and the incantations to be recited in connection with
this symbolical act. The "Maklu" series embraced eight tablets and
contained, according to Tallqvist's calculations,[341] originally about
1,550 lines, or upwards of 9,000 words. The "Shurpu" series, although
embracing nine tablets, appears to have been somewhat shorter. In view
of the extensive character of these series we are justified in speaking
of incantation 'rituals.' The texts were evidently prepared with a
practical purpose in view. The efficacy of certain formulas having been
demonstrated, it was obviously of importance that their exact form
should be preserved for future reference. But a given formula was
effective only for a given case, or at most for certain correlated
cases, and accordingly it became necessary to collect as many formulas
as possible to cover all emergencies. The priests, acting as exorcisers,
would be the ones interested in making such collections, and we may
assume, as already suggested, that each temple would develop a
collection of its own,--an incantation code that served as a guide for
its priests. The natural tendency would be for these codes to increase
from generation to generation, perhaps not rapidly, but steadily. New
cases not as yet provided for would arise, and new formulas with new
instructions would be produced; or the exorcisers at a certain temple
would learn of remedies tried elsewhere, and would embody them in their
own special code. In short, the growth of these incantation 'rituals'
was probably similar to the manner in which, on the basis of actual
practice, religious codes grew up around the sanctuaries of ancient
Israel,--a process that terminated in the production of the various
codes and rituals constituting the legal documents embodied in the
Pentateuch.

The prominence given to Ea and to his favorite seat, the city of Eridu,
in the incantations suggests the theory that many of our texts are to be
ultimately traced to the temple of Ea, that once stood at Eridu. In that
case an additional proof would be furnished of the great antiquity of
the use of incantations in Babylonia. We must sharply distinguish
however, as already emphasized, between the origin and the present form
of the rituals. Again, those parts of a ritual in which Gibil, or Nusku,
appears prominently would most naturally be produced by priests
connected with a temple sacred to the one or the other of these gods.
The practice of incantation, how