This is Tablet II of the Surpu ("Burning") series — the great exorcistic ritual of ancient Mesopotamia. Where Tablet III names the curses and declares them undone, Tablet II names the sins themselves: every possible way a person could transgress — against word and judgment, against the weak and the widow, against every bond of family and friendship — and then invokes every divine power in heaven and earth to release the sufferer.
The Surpu was performed by the āšipu (exorcist-priest) over a patient believed to be suffering under a curse. The patient's specific transgression was unknown — it might be any of a hundred things. The ritual's solution is radical: name them all. Every act of corruption, every cruelty, every broken bond, every taboo crossed, every god offended. Then, having named everything the patient might have done, call upon everything in the cosmos to release them. The catalogue of sins and the litany of release are the two halves of the same mercy.
This tablet from the Iraq Museum (IM.76972, Late Babylonian period, from the city of Uruk) preserves three sections of Surpu II: the social and moral sins (lines 11–38), the sins of taboo and sorcery (lines 63–74), and the Great Release litany invoking over forty divine powers from Nergal to Ištar (lines 135–177). Together with its companion text "The Undoing of Every Curse" (Surpu III, IM.76940), the archive now holds the central theological arc of the Surpu series: the naming of every sin and the undoing of every curse.
The Corruption of Word and Judgment
[...] ... [...]
Who called evil good.
Who called good evil.
Who caused false words to be spoken.
Who taught the judge corruption.
Who stands [...] among the destroyed.
Who knows but does not speak.
Who speaks but exaggerates.
The Oppression of the Weak
Who treated unjustly the wronged weak man, the weak woman.
Who perverted a widow in the verdict of his city.
The Tearing of Every Bond
Who separated son from father.
Who separated father from son.
Who separated daughter from mother.
Who separated mother from daughter.
Who separated daughter-in-law from mother-in-law.
Who separated mother-in-law from daughter-in-law.
Who separated brother from his brother.
Who separated his friend from a friend.
Who separated colleague from colleague.
The Captive in Darkness
Who did not set free the captive.
Who did not release the prisoner.
Who did not show light to the prisoner.
Who said to the captive, "Seize him!"
Who said to the bound man, "Bind him!"
The Sins Against God and Family
He does not know his crime against a god.
He does not know his sin against the goddess.
He treated the gods unjustly, despised the goddess.
His sins are against his gods, his crimes are against his goddess.
Disrespect against the child.
Hate against the elder brother.
He despised father and mother.
He committed sacrilege against the elder sister.
He gave with the small measure, received with the large.
He said "there is" when there was not.
The remainder of this column is lost. Lines 39–62 of the standard text are missing from this tablet.
The Sins of Taboo and Sorcery
[...] ...
Who learned things unseemly, who was taught things unfit.
Things unsuitable [...]
Who raised up evil from behind.
Who crossed the boundary [...]
Who did what is not good.
Who brought his hand to witchcraft and sorcery.
Because of the taboo of the sick that he ate.
Because of the many sins that he committed.
Because of the assembly that he divided.
Because of the bound company that he broke apart.
Because he disrespected all gods and goddesses.
Because he promised with heart and mouth but did not give.
The remainder of this column is lost. Lines 75–134 of the standard text are missing from this tablet.
The Great Release
[...], lord of the steppe.
Release it, Nergal — lord of release.
Release it, Šuqamunu and Šimaliya.
Release it, gods of heaven and earth — as many as are called by name.
Release it, the Furnace — son of Ea-šarru.
May Bel and Belet release it.
May Anu and Antu release it.
May Enlil release it — the king, creator of fates.
May Ninlil release it — queen of Ekiur.
May Ekiur release it — storehouse of the consort.
May Enkum release it. May Ninkum release it.
May Enšar release it. May Ninšar release it.
May Ea release it — king of the Apsû.
May the Apsû release it — house of wisdom.
May Eridu release it. May the temple of the Apsû release it.
May Marduk release it — king of the Igigi.
May Zarpanītu release it — queen of Esagil.
May Esagil of Babylon release it — dwelling of the great gods.
May Nabû and Nanāya release it in Ezida.
May Tašmētu release it — the great daughter-in-law.
May the divine Judge release it — throne-bearer of Esagil.
May Qibiya-dumqi release it — who brings good fortune.
May Dēr and Edimgalkalama release it.
May Ištaran and Dērītu release it.
May Šušinak and Lahuratil release it in Susa.
May Iambar, Humbar, and Napriš release it — the sublime gods.
May the stars and the south wind, the north wind, the east wind, and the west wind — the four winds — blow upon him and release his curse.
May Ištar release it, in Uruk the sheepfold.
May the Lady of Eana release it, in Eana, her dwelling.
May Annunītu release it, in Akkad, the city of her delight.
May Akkad release it. May Eulmaš release it.
May Išhara release it — lady of the settlements.
May Šiduri release it — goddess of wisdom.
May Erra, Erragal, Errakalkal, Laṣ, Haya, and Luhušû release it.
May Lugaledina, Latarak [release it] ...
The remainder of the reverse is lost.
Colophon
Surpu ("Burning") Tablet II. Akkadian exorcistic incantation from the Iraq Museum (IM.76972, accession W.22743.2). Late Babylonian period, from the city of Uruk. The Surpu series is one of the two great anti-witchcraft and curse-dissolution ritual series of Mesopotamia (alongside Maqlû), comprising at least nine tablets. Tablet II opens the series' theological argument: a comprehensive catalogue of every possible transgression — social, familial, legal, religious, magical — followed by the Great Release litany, in which over forty divine powers are invoked to release the sufferer. The preserved portions of this tablet cover lines 11–38, 63–74, and 135–177 of the standard text.
The catalogue's structure moves from the social to the cosmic: corruption of speech and judgment, oppression of the weak and the widow, the systematic tearing of every familial bond (the ten-line separation sequence — father/son, mother/daughter, in-laws, brothers, friends, colleagues — is one of the most architecturally deliberate passages in Mesopotamian literature), cruelty to captives, sins against the gods, violations of family honor, commercial fraud, and finally the sins of taboo, sorcery, and broken promises. The shift from the "who" formulations of the sin catalogue to the "because of" (ina) formulations marks the transition from identification to causation — from naming what was done to naming why the sufferer now suffers.
The Great Release litany (lipṭur, "may [X] release it") proceeds through the cosmic hierarchy: from Nergal (lord of the underworld and of magical release) through the primordial pairs (Anu and Antu, Enlil and Ninlil, Ea and his Apsû), through the Babylonian pantheon (Marduk and Zarpanītu in Esagil, Nabû and Nanāya in Ezida), to the Elamite deities (Šušinak and Lahuratil in Susa, Iambar, Humbar, and Napriš), to the cosmic forces (the stars and the four winds), to the city-goddesses (Ištar in Uruk, Annunītu in Akkad, Išhara of the settlements, Šiduri goddess of wisdom), to the chthonic powers (Erra, Erragal, Errakalkal). The inclusion of Elamite deities is remarkable — the release must come from every divine source known to the Mesopotamian world, not only the Babylonian pantheon. The invocation of Kinūnu ("the Furnace"), son of Ea-šarru, connects directly to the ritual's name: Šurpu means "Burning," and the divine Furnace that burns the curse-figurines is itself asked to release the sufferer.
Together with the companion text in this archive — "The Undoing of Every Curse" (Surpu III, IM.76940) — these two tablets present the full theological arc of ancient Mesopotamian exorcism. The penitential psalm (K.254, also in this archive) says "I do not know what I did wrong." Surpu II says "here is everything you might have done." Surpu III says "all of it is undone."
A note on the scribe's error: every line of column 1 ends with a redundant BU sign, which the eBL edition identifies as contamination from Surpu Tablet IV. The scribe of this Uruk copy had the wrong tablet in view while copying the line endings. This error has been omitted from the translation.
This is a Good Works Translation from Akkadian, independently derived from the cuneiform transliteration by the New Tianmu Anglican Church, 2026. The Akkadian transliteration was obtained from the Electronic Babylonian Literature (eBL) corpus (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München), which is licensed under CC BY 4.0. The eBL corpus contains embedded English translations from the Corpus of Ancient Mesopotamian Scholarship (CAMS) project; these were NOT used as a source for this translation. The English above is independently derived from reading the Akkadian. The eBL editorial notes reference the edition of Reiner (AfO Beiheft 11, 1958) for line numbering; that edition was not consulted for the English rendering.
First freely available English translation of this specific tablet (IM.76972). Companion to "The Undoing of Every Curse" (Surpu III, IM.76940, also in this archive).
Compiled and formatted for the Good Work Library by the New Tianmu Anglican Church, 2026.
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Source Text: Šurpu II — IM.76972
Akkadian transliteration from the Electronic Babylonian Literature (eBL) corpus, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München. CC BY 4.0. Presented here for reference, study, and verification alongside the English translation above.
Obverse, Column 1 (Šurpu II 11–38)
[...] x [...]
[ana ba]nītu lemuttu [iqbû]
[ana l]emuttu banītu [iqbû]
[...] ṣaliptu u[šadbib]
[...] dayyānu u[šāḫiz]
x [...] abtātu izzazzu
īdû lā iqabbû
iqabbû uttarru
enšu ḫablu eništu idâṣu
almatu ina dīni ālišu usaḫḫir
itti abi māra iprus
itti māri aba iprus
itti ummi mārta iprus
itti mārti umma iprus
itti emēti kallata iprus
itti kallati emēta iprus
itti aḫi aḫīšu iprus
itti ibri ibirīšu iprus
itti rūʾa rūʾa iprisu : ṣabtu lā umašširu
kasâ lā urammû
ša bīt ṣibitti lā ukallimu nūru
ana ṣabtu ṣabatsū
ana kasâ kasīšišuma iqbû
ul īdi šērti ili
ul īdi ennet Ištar
ilāni idâṣi Ištar imtaši
ana ilānīšu arnīšu ana ištarīšu gillatsu
ana bennu daṣātu
ana aḫi rabî zerātu
[aba] u umma imtēš
[ana aḫāti rab]iti ugdallil
[ina ṣeḫer]ti ittadin ina rabītu imtaḫar
[ana yā]ʾnu ibašši iqtabi
Obverse, Column 2 (Šurpu II 63–74)
bar[ru...]
lā a[mrāti] lummud lā naṭāti šūḫuz
lā naṭāti [...]
arki [lemutta tebû]
ītê [...] itīqu
lā banītu [īpušu]
ana kišpī [ruḫê qātīšu ūbilu]
ina ikkibi [marṣi ša īkulu]
ina arni [mādūti ša iḫtaṭû]
ina puḫri [ša usapiḫḫu]
ina [illati kaṣirti ša uparriru]
ina [gabbi ili u ištari ša imēšu]
ina [libbīšu u pīšu iqbû lā iddinu]
Reverse, Column 4 (Šurpu II 135–177)
[...] bēl ṣēri
[puṭur Nergal] bēl tapšerti
[puṭrā Šuqamū]nu u Šimaliya
[puṭrā] ilāni ša šamê u erṣeti malā šumšunu zakar
[puṭrā ki]nūnu mār Ea-šarru
[Bēl] u Bēlet lipṭurū
Anu u Antu lipṭurū
Enlil lipṭurū šar bānû šīmāti
Ninlil lipṭurū šarrat Ekiur
Ekiur lipṭurū šutummu ḫīšti
Enkum Ninkum lipṭur
Enšar lipṭur Ninšar lipṭur : Ea lipṭurū šar Apsî
Apsû lipṭur bīt nēmeqi
Eridu lipṭur Ešapsû lipṭur
Marduk lipṭur šar Igigi
Zarpanītu lipṭur šarrat Esagil
Esagil Bābili lipṭur šubat ilāni rabûtu
Nabû u Nanāya lipṭur ina Ezida
Tašmētu lipṭur kallat rabītu
Madānu lipṭur guzalû Esagil
Qibiya-dumqi lipṭur mušērib damiqti
Dēr u Edimgalkalama lipṭurū
Ištaran Dērītu lipṭurū
lipṭur ina Šušan Šušinak u Laḫuratil
Iambar Ḫumbar Napriš lipṭurū ilāni šurbûtu
kakkabū šūtu iltānu šadû amurru
tū erbetti liziqqunim-ma lipaṭṭirū māmitsu
Ištar lipṭur ina Uruk supūru
Bēlet-Eana lipṭur ina Eana maštakkīšu
Annunītu lipṭur ina Akkad āl tašīlātīša
Akkad lipṭur Eulmaš lipṭur
Išḫara lipṭur bēlet dadmē
Šiduri lipṭur Ištar nēmeqi
Erra Erragal Errakalkal
Laṣ Ḫaya Luḫušû [lipṭurū]
Lugaledina [Latarak...]
Remainder of column missing.
Source Colophon
Akkadian transliteration from the Electronic Babylonian Literature (eBL) corpus, compiled and maintained by Enrique Jimenez and collaborators at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München. The eBL corpus is released under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0). The full corpus is available via Zenodo (DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.10018951). Tablet IM.76972 (accession W.22743.2) is held in the Iraq Museum, Baghdad. Described as Šurpu II, from the city of Uruk, Late Babylonian period.
The Akkadian cuneiform script notation has been simplified for readability: sign-value indices (subscript numbers), determinatives, and specialized notation have been replaced with standard romanization while preserving all root forms and morphological markers. Square brackets indicate editorial restoration from parallel texts. Ellipses indicate breaks or damage beyond restoration.
The redundant BU signs appearing at the end of each line in column 1 — noted in the eBL edition as contamination from Surpu Tablet IV — have been omitted from the source text above as scribal error.
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