#sefire

[The first section lists the treaty’s parties — Bir-Ga’yah, king of KTK, and Mati’el, king of Arpad — and reiterates that it also applies to all their descendants and peoples.] [1]

They set up the stele with this text as this treaty.

Divine Witnesses

Bir-Ga’yah has forged this treaty before Ashur and Mullesh, and before Marduk and Zarpanitu, and before Nabu and Tashmet, and before Erra and Nuska, and before Nergal and Laṣ, and before the Sun and the Light, and before the Moon and the Moon’s Bride, and before NKR and KD’H, and before all the gods of Raḥbah and Adam [2], and before Hadad of Aleppo, and before the Seven, and before El and Elyon, and before Heaven and Earth, and before the Abyss and the Fountains, and before Day and Night.

All the gods of KTK and the gods of Arpad are witnesses.

Consequences of Betrayal

If Mati’el bar Attarsamak, king of Arpad, proves false to Bir-Ga’yah, king of KTK, or if a descendant of Mati’el proves false to a descendant of Bir-Ga’yah:

[About five lines are missing here.]

… a ewe, may she not conceive. If seven nurses grease their breasts to suckle a boy, may he not have enough. [3] If seven mares suckle a colt, may it not have enough. If seven ewes suckle a lamb, may it not have enough. If seven widows go seeking vengeance, may they kill nothing. [4]

If Mati’el proves false to Bir-Ga’yah, his son, or his descendants, may his reign become like a reign of sand — a reign of sand! — for as long as Ashur reigns.  May Hadad send forth everything evil in earth or in heaven, and everything harmful.  May he send hailstones onto Arpad.

For seven years, may the locust consume. For seven years, may the maggot consume. For seven years, may chaos (?) rise up on the earth’s surface.

May no grass sprout, so no green is seen. May no plants be seen. May the sound of the lyre not be heard in Arpad. May its people have a cacophony of oppression and a clamor of screaming and wailing. May the gods send everything that consumes to Arpad and its people. May snake, scorpion, bear, moth, and mold consume. […] a serpent’s gullet. May its plants be utterly annihilated. May Arpad become a den for [wild creatures:] the gazelle, the fox, the hare, the wildcat, the owl, […] and the magpie. May they speak of this city no more — nor of MDR’, MRBH, MZH, MNLH, ŠRN, Tu’im, Bethel, BYNN, […] Arneh, Ḥazaz, or Adam.

Sympathetic Curses [5]

Just as this wax burns in fire, so may Arpad and her many satellites be burned.

May Hadad sow them with salt and weeds, and may they speak of her no more.

This thief (?) and this […] are Mati’el; it is his spirit. [6]

Just as this wax burns in fire, so may Mati’el burn in fire.

Just as this bow and these arrows are smashed, so may Anahita (?) and Hadad smash the bow of Mati’el and the bows of his chiefs.

Just as (this) wax man is blinded, so may Mati’el be blinded.

Just as this calf is cleaved, so may Mati’el be cleaved and his chiefs be cleaved.

Just as (this?) prostitute is stripped naked, so may Mati’el’s wives be stripped naked — and his descendants’ wives, and his chiefs’ wives. [7]

Just as this wax woman burns and is struck in the face, so may they take Mati’el’s wives and […]

[The remainder of the treaty contains the actual terms of agreement, which include provisions like fighting Bir-Ga’yah’s enemies and providing a tribute.  However, the text is extremely broken.]

[1] Arpad was a city-state in Syria, near modern Aleppo.  KTK was apparently a city or region in Mesopotamia, but a hundred years of scholars have been unable to figure out where.

[2] “Adam” is likely the name of an unknown city, despite its resemblance to the biblical character and his namesake (adamah, the ground).

[3] Seven may seem a little unimpressive, compared to the hundreds in the previous set of curses.  My theory is that the author of this curse was engaging in a little wordplay.  Instead of a hundred, they wrote seven (שׁבע); instead of “to sate,” they wrote “to satisfy” (שׂבע).

[4] This line is rather difficult and uncertain.  “Widows” is literally “weeping women”; women in the ancient Near East were also hired as professional mourners.  My own guess is that this line means that after the babies die of starvation, their mothers will be unable to enact revenge.  Another alternative is, “If seven hens go seeking food, they shall kill nothing.”  The word for “war” or “food” is also the word “bread,” and so the parallelism with the Fekherye curse sequence above makes me want to translate this as a similar attempt to bake bread.  However, the word for the female actors isn’t connected to baking (that I could find), and the word for killing also isn’t used in a culinary context, so it would take substantial new evidence to show that.

[5] I mean “sympathetic” in the magical sense, exemplified in popular culture by the “voodoo doll”: the idea that a magical connection exists between similar things, so that things done to one will affect the other.  This sort of curse was very common in the ancient Near East — Hittite treaties in particular often featured it.  Most likely, each part of this section was accompanied by a physical ritual in the initial treaty agreement.

[6] This line is both broken and confusing.  Something appears to be identified with Mati’el and his spirit (i.e. his personhood), but “thief” would only make simple sense if a human thief were punished as part of the ritual, which would be unusual.  No better suggestion has been made, unless the term refers to an unknown kind of wax figurine.