Ghosts, necromancy & the underworld in ancient Mesopotamia
HistoryExtra podcast
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The Delicate Art of Necromancy
The poets describe the underworld as a house from where no one who enters can leave. But what people took with them when they were buried is not in keeping with this poetic, literary structure. The very elite of mesopotamian society are said to have taken gold and furniture into the next world. This suggests that disrespecting the dead could be used for political ends.
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