Spirits in Old Assyrian Documents

Ancient Mesopotamians had believed in life after death. When a person died, he was buried after the funeral in which performed several rituals. The being, called e？emmu (GIDIM) “spirit”, departed from the body of a dead person and went to the netherworld according to their beliefs. In written sources of ancient Mesopotamia, the netherworld have generally depicted as a place in bad condition and gloomy. Funerary offerings should had been performed by relatives for spirits reaching to the other world. Firstly, eldest son of a decedent was responsible for funerary offerings. Daughter or adoptee of a decedent could carry out this duty in absence of a son. It was believed that if funerary rituals and offerings did not fulfill for a decedent, its spirits may attack to family members or the others. In this study, the related Kültepe texts belonged to Assyrians, will be examined and it will be seen that Assyrian traders who came from Mesopotamia to Anatolia for trading and settled in the several Anatolian cities, had similar beliefs to ancient Mesopotamians