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Asakku – Demons, Illnesses and Impurity in Ancient Mesopotamia

The paper aims at presenting, on the basis of Akkadian texts related to magical healing (incantations and apotropaic texts from the 1st millenary BCE) the figure of the asakku, a demon related with illnesses, impurity and other harms. Demons associated with the open countryside between the cities played an important role in the Mesopotamian conception of illness and ritual impurity. Evil demons – acting either as deputies of gods or by their own will – were thought to menace with permanent danger human life. Various kinds of demons (utukku, rabiu, asakku) and ghosts (elemmu) mentioned in medical texts represent both names and causes of illnesses. As a rule it can be stated that demons were regarded as the main agents of diseases, and the suffering patient himself was thought to be impure since having been got in physical contact with some impurity. The factor of impurity that caused the impure state of the patient and his physical and spiritual sufferings was again called asakku, a name identical with that of the demon. The healing ritual aimed not only at doing away with the physical pains and spiritual sufferings of the patient, but also at dissolving the impure state of the sufferer.

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