Secrets Of The ᴀssyrian Dream Book And Dream Interpretation In The Ancient Near East

Ellen Lloyd – AncientPages.com – Dreams have always been of interest to ancient cultures. Our ancestors often believed dreams could foretell the future, and it was essential to unlocking the secrets of God’s divine messages.

Mesopotamian writing- cuneiform tablets

Mesopotamian writing- cuneiform tablets. Credit: Public Domain

Many ancient civilizations treated dreams as Gods’ communication with mortals. People believed that dreams served as a window to the other side. Living people could see the activities of the deceased through dreams.

Dreams – From Ancient Egypt To Mesopotamia, Babylon And ᴀssyria

Ancient Egyptians and Babylonians sincerely believed in precognitive dreams. Through a dream, the Sphinx gave Thutmose IV the power to become a Pharaoh.

Thutmose IV, whose name means “Born of the God, Thoth,” was one of those who received a message from the gods in his dream. It happened one day when he was hunting trip.

Thutmose IV fell asleep, and in his dream, the Sun God Re-Harakhte – embodied in the Sphinx – visited him. He was tired and decided to rest in the shadow near the great Sphinx. The monument was buried in sand at the time.

Secrets Of The ᴀssyrian Dream Book And Dream Interpretation In The Ancient Near East

Thutmose IV was promised that if he cleared away the sand that engulfed the monument, he would become King of Egypt. The famous Dream Stele of Pharaoh Thutmose IV can still today be found between the paws of the great Sphinx at Giza.” 1

Many years ago, archaeologists unearthed the ancient Egyptian Dream Book, compiled during the reign of Pharaoh Ramesses II. This fascinating hieratic papyrus lists several dreams and their interpretations. The old document reveals that “thousands of years ago, ancient Egyptians used the messages in their dreams to cure illnesses, make important State decisions, and even decide where to build a temple or wage a battle. Dreams were considered to be divine predictions of the future. They were messages from the gods that could foretell impending disasters or, conversely, of good fortune; therefore, understanding the significance of one’s dreams was an important part of the culture.” 2

It should not be surprising to learn Egypt’s neighboring countries were as interested in the power of dreams as people who lived in the Land of the Pharaohs.

Our knowledge of the ancient ᴀssyrian Dream Book is mainly based on clay tablets discovered in the Library of Ashurbanipal. Many of these ancient fragments are damaged and thus difficult to decipher. Still, scientists have thoroughly tried to put together the pieces to understand the tablets’ content.

Understanding Of Dreams In The Ancient Near East

According to A. Leo Oppenheim, who has done a comprehensive study of the ancient ᴀssyrian Dream Book, “the dream experiences of a civilization ᴅᴇᴀᴅ for many millennia must be studied in the reflections they have produced in the literary documents of that civilization. In the written records of the civilization of the ancient Near East, references to dreams occur on several distinct literary levels, each subject to its own rigid and consistent stylistic conventions.” 3

People in the ancient Near East believed “dream-experiences were recorded on three differentiated planes: dreams as revelations of the deity which may or may not require interpretation; dreams which reflect, symptomatically, the state of mind, the spiritual and bodily “health” of the dreamer, which are only mentioned but never recorded m and thirdly, mantic dreams in which forthcoming events are prognosticated.” 3

Secrets Of The ᴀssyrian Dream Book And Dream Interpretation In The Ancient Near East

Divine messages were particularly important. Credit: Stock PH๏τo

Message dreams were recorded on royal inscriptions and were highly significant. Evil ones were also taken seriously, and much attention was paid to omens.

Ancient clay tablets discovered in Susa offer some insight into dream interpretation of the ancient Near East, especially concerning dreams of “eating, and drinking bodily functions, receiving and manufacturing or handling or handling objects and tools cutting down trees and other occupations within the everyday sphere of human activities as far as these happen to be mentioned in the extant Neo-ᴀssyrian fragments of the Dream-Book.” 3

Some fragments of the ancient ᴀssyrian Dream Book reveal people are warned not to leave the house after having had a specific dream. There are also references to dream travels “to heaven and the netherworld and with astronomical and meteorological phenomena seen in dreams” 3

The vital role of the ancient priests who were credited for interpreting dreams is also an important topic. In Mesopotamia, “the religion of the priest was centered primarily on the image and temple; it was concerned with the service the image required—not only in sacrifices but also in hymns of praise—and with the apotropaic functions of these images for the community.” 3

The King could also “receive divine messages of certain types, but it was not considered acceptable for a private person to approach the deity through dreams and visions.” 4

Divine Messages And Omens In The Near East

In the Library of Ashurbanipal, scientists found 11 tablets that contain dream omens. We learn from these ancient artifacts that special rituals were performed “to ward off the consequences of bad dreams, those dreams predicting disaster or other ills.

Other rituals in this collection functioned prophylactically to protect the sleeping persons against scary dreams. The protean variety of dream contents is organized rather pedantically in large and small sections that refer to certain definite activities of the dreamer, such as eating or drinking in one’s dreams, traveling, and other activities of daily life.

The section concerned with eating includes cannibalism and coprophagy; in the tablet on traveling, dreams of ascending to heaven and descending into the nether world occur, as do dreams of flying. There are incestuous dreams, dreams of losing one’s teeth, quarreling with family members, receiving gifts, and carrying objects.

As other types of Mesopotamian omen texts are related to the dream, the prediction derived from it is rarely understandable. Only a few omens bear out what has been said above concerning man as the carrier of “signs” through which the deity addresses the entire community.” 4

Interestingly, there is little information on divine communication through dreams. Dream interpretation in the ancient Near East is a significant subject, and we can gain more knowledge of how people dealt with dreaming but, first after we deciphered clay tablets.

Updated on June 22, 2022

Written by Ellen Lloyd – AncientPages.com

Copyright © AncientPages.com All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed in whole or part without the express written permission of AncientPages.com

Expand for references

  1. Ellen Lloyd – How The Great Sphinx Gave Thutmose IV Power To Become Pharaoh, AncientPages.com
  2. Ellen Lloyd – The Egyptian Dream Book Reveals Ancient Predictions Of The Future, AncientPages.com
  3. Oppenheim, A. Leo. “The Interpretation of Dreams in the Ancient Near East. With a Translation of an ᴀssyrian Dream-Book.” Transactions of the American Philosophical Society46, no. 3 (1956): 179-373.
  4. Leo Oppenheim – Ancient Mesopotamia: Portrait of a ᴅᴇᴀᴅ Civilization

Related Posts

Andalusia Was First Inhabited By Neolithic People From The Southern Part Of The Iberian Peninsula 6,200 Years Ago

Conny Waters – AncientPages.com – The island of San Fernando, Cadiz in Andalusia, was home to the first Neolithic farmers and shepherds who decided to permanently settle there around 6,200 years ago. They practised shellfish collection and consumption all year round, with a preference for winter. Location of Campo de Hockey site in southern Iberian […]

Unknown Bronze Age Settlement Discovered Accidentally In Heimberg, Switzerland

Jan Bartek – AncientPages.com – Sometimes, when archaeologists look for one thing, they find something entirely different. This is exactly what happened in Switzerland when researchers were excavating, hoping to find an ancient Roman brick workshop, but they unearthed a previously unknown Bronze Age settlement instead. The excavation in Heimberg, on the right edge of […]

Unexplained Mystery Of The Dangerous Invisible And Unidentifiable Enemy In A French Town

Unexplained Mystery Of The Dangerous Invisible Enemy In A French Town

Ellen Lloyd – AncientPages.com – It was an ordinary day in a small, sleepy town in France. There were no indications anything strange was about to happen. Yet, an inexplicable and extraordinary event left the unsuspecting residents completely bewildered and unsure of what was unfolding. The situation that unfolded was indeed unusual, if not bizarre. […]

Rare 2,800-Year-Old ᴀssyrian Scarab Amulet Found In Lower Galilee

Jan Bartek – AncientPages.com – Erez Avrahamov, a 45-year-old inhabitant of Peduel, made an incredible discovery while hiking in the Tabor Stream Nature Reserve located in Lower Galilee. He stumbled upon an ancient seal shaped like a scarab that dates back to the First Temple period. Credit: Israel Antiquities Authority This ancient artifact is as […]

Dinas Powys: Late ‘Antique Hillfort Phenomenon’ In Post-Roman Western Britain

Conny Waters – AncientPages.com – Dinas Powys, Glamorgan, located about 9km southwest of Cardiff, is a small inland fort of approximately 0.35ha. The hillfort was first excavated by a team of archaeologists led by Leslie Alcock from 1954 through to 1958. The site is often referenced as a prime example of elite settlements in post-Roman […]

Puzzling Vasconic Inscription On Ancient Irulegi Hand Resembles Basque Language

Puzzling Vasconic Inscription On Ancient Irulegi Hand Resembles Basque Language

Jan Bartek – AncientPages.com – A few years ago, archaeologists excavating an Iron Age site known as Irulegi in northern Spain discovered a flat bronze artifact shaped like a human hand. After careful cleaning, they found it bore inscriptions of words from a Vasconic language. This language family includes Basque and several other languages that […]