The decoding in the 19th century of written sources that have come down to us from the time of ancient Mesopotamia made it possible to find out the mythology of peoples that existed thousands of years before our culture.
The ancient Sumerians believed in an incredible number of different supernatural beings and deities. There were also creatures like vampires on the list.
These were seven spirits with a particularly vicious disposition. They are creatures of incredible strength, treading like angry bulls, unconcerned, ruthless and adoring blood, gnawing into the flesh, leaving human veins dry. The researcher Montague Summers concluded that creatures like vampires were of great importance to the peoples of ancient Mesopotamia.
For a long time it was believed that they had a belief in a certain creature ekimmu, which seemed to be the spirit of the unburied dead. By studying the information that has come down to us about the world of the dead, Summers was able to understand their understanding of the necessary burial rituals.
The world of the dead was a dark and cruel place. But the existence of the soul in him could become easier if certain rules were observed.
First of all, the body must be buried and have even the simplest, but a grave. In the epic poem about the great hero Gilgamesh, it is told that the calming of the deceased can be different. Died alone and restless, perished in the desert, a person leaves his spirit to wander in the air, while his place is in the earth. Summers believed that the spirit of the person who died alone and was not buried, according to the ideas of the ancient inhabitants of Mesopotamia, turned into an ekimma, was unable to enter the world of the dead and was forced to wander the world of the living.
There were cuneiform tablets that have come down to us and descriptions of various ghosts, as well as ways of driving them out.
The texts talked about evil spirits, demons, ghosts and other malevolent supernatural creatures. It was later revealed that Summers was mistaken in the translation. Instead of the dead, one should speak of spirits that could come into the world of the living. Nothing is known about these spirits in heaven, and the earth does not accept them. They, as the text says, “do not stand and do not sit,” do not feel the need for food or drink.
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But according to other texts, souls in the world of the dead lead a complete semblance of an earthly existence and in the same way eat and feel thirst. A translation error led to the fact that the ekimmu began to be considered wandering in our world, and not in the world of spirits. Later research and refined translations made it clear that the Ekimmu wanders in the "world below us." He has to eat garbage that a dog would not eat.
GUSAKOVA IRINA YURIEVNA