Ea-bani, the request is granted, for the ground gapes open and the Utukku of Ea-bani appears “like the wind,”[2] that is, says Dr. Campbell Thompson, “probably a transparent spectre in the human shape of Ea-bani, who converses with Gilgamish.” The Ekimmu or Departed Spirit, was the soul of the dead person which for some reason could find no rest, and wandered over the earth lying wait to seize upon man. Especially did it lurk in deserted and ill-omened places. Dr. Thompson tells us that it is difficult to say exactly in what respect the Ekimmu differed from the Utukku,[3] but it is extremely interesting to inquire into the causes owing to which a person became a Ekimmu, and here we shall find many parallels with the old Greek beliefs concerning those duties to the dead which are paramount and for which a man must risk his life and more. It was ordinarily believed among the Assyrians that after death the soul entered the Underworld, “the House of Darkness, the seat of the god, Irkalla, the House from which none that enter come forth again.” Here they seem to have passed a miserable existence, enduring the pangs of hunger and thirst, and if their friends and relatives on earth were too niggardly to offer rich meats and pour forth bountiful libations upon their tombs they were compelled to satisfy their craving with dust and mud. But there were certain persons who were yet in worse case, for their souls could not even enter the Underworld. This is clear from the description given by the phantom of Ea-bani to his friend, the hero Gilgamish:
The man whose corpse lieth in the desert—
Thou and I have often seen such an one—
His spirit resteth not in the earth;
The man whose spirit hath none to care for it—
Thou and I have often seen such an one,
The dregs of the vessel—the leavings of the feast,
And that which is cast out into the street are his food.[4]
“The Ekimmu-spirit of an unburied corpse could find no rest and remained prowling about the earth so long as its body was above ground.”[5] This is exactly one phase of the Vampire, and in the various magical texts and incantations are given lists of those who are liable to return in this manner. As well as the ghosts of those whose bodies were uncared for or unburied, that is to say those who were lost or forgotten, there
