دفن الاعداء في بلاد النهرين

الملخص EN

Burial of dead enemies' bodies is one of the habits that didn't frequently take place among peoples of the ancient Near East.

Such a habit is almost limited to Ancient Mesopotamia for ideological or political reasons.

This research paper scrutinizes the meaning of the idiom of burial of dead enemies as well as tackling reasons that made ancient Mesopotamian people bury their enemies whether such bodies are of foreigners or rebels or even some outlaws through some historical ages.

Moreover, this paper discusses situation of the spirits which did not receive funeral occasion in the other world as well as indicating danger of such spirits on the society from the religious perspective of the Ancient Iraqian people.

Additionally, this research paper discusses situation of those who were punished by not being buried because of committing some crimes.

Such penalties increased in number during the Old Babylonian Period.

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People in ancient Iraq are afraid of the emergence of unburied spirit so they buried the enemies; especially if the distance between battle site and victorious cities was very near.

Therefore, kings realized importance of burial for the enemies' dead bodies, so they made non-burial an additional punishment for those enemies.

However, if the families of the un-buried deceased were able to obtain his body and bury it, the spirit would calm down and settle down in the other world.

In ancient Iraq, people followed some rituals to bury the body again in which some magical works were performed.

A spirit that was not buried turned into a demon (eţemmu) which caused multiple diseases, especially skin diseases.

Such unburied spirits could also threaten to break up the family.