Kult und kriminalität

Resumen

Both ritual texts and documents do provide us with detailed and manifold information about the regular cult in the temples of Mesopotamia, e.g. Sallaberger (1993) for the cultic calendar of the Ur III-period or Thureau-Dangin (1921) and Linssen (2004) for the temple rituals in Hellenistic times. The regular cult, however, was not always performed as prescribed because of negligence or even criminal intents of the cultic personnel. Starting from the evidence of Neo-Assyrian letters, the topic of interrumpted cultic rituals or cultic rituals carried throught under difficult conditions will be dealt with making use also of texts from other periods of Ancient Near Eastern history (e.g. Old-Babylonian letters, Hittite instructions for the temple officials or Astronominal Diaries from the hellenistic period). The article focusses on problems caused by those very people supposed to perform the cult and maintain the temple: a) criminal of just lazy priests and other members of the sanctuary's personnel; b) the king himself reducing a temple's treasure and resources under pressure of financial needs.