FISHSKINLAB - MESOPOTAMIAN FISH SKIN RITUAL

MESOPOTAMIAN FISH SKIN RITUAL

Food and Ritual in the Ancient to Early Modern Near East. The Netherlands Institute for the Near East, NINO, Leiden, Netherlands.

I presented the paper: Mesopotamian Fish Skin: Between Ritual and Material Reality during the 7th The Netherlands Institute for the Near East NINO Annual Meeting, Food and Ritual in the Ancient to Early Modern Near East, at the National Museum of Antiquities and the Netherlands Institute for the Near East. The NINO Annual Meeting is a gathering of advanced students and researchers in the field of Near Eastern studies – spanning antiquity to the early modern period. It offers a lively forum for sharing current projects, discussing new ideas, and connecting with colleagues across disciplines.

Fish held a central role in Mesopotamian religious practice through sacrificial rites, evidenced by remains found in funerary offerings, settlements, and temples. Within the cult of Enki, fish were presented as votive offerings. Jars filled with fish bones have been recovered from temple sites, linked with marsh-dwelling communities seeking Enki’s protection from seasonal flooding. While often dismissed in material culture studies as food waste, fish skins from large-scaled species such as carp from the Tigris and Euphrates are technologically suitable for garment production.

Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian records, both textual and iconographic, depict rituals featuring fish-cloaked apkallu, semi-divine sages or priestly intermediaries associated with Enki and the primordial Apsu, who mediated between terrestrial and aquatic realms. Their appearance on ritual basins, amulets, figurines, and bas-reliefs highlights their role in protection and purification. Their cloaks suggest more than symbolic attire. The consistent representation of these garments supports the hypothesis that such items may have existed as ritual paraphernalia, including masks or full-body cloaks fashioned from processed fish skin and worn by Assyrian exorcists. Yet despite their frequency in visual culture, the material basis of their attire remains largely unexamined.

Drawing on archaeology, religious studies and tanning technologies, this study re-evaluates fish skin as a ritual material worn by priests in Mesopotamia. Although absent in the archaeological record, its use is technically feasible. Comparative examples—leopard-skin cloaks of Egyptian priests, crocodile-skin armour from Roman Egypt, and ethnographic fish-skin clothing among Arctic Indigenous communities—demonstrate the broader ritual use of animal skins.

https://www.nino-leiden.nl/event/7th-nino-annual-meeting-food-and-ritual-in-the-ancient-to-early-modern-near-east