Edimmu- Mesopotamian SpiritSpirit
Also known as: Ekimmu and Eṭemmu
Domains
Description
The unburied dead, the forgotten dead, the dead whose children stopped pouring water into the grave pipes. They could not pass through the gates of the underworld. They came back instead, seizing the living with fever and madness, and they did not let go until an exorcist spoke them down.
Mythology & Lore
The Hungry Dead
In "Gilgamesh, Enkidu, and the Netherworld," Enkidu's shade reports on the dead. The man with many sons drinks clear water. The unburied corpse finds no rest. Between these two poles, the Edimmu existed: spirits of the dead whose passage to Kur had gone wrong.
The causes were specific. A man murdered in the street had no one to wash his body. A woman whose family stopped performing the kispu offerings grew hungry below and came looking for food above. The dead required regular nourishment, poured through clay pipes that led from the surface to the burial. When the pipes ran dry, the dead grew desperate.
An Edimmu was drawn to its former home. The Akkadian incantation texts describe the seizing: sudden fever, the feeling of weight on the chest. The term used is "seized," the same word applied to demonic possession. A person seized by an Edimmu might go mad or waste away.
The Binding
The āšipu, the exorcist-priest, diagnosed which spirit had taken hold. Sometimes the remedy was simple: perform the neglected offerings, speak the forgotten name, complete the burial that had never been done. Satisfy the dead and they return below.
Difficult cases required ritual. The āšipu prepared offerings, recited incantations naming the spirit and commanding its departure, and invoked Shamash for judgment and Nergal for authority over the dead. The Utukkū Lemnūtu incantation series preserves the formal language of these bindings. The goal was to compel the Edimmu to its proper place in Kur. The exorcist spoke, and if the words held, the haunting ended.