The Ersema Prayers of the First Millennium BC.

• Author: Gadotti, Alhena
• Position: Book review

The Ersema Prayers of the First Millennium BC. By URI GABBAY. Heidelberger Emesal-Studien, vol. 2. Wiesbaden: HARRASSOWITZ VERLAG, 2015. Pp. xv + 375, 30 pls. [euro]89.

With The Ersema Prayers of the First Millennium BC (henceforth Ersema), Uri Gabbay presents us with a much-needed edition of all extant first-millennium Ersemas. This book, which is a revised version of Gabbay's dissertation, complements Pacifying the Hearts of the Gods (henceforth Pacifying) by the same author, which is the first volume in the new series, Heidelberger Emesal-Studien.

Ersema is therefore best understood within this two-book context, although this review focuses only on the present work--this reviewer has not read Pacifying. This is an important point to make, because it shapes the ways in which Gabbay deals with his subject matter. As Gabbay warns us in his introduction to Ersema, "the Ersemas together with other genres of Emesal prayers [have been dealt with] in my book Pacifying the Hearts of the Gods. In this introduction only the most relevant points will be repeated, while some issues not dealt with in the other book will be expanded" (p. 1). Unfortunately, this choice is extremely problematic, because it makes Ersema too heavily dependent on its predecessor. A couple of examples discussed below will illustrate this point. This is, however, the only problem in an otherwise impeccable work.

It is well known that Ersemas are ritual compositions written in Emesal and dating back to the Old Babylonian Period. They share similar "language, phraseology and form" (p. 5), but for all that they contain unique features. The main theme of the Ersemas is a goddess' lament, usually associated with the wrath of a deity causing havoc among mankind (p. 4). Yet not much work has been done on this genre, as emerges from Gabbay's review of the scholarship. With Pacifying and Ersema, Gabbay successfully rectifies this situation.

Ersema is divided into six chapters: a short introduction (pp. 1-20), the edition of the Ersemas paired with Balags (pp. 21-168), the edition of the so-called Ritual Ersemas (pp. 169-260), the edition of seventeen fragments which could possibly be part of Ersemas (pp. 261-80), and a synoptic transliteration of first-millennium Ersemas and their parallels (pp. 281-343). The volume also contains thorough indexes as well as thirty plates. The result is an outstanding work in which the author displays his mastery of the topic and provides us with an...