Engraved on a Babylonian clay tablet approximately 2,500 years ago, the world’s oldest depiction of a ghost is that of an elderly male spirit being guided back into the underworld by a female figure.
The image and its cuneiform description, which together form part of a guide to exorcising ghosts, were deciphered by Dr Irving Finkel, a senior curator of the British Museum’s Middle East department.
“This piece of clay is a direct window into what these ancient people all that time ago thought and believed about ghosts,” he explained.
“If you had a ghost and it wouldn’t go away, then you’d have to get professional help. The man who wrote it was one of these professional exorcists.”
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Received by the British Museum on 3 November 1883, the tablet dates back to the fourth century BCE. Although it’s incomplete due to being damaged during its recovery, its purpose as a guide to dealing with restless spirits is clear.
Its scribe, Marduk-apla-iddin, lays out a spell and ritual that apprentice exorcists can use to dispel phantom tormentors. The accompanying engraving portrays a slender, bearded man with shackled wrists, tied with rope and firmly held by a woman.
According to Dr Finkel, the man is a restless, elderly spirit who “liked the ladies”. To rid the man’s family of his ghost, an exorcist conjured a “female partner”, whose job is to “take him down to the underworld”.
Only the first few words of the spell survive. Translated from Babylonian, it reads: “Shamash, lord of the broad…”
Shamash was the ancient Mesopotamian sun god, and as a divine judge he was associated with the underworld, which is probably why he was called upon during this ritual.
Dr Finkel has never seen a ghost himself, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t believe in them.
“I know a lot of people who are intelligent […] who tell me that they have seen a ghost, and it’s quite difficult to brush all of them aside as if they’re all deluded or nutty or wrong, so I have an open mind about it,” he said.
“I believe that the default position for humanity is to believe in ghosts; that one has no idea really of the reality of anything because people don’t talk about it. But one day, one day they will.”
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