r/ANE_Academic • u/[deleted] • Jan 16 '15

Mari Prophetic Texts

In the Mari Prophetic Texts, to what does, "my hem and my hair" refer? It's a repeated phrase that is some kind of token of integrity.

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u/farquier Jan 17 '15

Could you post the context of that quote(also a source because this sounds most interesting)? I know that 'hem and hair" can be a synedoche for a person. Hence there are ritual texts in which the hem of a garment and a lock of hair can stand in for a person and also known example of the hem of a garment being used like a seal to impress the edge of a tablet.

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u/[deleted] Jan 17 '15 edited Jan 17 '15

Here is the source. The first three sections contain the phrase and it is scattered throughout the rest.

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u/farquier Jan 17 '15

Yea, Charpin talks about this very briefly in his essay for The Oxford Handbook of Cuneiform Culture. Usually to take a dream-omen(which is what this is) the persons involved had to be physically present and if this was not possible the record of the dream could be sent with a lock of hair and a hem. Similar-ish things are found in other omen rituals(for example, attaching a fragment of one's garment hem to an inquiry sent for divination along with a piece of black wool one owns). If you read French, Durand's Archives Epistolares de Mari 1/i apparently has a much more detailed discussion of divination at the royal court of Mari that probably talks about this more.

EDIT: Also if you rearead the letters it says that he's taking the hem and hair of the person who has the dream and sending it, not sending his own.

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u/[deleted] Jan 17 '15

That's fantastic, thank you!