[17] For further details see Dr. Alfred Jeremias, who publishes the text of the passages here quoted and offers a literal German translation with editorial notes and other explanations. The conception of the document as set forth in the quoted passages is based upon the interpolation of Dr. Jeremias, which he justifies in his critical notes. Dr. Jeremias’s interpretation of the concluding words is justified by another cuneiform tablet which while relating a conjuration of the dead begins with the same description of Sheol as does the legend of Istar’s descent to Hell.
[18] The ancient poem of Istar’s descent to Hades has been cast into poetic form by Edward Gilchrist. See The Monist, April, 1912. (Vol. XXII, pp. 259-267.)
[19] The passages in brackets are mutilated in the original and the words are suggested by the context or sometimes by parallel passages.
[20] Perhaps the dress of wings is an expression of the belief that the soul is winged, found also in Egypt, where the soul of man is compared to a human-headed hawk, in which form it is at liberty to visit other places.
[21] Why the goddess Allatu proposes to weep is not quite clear. Perhaps it is a promise to have all the funeral rituals with their wailings and lamentations properly attended to for the sake of preventing further attempts at having the dead reclaimed.
[22] The goddess Allatu.
[23] Uddusunâmir means “his light will illumine.” The significance of this being does not seem to be clear. Perhaps he is a mere puppet, an automaton to bear the curse of Allatu without suffering harm.
[24] The name of the great gods is the most powerful means of conjuration, and Ea alone, the god of unfathomable wisdom, seems to have command of it. The Babylonian origin of the Talmudic and cabalistic belief in the power of the mysterious name is fully established.
[25] The same gestures of grief are recorded in Jeremiah xxxi. 19 for the Hebrews, in Odyssey XXXI, 198 for the Greeks. In a similar way, we read of Ea in another document, “when he heard this he bit his lip” (cf. A. S. K. T., LXXXVI, 24).
[26] The context does not reveal why the Anunnaki, the seven evil spirits of Sheol, should be placed upon the golden throne.