The world’s oldest drawing of a ghost has been discovered on an ancient Babylonian tablet—and, just as in other timeless ghost stories like that 1995 Casper movie, it’s about a spirit whose sadness is alleviated by finding a girlfriend.
The Guardian tells us that the Babylonian clay tablet in question has been hanging out in the British Museum’s vast stores of ill-gotten imperial plunder. Its exact significance went overlooked until the ghost drawing was noticed by the Museum’s Middle Eastern department curator and cuneiform expert, Dr. Irving Finkel.
The tablet shows “a lonely bearded spirit being led into the afterlife and eternal bliss by a lover” and comes from a 3,500-year-old Babylonian “exorcist’s guide to getting rid of unwanted ghosts by addressing the particular malaise that brought them back to the world of the living.”
Though it’s hard to make out without the overlaid outline, the tablet’s ghost is depicted with his wrists bound, being led by a woman. The tablet includes text which “details a ritual that would dispatch [the ghost] happily to the underworld.”
“It’s obviously a male ghost and he’s miserable,” Dr. Finkel said. “You can imagine a tall, thin, bearded ghost hanging about the house did get on people’s nerves.”
The solution to this spectral problem, Dr. Finkel states, is an “explicit message” on the tablet, showing “that what this ghost needed was a lover.”
The back of the tablet includes a detailed instruction manual for the ritual used to get rid of the ghost, which required making “figurines of a man and a woman” that, along with other special steps involving beer, juniper, and doll clothes, are put in the right position during sunrise while the name of a god is called out. It’s not the most elaborate way to help get someone laid we’ve ever heard of, but it’s certainly up there.
Dr. Finkel discovered the tablet’s drawing by examining it under a lamp. When not fully lit, the area with the exorcism illustration appears blank, which explains why it went unnoticed for so long.
Dr. Finkel “believes the tablet was part of a library of magic in the house of an exorcist or in a temple” in ancient Babylon.
For more on the tablet, check out the Guardian article. We also highly recommend an online lecture by Dr. Finkel about his area of expertise, which is perfect for anyone who would like an excited elderly scholar who looks like a wizard to tell them ancient ghost stories. (He discusses the tablet in depth around 33 minutes into the video.)
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