Kispu Explained

Kispu or kispum^[1] was an ancient Mesopotamian ritual in which the ancestors were venerated, nourished and cared.^[2] The ritual included regular offering of food and drinks to the deads.^{[3] [4]} Textual evidence for the kispu were found from as early as the 3rd millennium BC; these evidence indicate the ceremony included sacrifices and offerings.^[5] The textual evidence allow identification of archaeological findings, such as masses of dining vessels near secondary burial skeletons the royal hypogeum at Qatna,^[6] with the kispu.^{[7] [8]}

Further reading

• Tsukimoto . Akio . 2010 . Peace for the Dead, or kispu(m) Again . Orient . 45 . 101–109 . 10.5356/orient.45.101.
• Bayliss . Miranda . 1973 . The Cult of Dead Kin in Assyria and Babylonia . Iraq . 35 . 2 . 115–125 . 10.2307/4199959 . 0021-0889.

Notes and References

1. With Akkadian mimation
2. Book: Laneri, Nicola . The Routledge Handbook of the Senses in the Ancient Near East . Routledge . 2021 . Neumann . Kiersten . 400 . Sensing the ancestors . 10.4324/9780429280207 . Thomason . Allison.
3. Book: Pfälzner, Peter . Qaṭna Studien Supplementa . Otto Harrassowitz Verlag . 2012 . Pfälzner . Peter . 1: (Re-)Constructing Funerary Ritualsin the Ancient Near East . 216 . How Did They Bury the Kings of Qatna? . Niehr . Herbert . Pernicka . Ernst . Wissing . Anne . https://www.academia.edu/12279962.
4. Pitard . Wayne T. . 1978 . The Ugaritic Funerary Text RS 34.126 . Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research . 232 . 67 . 10.2307/1356702 . 0003-097X.
5. Book: Laneri, Nicola . The Routledge Handbook of the Senses in the Ancient Near East . Routledge . 2021 . Neumann . Kiersten . 400 . Sensing the ancestors . 10.4324/9780429280207 . Thomason . Allison.
6. For more details see Qatna#Royal ancestors cult
7. Book: Laneri, Nicola . The Routledge Handbook of the Senses in the Ancient Near East . Routledge . 2021 . Neumann . Kiersten . 400 . Sensing the ancestors . 10.4324/9780429280207 . Thomason . Allison.
8. Book: Pfälzner, Peter . Qaṭna Studien Supplementa . Otto Harrassowitz Verlag . 2012 . Pfälzner . Peter . 1: (Re-)Constructing Funerary Ritualsin the Ancient Near East . 213–216 . How Did They Bury the Kings of Qatna? . Niehr . Herbert . Pernicka . Ernst . Wissing . Anne . https://www.academia.edu/12279962.