Prisons are painful places. However, in theory, their goal is reform rather than punishment. The opening of the Elmira Reformatory in upstate New York in 1876 is partly responsible for the development of the concept of prisoner rehabilitation in the United States. Purported to be an institution of “benevolent reform,” the reformatory aimed to transform prisoners, not just deprive them though founder Zebulon Brockway, known as the “Father of American Corrections,” was notoriously harsh.
The reformatory concept was quickly replicated by other jurisdictions, and the idea that jails are places to “correct” people has since been ingrained in the legal system.
But it wasn’t until the 19th century that the notion that imprisonment and suffering were apparently beneficial for the prisoner first surfaced. The earliest evidence goes back some 4,000 years: to a hymn in Mesopotamia, in modern-day Iraq, praising a prison goddess named Nungal.
Almost a decade ago, as a graduate student researching slavery in early Mesopotamia, I came across numerous texts dealing with imprisonment. Some were administrative documents dealing with everyday accounting information.
Others were legal texts, literature or personal letters. I became fascinated with imprisonment in these cultures: Most of them detained suspects only briefly, but in literary and ritual texts, imprisonment was seen as a transformative, purifying experience.
The ‘house of life’
Around 1,800 B.C., students training as scribes at Nippur, an ancient Sumerian city, frequently copied from a selection of 10 literary works. These aspiring writers would duplicate documents in cuneiform that detailed the deeds of the legendary hero Gilgamesh as he battled the beast Huwawa, the terrifying forest protector. They wrote about a great Mesopotamian king named Šulgi, who claimed to be a god.
And as the master scribe dictated these various texts, the students also heard about a prison goddess named Nungal.
Though her justice was inescapable, Nungal was also celebrated for her compassion. Her “house” brought suffering upon prisoners, whose sorrow gave rise to lament. Prisoners might atone for their transgressions and make amends with their own personal gods, who served as their protectors and representatives before the greater gods, through that lament, though.
The “Hymn to Nungal,” which dates from the second or third millennium B.C., details how a guilty prisoner sentenced to death was not killed, but snatched “from the jaws of destruction” and put in Nungal’s house, which she calls a “house of life” but also a place of suffering, isolation and pain.
Still, the hymn describes prisoners transformed by their time in prison. The goddess says her house is “built with compassion, it soothes the heart of that person, and refreshes his spirits.” Eventually, she continues, they will lament and be purified in the eyes of their deity:
“When it has appeased the heart of his god for him; when it has polished him clean like silver of good quality, when it has made him shine forth through the dust; when it has cleansed him of dirt, like silver of best quality … he will be entrusted again into the propitious hands of his god.”
Fact vs. fiction
It’s still debatable how much the ancients believed these myths about the gods. Were texts like the “Hymn to Nungal” matters of sincere religion or just fairy tales that no one took seriously?
It is a literary work, hence it is also unreliable as a source of information on the legal system. Similar to today’s jails that hold suspects until trial, Mesopotamian nations of that era appear to have used prisons to hold suspects before punishment.
In addition, they imprisoned people for as long as three years at a period to coerce labor and make them pay a fine or debt. However, punishment did not involve a prison sentence; instead, it usually involved financial or physical repercussions.
Still, detainment entailed suffering, with one prisoner describing the “prison” as a “house of distresses or famine” in a letter written to his superior. In another text, the sender says he was released but complains of beatings that another prisoner endured as part of the investigative process although the sender does not mention the nature of the suspected offense.
However, scholars Klaas Veenhof and Dominique Charpin have found evidence of Nungal playing a role in the judicial process. At some temples, oaths would be taken in the presence of a throw-net, similar to what is used to cast for fish, which symbolized Nungal and inescapable justice.
The vision cast in the hymn was likely folded into a later ritual practice where imprisonment was used to purify the king. The king entered a makeshift reed prison at the New Year festival without his regalia and prayed to the gods there for his transgressions. Through prayer and ritual, he was deemed purified and able to resume his royal duties.
Yesterday and today
Even while the majority of individuals may not have spent much time in prison in Mesopotamia, they did suffer there. Perhaps it was this event that inspired the author of the “Hymn to Nungal” to explore how using mourning could be utilized to use such an experience to change the prisoner.
The notion that imprisonment can be good is pervasive, but is it accurate? The “Hymn to Nungal” paints a totally different picture of reform than how prison systems now view it.
However, the compelling notion that suffering for inmates can be beneficial has strong historical origins, allowing prison regimes to assert that the pain that takes place inside their walls is compassionate.
