Care of the Dead (the Kispu Offering)
The dead ate what the living gave them — and an ancestor left unfed came back as a hungry ghost.
Also: kispu · kispum · care of the dead · offerings to the dead · ancestor cult · funerary offerings · etemmu · ghost
The Mesopotamian dead depended on the living. Through the kispu — periodic offerings of bread, water, and other food, accompanied by the speaking of the dead person's name — descendants nourished the shades of their ancestors and kept their memory and rest secure. A dead person with no one to make these offerings, or whose body lay unburied, became a restless, hungry ghost that could afflict the living. Honoring the ancestors was thus both a duty of piety and a practical safeguard. The care of the dead bound the generations together and gave the dim afterlife what comfort it could have.
In short
The kispu — the regular funerary offerings of food, drink, and the recitation of the dead's name by which living descendants sustained their ancestors' shades and kept them at peace.
Where it’s found
The kispu ritual and ancestor offerings (akkadian-pending; Tsukimoto, Untersuchungen zur Totenpflege); the unburied dead in 'Gilgameš, Enkidu and the nether world' (ETCSL 1.8.1.4, in corpus)
How the idea developed across Sumer, Babylon & Assyria
The kispu is well attested across periods, with royal kispu rituals naming long ancestral lines (e.g. the Old Babylonian 'Genealogy of the Hammurabi Dynasty'). Neglect of the dead produces the eṭemmu (restless ghost) of the incantation literature — linking this concept to demonology below.