Purifying substances (1)

Text
A well documented practice of the Mesopotamian purification priests was “wiping off” (kuppuru), generally with flour paste (līšu). The importance of the practice is reflected in the fact that the root of this word came to mean purification in general in Hebrew (Yom Kippur), and the practice itself links the Akkadian with the Greek. Demosthenes (18.259) uses the term of “wiping off” (apomattein) in his invective against the mother of Aeschines, the priestess of purifications and initiations. The commentary explains that the person to be purified was plastered all over with mud and chaff which was then scraped off. A “purifier of the army, the one who knows the things for wiping off” is mentioned in Sophocles (fr. 34). A purifying substance which is often mentioned in eastern texts is asphalt (kupru in Akkadian); asphaltos is also one of the materials used by the witches of Sophron (fr. 5) and by Melampus in Diphilos’ parody: “with one torch, one squill … with sulphur, asphalt, and loud-roaring sea” (fr. 125). Surprising is the use of onions for purification. Akkadian Šurpu incantation (6.60-72) describes the procedure in detail - the onion is peeled layer by layer, until nothing is left; in Greek we find just the passing mention of the magical onions (Cratinus fr. 250, Diphilos fr. 125.3); one sort of onion is specifically named after Epimenides the famous purifier by Theophrastus in De Historia Plantarum 7.2.1.

Sources (list of abbreviations) (source links will open in a new browser window)
Cratinus, fr. 250
Demosthenes 18.259 (On the Crown)
Diphilus, fr. 125
Sophocles, fr. 34
Sophron, fr. 5
Šurpu 6.60-72
Theophrastus, De Historia Plantarum 7.2.1

Bibliography

Amar Annus

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