This association of city with deity was celebrated in both ritual and myth. Babylon , a minor city in the third millennium, had become an important military presence by the Old Babylonian period , and its patron deity, noted in a mid-third millennium text from Abu-Salabikh as ranking near the bottom of the gods, rose to become the head of the pantheon when Babylon ascended to military supremacy in the late second millennium. Political events influenced the makeup of the pantheon.
With the fall of Sumerian hegemony at the end of the third millennium, Babylonian culture and political control spread throughout southern Mesopotamia. At the end of the third millennium B. With the fall of Sumerian political might and the rise of the Amorite dynasties at the end of the third millennium and beginning of the second millennium, religious traditions began to merge.
Older Sumerian deities were absorbed into the pantheon of Semitic-speaking peoples. Some were reduced to subordinate status while newer gods took on the characteristics of older deities. As Enlil, the supreme Sumerian god, had no counterpart in the Semitic pantheon, his name remained unchanged. Most of the lesser Sumerian deities now faded from the scene. At the end of the second millennium, the Babylonian creation story Enuma Elish refers to only gods of the heavens.
He shall provide the procedures for all my offices. He shall take charge of all my commands. Beginning in the second millennium B. Anu was represented by the number 60, Enlil by 50, Ea by 40, Sin, the moon god, by 30, Shamash by 20, Ishtar by 15, and Adad, the god of storms, by 6.
While the great gods of the pantheon were worshipped by priests at rituals in cultic centers, ordinary people had no direct contact with these deities. In their homes, they worshipped personal gods, who were conceived as divine parents and were thought to be deities who could intercede on their behalf to ensure health and protection for their families.
Demons were viewed as being either good or evil. Evil demons were thought to be agents of the gods sent to carry out divine orders, often as punishment for sins. They could attack at any moment by bringing disease, destitution, or death. Demons could include the angry ghosts of the dead or spirits associated with storms. Some gods played a beneficent role to protect against demonic scourges.
A deity depicted with the body of a lion and the head and arms of a bearded man was thought to ward off the attacks of lion-demons. Pazuzu, a demonic-looking god with a canine face and scaly body, possessing talons and wings, could bring evil, but could also act as a protector against evil winds or attacks by lamastu -demons.
Rituals and magic were used to ward off both present and future demonic attacks and counter misfortune. Demons were also represented as hybrid human-animal creatures, some with birdlike characteristics. Although the gods were said to be immortal, some slain in divine combat had to reside in the Underworld along with demons.
In Western mythology and religious tradition, ancient Sumer had lush vegetation and unpredictable water resources. Enki, the great Sumerian water god, was one of the four creation deities of Sumer, and the god of fresh water, male fertility, and knowledge. He was represented with flowing streams of water and swimming fishes. According to legend, he filled the Tigris and Euphrates rivers with sparkling water and fish. Enki was also associated with wisdom, magic, incantations, and arts and crafts.
He was the patron deity of Eridu, and his most important cult center was the E-abzu or Abzu House at Eridu. Enki was always seen as favoring mankind.
In Sumerian poetry, he was concerned with every aspect of human life and organized every feature of the civilized world in great detail. In art, Enki was represented as a seated god with a long beard surrounded by channels of water. Through legends, it is unclear who was more important: Enki or Enlil.
Enki, the god of wisdom, organized the earth according to the decisions of Enlil, who made the general plans. The execution of these plans was left to Enki who was wise, skillful, handy, and resourceful.
Enlil was one of the most important gods in the pantheon. His wife was the air goddess Ninlil, and among the children of Enlil are the goddess Inanna and the gods Nanna, Ninurta, Utu, and many more.
The legend is that Enlil found himself living in utter darkness in the sky. He therefore had the moon god Nanna brighten the darkness of his house, followed by the sun god Utu, who became even greater than his father. In many books, he is described as a violent and destructive god, but it is clear that in the myths, he was a friendly, fatherly god, who ensured the safety and wellbeing of all humans, particularly the inhabitants of Sumer.
The Tablet of Destinies was one of the objects which gave Enlil the power to determine the destinies of the world. According to legend, it was both Enlil and Enki who sent Labar, the cattle god, and Ashnan, the grain goddess, from heaven to earth to give mankind cattle and grain. The goddess Inanna was the most important female deity of the ancient period. She was the goddess of love, war, and female fertility. Throughout Sumerian history, as a ruler of the Erech city-state, she was primarily responsible for sexual love and procreation as the life-giving goddess of love, ensuring the prosperity of the land and its people.
Inanna was the daughter of Enlil and twin sister of the sun god Utu. She also had a sister, Ereskigal, who was queen of the underworld. Various Sumerian poems are about Inanna and her love for Dumuzi and how she was ultimately responsible for his death. She was a patron of Uruk, where her principal shrine E-ana, or House of Heaven, was located.
The personality of Inanna can be divided into three quite separate parts: goddess of love and sexual behavior, especially connected with extramarital sex and lust; a warlike goddess fond of battle, violence, and power, standing next to her favorite kings as they fight; and Inanna as the planet Venus, the morning and evening star.
She was also famous for taking one hundred divine decrees governing all cultural and political achievements which made up the Sumerian civilization in Enki. Among these decrees were those referring to lordship, wisdom, understanding, victory, judgment, and decisions.
In many of the most important Sumerian cities, there was a close relationship between religion and government. Until the s, when the lost civilization was discovered, no one knew of the existence of a land called Sumer in ancient Mesopotamia modern-day Iran and Iraq. Unique to Sumerian religion is the fact that there is an absolute inferiority of men to gods.
In other religions, the faithful are afforded the comfort of life after death. Here it is impossible for men to achieve any sort of paradise, which is reserved only for the immortal gods, not for mortal men. Inanna might have been popular, but she was a ways down the totem-pole. An was the great god in heaven and his two sons were Enki who was sent to Earth first and then Enlil. Enlil was ranked higher of the two, but Enki created man. She was the hot babe.
Toward the end of the empire, though, Sumerian became increasingly a literary language. The Gutian period BCE was marked by a period of chaos and decline, as Guti barbarians defeated the Akkadian military but were unable to support the civilizations in place. However, the region was becoming more Semitic, and the Sumerian language became a religious language. Many Sumerian clay tablets written in cuneiform script have been discovered. They are not the oldest example of writing, but nevertheless represent a great advance in the human ability to write down history and create literature.
Initially, pictograms were used, followed by cuneiform, and then ideograms. Letters, receipts, hymns, prayers, and stories have all been found on clay tablets. Bill of Sale on a Clay Tablet. This clay tablet shows a bill of sale for a male slave and building, circa BCE. Sumerians believed in anthropomorphic polytheism, or of many gods in human form, which were specific to each city-state.
The core pantheon consisted of An heaven , Enki a healer and friend to humans , Enlil gave spells spirits must obey , Inanna love and war , Utu sun-god , and Sin moon-god.
Sumerians invented or improved a wide range of technology, including the wheel, cuneiform script, arithmetic, geometry, irrigation, saws and other tools, sandals, chariots, harpoons, and beer.
Skip to main content.
0コメント