everywhere I listened, it was the bearers of crowns, "The Achaemenid Period in Northern Iraq" (PDF). "[30] This is evident from the poem How Erra Wrecked the World, in which Erra deceived the god Marduk into leaving his cult statue. Mesopotamian religion refers to the religious beliefs and practices of the civilizations of ancient Mesopotamia, particularly Sumer, Akkad, Assyria and Babylonia between circa 3500 BC and 400 AD, after which they largely gave way to Syriac Christianity. "[55], The ancient Mesopotamians believed in an afterlife that was a land below our world. One of their prominent features was a terrifying brightness (melammu) which surrounded them, producing an immediate reaction of awe and reverence among men. The Amorite dynasty was deposed in 1595 BC after attacks from mountain-dwelling people known as the Kassites from the Zagros Mountains, who went on to rule Babylon for over 500 years. Various new religious movements in the 20th and 21st centuries have been founded that venerate some of the deities found in ancient Mesopotamian religion, including various strains of neopaganism that have adopted the worship of the historical Mesopotamian gods. Then, two centuries later in 330 BC the Macedonian Greek emperor Alexander the Great overthrew the Persians and took control of Mesopotamia itself. During the Neo-Assyrian Empire, Mesopotamian Aramaic became the lingua franca of the empire, and also Mesopotamia proper. All Rights Reserved. Mesopotamian mythology refers to the myths, religious texts, and other literature that comes from the region of ancient Mesopotamia in modern-day West Asia. This piece was thought to be recited in a ritual celebration of the Babylonian new year. In the 3rd century CE another native Mesopotamian religion flourished, Manicheanism, which incorporated elements of Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, and Zoroastrianism, as well as local Mesopotamian elements. This theory of a Babylonian-derived Bible originated from the discovery of a stele in the acropolis of Susa bearing a Babylonian flood myth with many similarities to the flood of Genesis, the Epic of Gilgamesh. served confections, and poured cool water from waterskins. The Legend of Gilgamesh (the first superhero!) Also common in Mesopotamian myths is the reoccurring concept that humanity’s purpose is to serve the gods. […] known about the old Persian polytheism. Myth: How Marduk Became King. Enuma Elis (also spelled Enuma Elish) is a Babylonian creation myth with an unclear composition, though it possibly dates back to the Bronze Age. Religion: Mesopotamian people worshiped hundreds of Gods everyday. Religion - A Big Part of Daily Life. It was this land, known alternately as Arallû, Ganzer or Irkallu, the latter of which meant "Great Below", that it was believed everyone went to after death, irrespective of social status or the actions performed during life. "[28], Mesopotamian temples were originally built to serve as dwelling places for the god, who was thought to reside and hold court on earth for the good of the city and kingdom. Mesopotamians were polytheistic; they worshipped several major gods and thousands of minor gods. These works were primarily preserved on stone or clay tablets and were written in cuneiform by scribes. [37] When a man neglected his god, it was assumed that the demons were free to inflict him, and when he revered his god, that god was like a shepherd who seeks food for him. The fundamental tenets of Panbabylonism were eventually dismissed as pseudoscientific,[64] however Assyriologists and biblical scholars recognize the influence of Babylonian mythology on Jewish mythology and other Near Eastern mythologies, albeit indirect. From the union of these two pri… […]. The story of Noah and the flood is one of the most famous incidents in Judaic scripture, the Torah. [22], One of the most important of these early Mesopotamian deities was the god Enlil, who was originally a Sumerian divinity viewed as a king of the gods and a controller of the world, who was later adopted by the Akkadians. In time, Ashur was promoted from being the local deity of Assur to the overlord of the vast Assyrian domain, which spread from the Caucasus and Armenia in the north to Egypt, Nubia and the Arabian Peninsula in the south, and from Cyprus and the eastern Mediterranean Sea in the west to central Iran in the east. It also contains the earliest reference to The Great Flood. The image was dressed and served banquets twice a day. Perhaps the most significant legend to survive from Mesopotamian religion is the Epic of Gilgamesh, which tells the story of the heroic king Gilgamesh and his wild friend Enkidu, and the former's search for immortality which is entwined with all the gods and their approval. This is further complicated by the fact that scholars are not entirely certain what role religious texts played in the Mesopotamian world.[61]. The rituals, practices and the henotheistic ordering of Mesopotamian religion(s) have a striking resemblance to modern day Hinduism and its photo-variants. The last written records in Akkadian were astrological texts dating from 78 CE discovered in Assyria. [9], There are no specific written records explaining Mesopotamian religious cosmology that survive today. [45], Although ancient paganism tended to focus more on duty and ritual than morality, a number of general moral virtues can be gleaned from surviving prayers and myths. Sacrificial meals were also set out regularly, with a sacrificial animal seen as a replacement (pūhu) or substitute (dinānu) for a man, and it was considered that the anger of the gods or demons was then directed towards the sacrificial animal. Its significance and symbolism have been the subject of much discussion, but most regard the tower as a kind of staircase or ladder for the god to descend from and ascend to the heavens, though there are signs which point towards an actual cult having been practiced in the upper temple, so the entire temple may have been regarded as a giant altar. Its most complete surviving version was recorded in Akkadian. This is how indian temples might have looked like during mesopotamian age look at the top row on the left. Adad or Ishkur - god of storms, venerated as a supreme power especially in Syria and Lebanon [5] Assyria and Babylonia later became provinces under the Parthian Empire (Athura and province of Babylonia), Rome (province of Assyria) and Sassanid Empire (province of Asuristan). The god's presence within the image seems to have been thought of in a very concrete way, as instruments for the presence of the deity. This idea of retribution was also applied to the nation and history as a whole. [58], The modern study of Mesopotamia (Assyriology) is still a fairly young science, beginning only in the middle of the Nineteenth century,[59] and the study of Mesopotamian religion can be a complex and difficult subject because, by nature, their religion was governed only by usage, not by any official decision,[60] and by nature it was neither dogmatic nor systematic. Incantations and ceremonies were also used to cure diseases which were also thought to be associated with demonic activity, sometimes making use of sympathetic magic. He was not referred to with the usual Akkadian term for "king", šarrum; that was instead reserved for the city's patron deity Ashur, of whom the ruler was the high priest. Read here to learn more about Mesopotamian religion. The concept of „all come from one‟ in both beliefs is same; Mesopotamians believed that all creatures came from Apsu while Hinduism believed that all creatures came from Brahma. Sacred prostitution, temple prostitution, cult prostitution, and religious prostitution are general terms for a rite consisting of paid intercourse performed in the context of religious worship, possibly as a form of fertility rite or divine marriage (hieros gamos).Scholars prefer the terms "sacred sex" or "sacred sexual rites" in cases where payment for services is not involved. As with other deities, the personal gods changed over time and little is known about early practice as they are rarely named or described. Assyrian kings are attested from the late 25th century BC and dominated northern Mesopotamia and parts of eastern Anatolia and northeast Syria. [47], Every man also had duties to his fellow man which had some religious character, particularly the king's duties to his subjects. Each city had it's own special God to watch over them. In the fourth millennium BCE, when the first evidence for what is recognisably Mesopotamian religion can be seen with the invention in Mesopotamia of writing, the Sumerians appeared, although it is not known if they migrated into the area in pre historic times or whether they were some of the original i… [65], In the New Testament Book of Revelation, Babylonian religion is associated with religious apostasy of the lowest order, the archetype of a political/religious system heavily tied to global commerce, and it is depicted as a system which, according to the author, continued to hold sway in the first century CE, eventually to be utterly annihilated. Unlike followers of Mesopotamian religion, the Egyptians had a strong belief in the afterlife, which they expressed by building elaborate tombs such as the pyramids. 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