Note 212.3 — Chapter XII · Eschatologic Ideas of East and West.

The spirit’s need of water has been an ancient tradition of Semitic grave-tendance. It is expressed on one of the cylinders of Gudea;212.3 and in the Curse of Hammurabi, which is a postscript to his code of laws, he swears that if a man breaks them “his spirit in the world below shall lack water.”212.4 Clay-cylinders in the museums of Paris and Berlin, that doubtless come from Mesopotamian graves, contain inscriptions expressing a blessing on the man who respects the dead, “may his departed spirit in the world below drink clear water.”212.5 The old idea survives in the belief of modern Islam that the soul of the dead yearns for nothing so much as that the rains or dews of heaven should fall refreshingly on the grave.