“The present article is a follow-up to my ‘Rituals at Ebla,’ (Viganò 1995) a study of the Purification Ritual A:NAGA = a:tu₅ é en: ‘the ritual bath of the king’s household.’ […] The a:tu₅ ritual was performed at the beginning of every year as a memorial of the same ‘purification of the king’s household’ carried out during the long and complex enthronement ritual […]. Evidence of this event can also be found in TM 1730, ‘the Annual Report of Expenditures (ARE) of the thirteenth year, the third from the last of Ibrium’s leadership, in which the crowning of the last Ebla king (en) took place” (p. 13).

The author investigates in this contribution the ritual text TM 1730 (see supra), comparing this document with other purification rituals, such as the ‘ì-giš sag ritual’, whose actual performance has been discussed (some scholars interpreted it as a proper ‘purification ritual’, while others have advanced the interpretation of a purification ritual performed before the anointing of the head).

Paragraph 3 (pp. 20-22) is devoted to the analysis of the sikil-ritual, ‘the purification, cleansing ceremony’, presenting texts from the Royal Archives of Ebla.

The author specifically underlings the connection between the a:tu₅-ritual^{Note 1} with the crowning of the new king (‘en’) at Ebla: more in detail, text TM 1730 specifies the gifts the divinity was provided with, during this ritual action: ‘silver, a bracelet, and a she-goat’.

Furthermore, the ‘ì-giš sag-ritual’ concerns the use not of water but of oil (ì-giš, lit. ‘sesame oil’), during the ritual action of the anointment of the new enthroned king (a practice well attested both in the Bible and also in the sacral consecration of a new bride of Egyptian pharaohs, such in the case of the first Hittite marriage between Ramses II and a daughter of the Hittite king Ḫattušili III (named in Egyptian Maatḥorneferure), see e.g. text KUB XXVI 53 (CTH 735), and also in the Amarna correspondence, in a letter between Amenḥotep III and Tarḫundaradu, king of Arzawa (CTH 151 = EA 31). This practice of anointing the head of the new king was perpetrated during the Middle Ages, when a new sovereign was anointed by the Pope with the sacred Chrism, a ritual also well known as for the baptism in the Catholic Church tradition (see e.g. The Catechism of the Holy Church, under no. 1241). The author reports some instances when the performing of the anointment ritual was the topic (pp. 16-18). In some cases, a similar ritual was applied to funerary ceremonies, too, as described on pp. 18-19.

Nevertheless, the use of oil for ritual purposes streams from very older traditions, as it was described in detail in Recht 2014, mainly for what concerns ritual aspects and practices at Urkesh/Tell Mozan.

Paragraph 3 deals, on the other hand, with the ‘cleansing ceremonies’ practised at Ebla, called ‘sikil’-ritual(s). The following quotation by Viganò seems to be very effective in explaining such a ritual: “Almost all the examples referring to this ritual are derived from the ARE reports that register the amounts of gold and silver used to manufacture objects offered to different deities during the illness of some important member of the Ebla upper class” (p. 21). Hence, it is clear that gold and silver (as uninstructive elements), were perceived by ancient people as a ‘symptom’ of pureness and of sacral libation grated to the gods.

Briefly concluding: “‘The anointing of the head’ (ì-giš sag-ritual) is not restricted to use in a funerary ceremony. Such a practice is performed for weddings and other occasions in which oil does not play the role of a cleansing element but is part of a ceremony of joy and celebration. Finally, the ‘purification’ (sikil) is performed in cases of illness that sometimes ended in death” (p. 22).

The paper specifically focuses on actual realisations of religious practices at Ebla/Tell Mardikh, mostly for what concerns the use of oil in rituals, analysing the textual sources with a strict philological approach. This is a clear exemplification of how ancient religious practices can be reconstructed on the base of ancient texts, comparing them also with Biblical passages or with other Near Eastern textual evidence. On the same topic, cf. Viganò 1995.

• Note 1: The interpretation of the term a:tu₅ is questioned if as referring to a priest or to a lustration ritual (see infra); the same term could both mean "an 'atua' priest" or "an 'atua' purification ritual").