 3-4 years ago, it would’ve been really really hard to leave. And yes, it was still hard, but I hadn’t gotten so attached to T and the staff that I felt I could barely live without them, which has happened in the past. And I think it’s actually been really helpful that I’ve been able to still see them sometimes when I go back for alumni group instead of feeling like the only way I could see them again would be to relapse and get sick enough for residential.

So basically, short answer is yes lol and it was perhaps even harder to make sure my bpd didn’t latch on too much to that approach.

#Monte nido #mnlh #t #tc #personal #answered #ed residential #ed treatment #ed recovery #anorexia recovery

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brunchbitch · 7 years

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Do you still keep in touch with your MNLH team? Is their support any different from your current team? How so?

i do! yes it’s very different just bc they’re not my team anymore so obviously the contact is not regular. they’re very supportive but i need to reach out to them first. they always make a point to say that alumni can get support from them within reason, so if someone is calling or visiting too much, they will gently suggest to depend more on people in their real lives or their outpatient therapist. but very different from my current team - the MNLH staff are able to hug and say “i love you” so i get lots of loving when i go there! it’s an adjustment; it felt very very strange at first. but that’s part of the MN philosophy and i feel like it really helps most people.

#mnlh #monte nido #answered #personal

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brunchbitch · 7 years

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5/14/17

Multi family group at LH yesterday was really good. We talked a lot about fulfilling relationships in life and I shared how a parallel for me is that my motivation for recovery has increased the more that I am involved in things that fulfill me in my life - that in resi and PHP there was so much focus on the ED. But once I started building more things that create a life worth living for me, I have found that there's less of a pull to relapse bc I would lose some of those things. I specifically designed my structure around things that bring me joy - kids and cats - and I find myself focusing more on those things than my ED. For me, the idea of "what am I recovering to" has been really helpful. I've been worried about going home bc I will be seeing a lot of extended family who last saw me in august at my brother's wedding when I was xx pounds higher than I am now. I have been worried about the weight/appearance comments that may occur ("you look great", "you've lost weight", etc) but after our conversation in group, I said that I could try to actually focus on the things I find fulfilling in my relationships with my family. T jumped in and said "I remember when you were supposed to go home for Christmas but you had to spend it here and it was incredibly difficult for you, but in the end you realized you weren't ready. You have worked so hard these last few months and now, you're ready." And she kind of teared up. It meant so much to me bc it brought me right back to that moment in resi sitting on the couch when I was watching a Christmas movie. None of the other clients were in the room and I was staring off into space. T came in the room (she worked both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day) and she said "hey, what's going on?" And I just started to cry. She came over, sat next to me on the couch, and pulled me into her arms and held me as I sobbed and said "I miss my family". And she sat there and held me for about ten minutes as I cried everything out. I felt so supported and loved and I was so grateful that she was there bc no one else in that moment would've felt as safe to me as she did. I will never ever forget that moment for the rest of my life. I needed her then bc I wasn't ready to be with my family. Now, finally, I am ready.

#ed recovery #t #mnlh #anorexia recovery #personal #update #ed residential #ed treatment

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