The Cult-Image & the God's Real Presence
After the rite that 'opened its mouth,' the statue was no image but the god himself — to be fed, clothed, and consulted.
Also: cult image · cult statue · divine presence · mouth opening · mis pi · pit pi · salmu · idol
At the heart of each temple stood the cult-image — a statue of the god, richly made and adorned. Crucially, after special consecration rituals known as the 'washing of the mouth' and 'opening of the mouth,' the image was not regarded as a mere representation but as the god's genuine, living presence: it could see, eat, and be addressed directly. Priests bathed, clothed, and fed it daily, carried it in procession, and consulted it. The capture or destruction of a god's statue by an enemy was therefore a religious catastrophe — the god himself taken into exile — and its return a moment of national joy.
In short
The temple cult-statue, which after the 'mouth-washing/mouth-opening' rite was held truly to embody the god's living presence, to be fed, clothed, processed, and consulted as the deity himself.
Where it’s found
The mīs pî / pīt pî ritual texts (akkadian-pending; Walker & Dick, The Induction of the Cult Image); divine-presence belief pervasive across the corpus (in corpus)
How the idea developed across Sumer, Babylon & Assyria
The mīs pî / pīt pî ('mouth-washing/opening') rites that animate the image are best documented in first-millennium Akkadian ritual texts; the underlying belief in the image's real presence is older and pervasive. The capture of divine statues (e.g. Marduk's repeated abductions) is a recurring historical-theological theme.