Scapegoat
SCAPEGOAT. Scapegoat rituals are among the oldest known rituals. A more rudimentary form is already found in two texts from Ebla dating to the later third millennium BCE, but the first full-fledged descriptions come from outlying parts of the Hittite empire, Kizzuwadna, Hapalla, and Arzawa (i.e., city-states in southeast Anatolia and northern Syria). The prescription of Ashella, a man of Hapalla, which dates to the thirteenth century BCE, reads:
When evening comes, whoever the army commanders are, each of them prepares a ram—whether it is a white ram or a black ram does not matter at all. Then I twine a cord of white wool, red wool, and green wool, and the officer twists it together, and I bring a necklace, a ring, and a chalcedony stone and I hang them on the ram's neck and horns, and at night they tie them in front of the tents and say: "Whatever deity is prowling about (?), whatever deity has caused this pestilence, now I have tied up these rams for you, be appeased!" And in the morning I drive them out to the plain, and with each ram they take 1 jug of beer, 1 loaf, and 1 cup of milk (?).
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