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Sumerian religion was the religion practiced by the people of Sumer, the first literate civilization of ancient Mesopotamia. The Sumerians regarded their gods as responsible for everything that happens in life.

Before the beginning of kingship in Sumer, the city-states were effectively ruled by priests and religious officials. Later, kings started to rule, but priests continued to have great influence on Sumerian society. In early times, Sumerian temples were simple, one-room structures, sometimes built on elevated platforms. Towards the end of Sumerian civilization, these temples developed into ziggurats - tall, pyramidal structures with sanctuaries at the tops.

The Sumerians believed that the universe had come into being through a series of cosmic births. First, Nammu, the primeval waters, gave birth to Ki (the earth) and An (the sky), who mated together and produced a son named Enlil. Enlil separated heaven from earth and claimed the earth as his domain. Humans were believed to have been created by Enki, the son of Nammu and An. Heaven was reserved exclusively for deities and, upon their deaths, all mortals' spirits, regardless of their behavior while alive, were believed to go to Kur, a cold, dark cavern deep beneath the earth, which was ruled by the goddess Ereshkigal and where the only food available was dry dust. In later times, Ereshkigal was believed to rule alongside her husband Nergal, the god of death.

Written Cuneiform

Sumerian myths were passed down through the oral tradition until the invention of writing. Early Sumerian cuneiform was used primarily as a record-keeping tool; it was not until the late early dynastic period that religious writings first became prevalent as temple praise hymns and as a form of "incantation" called the nam-šub (prefix + "to cast").

Architecture

In the Sumerian city-states, temple complexes originally were small, elevated one-room structures. In the early dynastic period, temples developed raised terraces and multiple rooms. Toward the end of the Sumerian civilization, Ziggurats became the preferred temple structure for Mesopotamian religious centers. Temples served as cultural, religious, and political headquarters until approximately 2500 BCE, with the rise of military kings known as Lu-gals ("man" + "big") after which time the political and military leadership was often housed in separate "palace" complexes.

The Priesthood

Until the advent of the lugals, Sumerian city states were under a virtually theocratic government controlled by various En or Ensí, who served as the high priests of the cults of the city gods. (Their female equivalents were known as Nin.) Priests were responsible for continuing the cultural and religious traditions of their city-state, and were viewed as mediators between humans and the cosmic and terrestrial forces. The priesthood resided full-time in temple complexes, and administered to matters of state including the large irrigation processes necessary for the civilization's survival.

During the Third Dynasty of Ur, the Sumerian city-state of Lagash was said to have had 62 "lamentation priests" who were accompanied by 180 vocalists and instrumentalists.

The Sumerians envisioned the universe as a closed dome surrounded by a primordial saltwater sea. Underneath the terrestrial earth, which formed the base of the dome, existed an underworld and a freshwater ocean called the Apsû. The deity of the dome-shaped firmament was named An; the earth was named Ki. First the underground world was believed to be an extension of the goddess Ki, but later developed into the concept of Kigal. The primordial saltwater sea was named Nammu, who became known as Tiamat during and after the Sumerian Renaissance.

Creation story

According to Sumerian mythology, the gods originally created humans as servants for themselves, but freed them when they became too much to handle.

This cosmological shift may have been caused by the growing influence of the neighboring Akkadian religion, or as a result of increased warfare between the Sumerian city-states; the assignment of certain powers to deities may have mirrored the appointment of the Lugals, who were given power and authority by the city-state and its priesthood.

Earliest deities

The earliest historical records of Sumer do not go back much further than c. 2900 BC, although it is generally agreed that Sumerian civilization started between c. 4500 and 4000 BC. The earliest Sumerian literature of the 3rd millennium BC identifies four primary deities; Anu, Enlil, Ninhursag and Enki. The highest order of these earliest gods were described occasionally behaving mischievously towards each other, but were generally involved in co-operative creative ordering.

Lists of large numbers of Sumerian deities have been found. Their order of importance and the relationships between the deities has been examined during the study of cuneiform tablets.

The majority of Sumerian deities belonged to a classification called the Anunna ("[offspring] of An"), whereas seven deities, including Enlil and Inanna, belonged to a group of "underworld judges" known as the Anunnaki ("[offspring] of An" + Ki; alternatively, "those from heaven (An) who came to earth (Ki)"]). During the Third Dynasty of Ur, the Sumerian pantheon was said to include sixty times sixty (3600) deities.

The main Sumerian deities are:

Anu: god of heaven, the firmament

Enlil: god of the air (from Lil = Air); patron deity of Nippur

Enki: god of freshwater, male fertility, and knowledge; patron deity of Eridu

Ereshkigal: goddess of the underworld, Kigal or Irkalla

Inanna: goddess of warfare, female fertility, patron deity of Uruk

Nammu was the primeval sea (Engur), who gave birth to An (heaven) and Ki (earth) and the first deities; eventually became known as the goddess Tiamat

Ninhursag: goddess of the earth

Nanna: god of the moon; one of the patron deities of Ur

Ningal: wife of Nanna

Ninlil: an air goddess and wife of Enlil; one of the matron deities of Nippur; she was believed to reside in the same temple as Enlil

Ninurta: god of war, agriculture, one of the Sumerian wind gods; patron deity of Girsu, and one of the patron deities of Lagash

Utu: god of the sun at the E-babbar temple of Sippar

The Sumerians had an ongoing linguistic and cultural exchange with the Semitic Akkadian peoples in northern Mesopotamia for generations prior to the usurpation of their territories by Sargon of Akkad in 2340 BCE. Sumerian mythology and religious practices were rapidly integrated into Arabian culture, presumably blending with the original Akkadian belief systems that have been mostly lost to history. Sumerian deities developed Akkadian counterparts. Some remained virtually the same until later Babylonian and Assyrian rule. The Sumerian god An, for example, developed the Akkadian counterpart Anu; the Sumerian god Enki became Ea; and the Sumerian gods Ninurta and Enlil remained very much the same in the Akkadian pantheon.

Babylonians

The Amorite, Babylonians gained dominance over southern Mesopotamia by the mid-17th century BCE. During the Old Babylonian Period, the Sumerian and Akkadian languages were retained for religious purposes; the majority of Sumerian mythological literature known to historians today comes from the Old Babylonian Period, either in the form of transcribed Sumerian texts (most notably the Babylonian version of the Epic of Gilgamesh) or in the form of Sumerian and Akkadian influences within Babylonian mythological literature (most notably the Enûma Eliš). The Sumerian-Akkadian pantheon was altered, most notably with the introduction of a new supreme deity, Marduk. The Sumerian goddess Inanna also developed the counterpart Ishtar during the Old Babylonian Period.

The Hurrians adopted the Akkadian god Anu into their pantheon sometime no later than 1200 BCE. Other Arabian deities adapted into the Hurrian pantheon include Ayas, the Hurrian counterpart to Ea; Shaushka, the Hurrian counterpart to Ishtar; and the goddess Ninlil, whose mythos had been drastically expanded by the Babylonians.

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Sumerian religion was the religion practiced by the people of Sumer, the first literate civilization of ancient Mesopotamia. The Sumerians regarded their gods as responsible for everything that happens in life. Before the beginning of kingship in Sumer, the city-states were effectively ruled by priests and religious officials.

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Sumerian Religion (you have already read this in the textbook! ) 

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Sumerian Religion (you have already read this in the textbook! ) 

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From World Studies Book

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​The Standard of Ur is a box, the two large sides of which show aspects of life in early Mesopotamia. The purpose of the object remains unknown. Woolley though it might have been mounted on a pole and carried - hence its name. Others think it may be the sounding box of a lyre. The decoration on each side is divided into three levels (registers) which can be read from bottom to top. One side shows scenes of peace and the other scenes of war.

War and peace

The war side shows a Sumerian army and scenes of warfare. On the bottom level are chariots pulled by donkeys which are trampling enemies. The chariots move faster as they move from left to right. Further up the levels there are infantry soldiers with cloaks carrying spears, enemy soldiers being killed with axes, prisoners being paraded naked and presented to ruler who appears at the top carrying a spear and larger than all the other figures.

On the other side of the Standard, the bottom two levels show workers of all sorts carrying bags on their shoulders, probably containing fresh produce, and backpacks supported by headbands. There are men leading donkeys as well as bulls, sheep and goats; others are carrying fish. At the top there is a royal banquet. The ruler, wearing a woollen fleece skirt, is seated before his guests who are also dressed similarly, though less extravagantly. The banqueters are served by attendants and entertained by a singer and musician playing a lyre.

What the Standard tells us about life in an ancient Mesopotamian city

Ur was one of the first village settlements founded around 4000 BC in an area of Mesopotamia known as Sumer, and by 2800 BC it had become one of the most prosperous city-states in the region. As the first cities developed, increased population led to the establishment of complex systems of administration and record-keeping and increased wealth gave rise to social hierarchies, specialist roles within society and the need for more organised forms of protection.

The peace side of the Standard shows how the city, and in particular the ruler, draws upon the agricultural and natural resources of its territory. Agricultural success was necessary to the growth of a city-state and to the benefits it brought to the people. It was also on this success that the ruling group could build a courtly lifestyle involving feasting and entertainment. Agricultural surplus could be used to trade exotic foreign goods, such as the materials used to decorate the Standard, which came hundreds or thousands of miles from the Persian Gulf (the white shells), Afghanistan (the blue lapis lazuli) and India (the red stones).

On the other side, the Standard portrays warfare as a means of protecting the wealth of the city-state from outsiders. The organised nature of the army, their equipment and their conquest of enemies can be seen as symbols of the ruler's power and status.

One further reason why the Standard is valuable to our understanding of ancient cities is that it shows a range of people - prisoners, warriors, agricultural workers, musicians - overseen by the ruler positioned at the top and shown larger than everyone else. So even though the purpose of the Standard of Ur remains uncertain, the message it conveys is very clear: that a society's prosperity is generated through social organisation of its people, and the protection and management of its resources.

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Teaching History with 100 Objects - The Standard of Ur

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Excavated from the royal tombs of Ur by British archaeologist Leonard Woolley in the 1920s, the Standard of Ur is a box, decorated with images of how an ancient city state was organised.

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Mesopotamian art and architecture, the art and architecture of the ancient Mesopotamian civilizations.

The name Mesopotamia has been used with varying connotations by ancient writers. If, for convenience, it is to be considered synonymous with the modern state of Iraq, it can be seen in terms of two fairly well-defined provinces: a flat alluvial plain in the south and, in the north, the uplands through which the country's twin rivers flow in their middle courses. This geographic division of the area is reflected in the history of its cultural development from the earliest times.

The first traces of settled communities are found in the northern region and date from the mid-6th millennium bce, a period that archaeologists associate with the transition from a Neolithic to a Chalcolithic age. It is of some importance that this period also corresponds to the earliest use of painted ornament on pottery vessels, since the designs used for this purpose are the most reliable criteria by which ethnological groupings and migratory movements can be distinguished. Archaeologically, such groupings are, for the most part, arbitrarily named after the site at which traces of them were first found, and the same names are sometimes attributed to the prehistoric periods during which they were predominant. Hence, Hassuna, Hassuna-Sāmarrāʾ, and Halaf in northern Iraq are the names given to the first three periods during which known early settlements were successively occupied by peoples whose relations were apparently with Syria and Anatolia. The designs on their pottery, sometimes in more than one colour, usually consist of zones filled with "geometric" ornament in patterns reminiscent of woven fabrics. These designs are often adapted to the shape of the vessels with creditable artifice. Only in Hassuna-Sāmarrāʾ pottery do devices occasionally appear that consist of animal, bird, or even human figures, ingeniously stylized and aesthetically attractive. Such motifs, however, appear to be adopted from contemporary Iranian ceramics. The only other notable art form popular at this time is that of hominoid figurines of stone or clay, associated with primitive religious cults; however, their formal idiosyncrasies vary greatly from group to group, and the meaning of their symbolism is unknown. Nor can they-or the pottery designs-be considered as ancestral to Mesopotamian art of historical times, the antecedents of which must be sought in southern Iraq.

Here, in the delta, the earliest phase of prehistory is associated with the name Ubaid I, and, since this phase has a parallel in Susiana, north of the Iranian frontier, the first settlers in both areas may have a common origin. Among these settlers, according to some scholars, was the germ of Sumerian genius, but this is not indisputably authenticated until the end of the 4th millennium. By 3100 bce, however, the presence of the Sumerians is finally proved by the invention of writing as a vehicle for their own language. From then onward, successive phases in the evolution of Sumerian art can satisfactorily be studied.

Three factors may be recognized as contributing to the character of Mesopotamian art and architecture. One is the sociopolitical organization of the Sumerian city-states and of the kingdoms and empires that succeeded them. From the earliest times, cities were fortified by and adorned with public buildings; irrigation systems were organized and jealously protected; armies were efficiently equipped and troops trained in concerted action; victories were celebrated and treaties ratified. Because interstate warfare or foreign conquests were primary preoccupations of Mesopotamian rulers, it is understandable that in most periods a certain class of artworks was dedicated simply to the glorification of their military prowess.

A second and even more important factor, however, is the major role played by organized religion in Mesopotamian affairs of state. Particularly in Sumerian times, the municipal and economic organization of a city was the responsibility of the temple, with its hierarchical priesthood in which was vested an authority almost equal to that of the ruler and his advisory council of elders. Accordingly, in the early days of Sumer and Babylonia, architectural attention was paid primarily to religious buildings, and all sculpture served religious purposes. The elaboration and adornment of palaces was an innovation of Assyrian times ( see below Assyrian period).

The third factor that contributed to the character of Mesopotamian art is the influence of the natural environment. The practical limitations imposed upon both artist and architect by the geology and climate of southern Iraq are immediately apparent. Since no stone or wood was available in the alluvial plain, sculptors were dependent on scarce imported material or compelled to use such substitutes as terra-cotta (baked clay). Architecture also was profoundly affected, first, by the restriction of building material to brickwork and, second, by problems of roof construction, only partially solved by the contrivance of brick vaulting, in the 2nd millennium bce. For the Assyrians, in the north, good-quality stone was plentiful, but the cost of quarrying and transport, combined with an obstinate conservatism, caused it to be regarded as a luxury material and its use to be confined to sculptured ornament and conspicuous architectural features.

An equally apparent, if more abstract, association between Mesopotamian art and environment can be detected when the intellectual climate engendered by the latter is understood. In a country where summer and winter temperatures reach thermometric extremes, where agriculture depends exclusively on the artificial distribution of river water and contends precariously with the timing of seasonal floods, where the herdsman is afflicted by the depredations of wild beasts and the cultivator by the menace of poisonous insects-in such a country, the inhabitants must have felt themselves in perpetual conflict with hostile and potentially destructive elements in nature. All this confrontation and frustration is reflected in the melancholy undertones of their religious beliefs, particularly those of the Sumerians, for whom success and prosperity came to be identified with the principle of fertility and thus could only be attained by the appeasement of capricious deities. Such convictions are inherent in the fabric of their complicated mythology, which lends itself easily to expression in pictorial form and provides the predominant subject of almost all Sumerian art. Furthermore, since their mythical traditions and religious beliefs persisted for many centuries after the demise of the Sumerians themselves, they provided the basic imagery of almost all Mesopotamian art.

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Mesopotamian art and architecture | Characteristics, Facts, & History

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Mesopotamian art and architecture, the art and architecture of the ancient Mesopotamian civilizations. The name Mesopotamia has been used with varying connotations by ancient writers. If, for convenience, it is to be considered synonymous with the modern state of Iraq, it can be seen in terms of two fairly well-defined provinces: a flat alluvial plain in the south and, in the north, the uplands through which the country's twin rivers flow in their middle courses.

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Very useful article

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Canals and levees formed the basis of land irrigation and flood control in ancient Sumer. Located in the lower reaches of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers in southern Mesopotamia, today's southern Iraq, this is an area of scarce rainfall but major flooding in late winter and spring. From around 3500 B.C. and over the next two millennia, Sumerians pioneered control of the water flow and the development of agriculture whose produce would feed the populations of over 20 city states. However, this process was hampered by increasing salt concentrations in the soil.

The southern Mesopotamian plains where the Sumerians lived appeared flat but like today, constituted a changing landscape. In late winter and spring, snowmelt in the mountains to the north and east brought catastrophic flooding that carried huge quantities of silt and other sediments over more than 1800 kilometers (1118 miles) to the south. Branches of the lower Tigris and Euphrates rivers meandered and merged - anastomosed - over the plains, producing a changing pattern of river levees, turtleback -- arched -- islands, dune fields and marshes that shifted with the next flood. During the rest of the year, the soil was baked hard and dry by the sun and eroded by the wind.

Natural levees are embankments created by deposited river sediments as a river floods. They are asymmetrical structures with almost vertical walls adjacent to the river while tapering landwards along a gentle slope. Levee widths during the Sumerian period were commonly over 1 kilometer (.62 mile). River levels could vary between 4 and 6 meters (13 to 19.7 feet) during flooding. The levee crest could rise up to 10 meters (32.8 feet) above surrounding plains. Sumerians built up the levees by making foundations of reeds impregnated with bitumen, sun-baked surface seepage of crude oil common in the region. Baked mud bricks, also bonded with bitumen, were placed on top of the foundations. This not only increased the height of river banks, it also protected them from erosion by water currents. During dry periods, Sumerians made a simple drainage system by hoisting water in buckets over the levees and watered cultivated land. They also poked holes into the hard and dry levee walls, allowing the water to flow and irrigate crops in adjacent fields.

Initially, Sumerians depended on a network of natural, anastomosing river channels for their water supply. They began to dig artificial feeder channels and canals between the third and second millennia B.C., making use of the rivers' avulsions. These are the shifts of water courses created by natural breaks in levee walls, or a weakened part of a levee wall caused by man-made drainage holes. This process caused the water course to split in two. The new river branch either carved an entirely new course or meandered and rejoined the original channel. Sumerians excavated canals along these new water courses and dug smaller feeder channels. They used the excavated soil and debris to construct further levees. The canals could be up to 16 meters (52.5 feet) wide. Water flow was controlled by regulators - dams and sluice gates -- erected at points between specially strengthened levee walls. Sumerian farmers faced a constant battle in dredging the canals free from deposited silt.

Because of their origin as snowmelt, the Tigris and Euphrates river waters have always contained high concentrations of dissolved salts. Over millennia, these salts accumulate in the groundwater and are wicked up to the surface through capillary action in plant roots. Marine transgressions during geological times also left smaller salt accumulations in rocks underlying the soil. Further salt was blown into the Sumerian plains by winds from the Persian Gulf. Rainfall was, and remains, insufficient to flush the groundwater while increased irrigation exacerbates the salinization. Evaporated salt formed a white crust on the surface of fields and levee walls. Modern methods of controlling salt accumulations are by drilling down to the water table and flushing the groundwater. Sumerians didn't have this technology and had to leave fields fallow for alternate years, or abandon them together with the adjacent levees and canals.

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Canals and levees formed the basis of land irrigation and flood control in ancient Sumer. Located in the lower reaches of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers in southern Mesopotamia, today's southern Iraq, this is an area of scarce rainfall but major flooding in late winter and spring. From around 3500 B.C.

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Irrigation - bringing water to the fields

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Irrigation - bringing water to the fields

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By: C. Leonard Woolley View PDF

During the whole of our digging season (1923-24) the greater number of the workmen have been engaged upon the clearing of the Ziggurat, and before the work closed down this, the most imposing of the monuments of Ur, was fully exposed as it had not been since its destruction in the fifth century B. C.

In each of the chief cities of Mesopotamia there stood of old one of these ziggurats or staged towers whose ruins today dominate the lower mounds that were temples or palaces. They were great solid structures rising up tier above tier, each stage smaller than the one below, so that the whole had the effect of a stepped platform; stairways or sloping ramps led from the ground level to the summit, and thereon was set a little shrine dedicated to the city's patron god. The amount of labour that went to the building of such a tower was immense, and one wonders why it should have been incurred so regularly in every great town. The explanation seems to be that the Sumerians were originally a hill folk, accustomed, as all hill folk are, to putting up their temples and their altars on "high places" and "on every high hill;" when they moved down into the plain of Mesopotamia, where the flat alluvium stretches unrelieved to the horizon, they felt the need of the "high place" where God could be properly worshipped and so set to and built artificial mountains whereby man might approach nearer to heaven. The tower of Babel was meant to storm the throne of God with prayer at close quarters rather than by force of arms.

The ruins of Khorsabad have given us the remains of one ziggurat fairly well preserved and Herodotus has left us a description of that of Babylon; the Greek's account is none too clear, but he evidently is describing a building very different to that represented by the ruins, and we can only gather that whereas the idea of all the ziggurats was the same, in plan and in ornament they varied much one from another. Therefore the clearing of that at Ur, the best preserved of all the ziggurats in Mesopotamia, was bound to be a work of great interest.

Much of the history of the monument was already known, for in the middle of last century Mr. Taylor, excavating on behalf of the British Museum, had found the inscribed clay cylinders whereon Nabonidus, last king of Babylon, had recorded how he had repaired and completed the tower begun but left unfinished by Ur-Engur and his son Dungi, kings of Ur about 2300 B. c. We knew therefore that we should have to deal with buildings of that early date and of the sixth century B. c. Actually of Dungi we have found no trace, and we can only conclude that his work was limited to the upper structure which was swept away to make room for the new buildings of Nabonidus; it is safer to assume this than to suppose that Nabonidus was in error, for the king was a keen archaeologist, fond of digging up the foundation-records of his predecessors and basing his statements upon their written evidence; that he did so here is sure, for at the corner of the second stage of Ur-Engur's work, below an unbroken pavement laid down by Nabonidus, we found a hole driven right into the heart of the brickwork, a hole that could only have been made by the later king's workmen searching for the old foundation-deposits.

Even without the later foundation-cylinders (further examples of which were found by us this year) it would have been possible to assign to each king his own part in the building, for the royal stamps on the bricks left no doubt on the subject, except indeed where the later builders re-used some of the material taken from the earlier walls. The whole of the lowest stage is due to Ur-Engur, and everything visible above it to Nabonidus. There is nothing to tell us what the upper part of the original ziggurat was like; that of the sixth century B. C. can be reconstructed in all its essential lines.

The lowest stage is a rectangle, the short ends straight, the longer sides slightly convex, as if to give an appearance of greater strength to the centre, where the building was highest. It is solid throughout, of crude brick inside with a thick facing of baked bricks laid in pitch for mortar; to secure a bond, reed mats dipped in pitch were laid between the brick courses at regular intervals. The quality of the bricks and of the bricklaying is astonishingly good, and much of the wall face is as clean and new looking as when it was first built. The surface is relieved by shallow buttresses; a further variety is afforded by the numerous "weeper-holes" running right through the thickness of the burnt brick wall for the drainage of the filling which without this precaution would have swelled with the infiltration of the winter rains and burst the casing.

On three sides the ziggurat walls rise straight and unbroken from the ground, but on the NE side are the stairs leading to the summit. There were three flights of a hundred steps each; a central flight, and from either corner of the ziggurat a flight running up against the wall face, the three converging at the top in a broad gateway through the parapet of the second stage; the two angles between the central and the side stairways are filled by solid platform towers whose flat tops were probably decorated with statues. The whole conception is very dignified, and the threefold approach must have lent itself well to such ritual processions as we may imagine to have formed part of the Moon god's worship. That there was a second stage to Ur-Engur's tower is certain, and we have found remains of it in situ, but from Nabonidus's account we may perhaps infer that there were no more than two; but though its design may not have satisfied the Babylonian king the building such as it was planned must have been completed in the time of the Third Dynasty of Ur; during the next eighteen hundred years royal builders who did much work in the city carried out minor repairs to the ziggurat and if the top had been left unfinished would certainly have worked there too, but neither we nor Nabonidus found any evidence for their having done so. We must conclude that Ur-Engur's building whose lower part survives today was completed at least during his son's reign, and that when Abraham lived at Ur he looked up daily to a ziggurat which was then a finished monument.

In the sixth century B.C. Nabonidus respected most of what was left of the ancient building. He put down new brick treads for the staircases, but he did not alter their design, and it was only on the top of the structure that he swept away the older ruins altogether to make room for something more suited to his tastes. Three stages set on the old base gave greater height to the platform on which the shrine was to be built; these were not of the same proportions as the lowest stage, but left at either end a platform much wider than along the sides, and on the NE side there was no lowest stage at all, the entrance from the triple stairway giving directly on to the second platform. Entering here one turned to the left and went down a short flight of steps to the lowest platform at the SE end of the ziggurat (like all such, the ziggurat of UR is orientated with its corners, not its sides, to the cardinal points of the compass), and passing to the centre of this up a broad staircase to the top platform of all, while smaller flights led to the third platform by which one could walk right round the building. Theoretical reconstructions of ziggurats in the past have always aimed at a perfect symmetry such as the groundplan would seem to dictate; the ruins at Ur present to us a structure curiously irregular and almost lopsided. But this irregularity is calculated. The top of the ziggurat is treated as a thing in itself, without reference to the surroundings, which indeed were too far below to matter; everything is subordinated to the effect to be obtained from the lowest platform at the SE end, where the spectator has before him the stepped terraces and the main and side stairways, all the lines centering on the shrine above. From below, the only view that really mattered was that of the NE face, for all the other sides were more or less encumbered and concealed by other buildings; here therefore the lowest stage was carried up higher and the passage from the stairway to the lowest platform was hidden by a parapet which masked the real lack of balance on the two sides; only two upper terraces were visible with the shrine crowning the whole.

In a previous report I described a large courtyard that lay below the ziggurat on the NE side. The floor of this lay at a lower level than the ziggurat, which really stood high on an artificial terrace held up by the boundary wall of the court, and it was from the court that the best view of the ziggurat was obtained. To some extent we can recover at least the main features of this view. The courtyard, with its paving of brick and asphalt, stretched this way and that for a hundred yards and was some sixty yards wide; the bounding wall was decorated with attached half columns fronted by a colonnade; the whole was whitewashed. Above this rose the terrace on which stood the ziggurat isolated and huge. The lower part was all painted black; the three staircases ran up to a great doorway at the top of the main stage which here, in its centre, was higher than at the two ends, so that all the lines, the actual side walls of the ziggurat with their slight batter, the parapet with its sharper break, and the steep-pitched converging stairs, all led the eye upwards and inwards; over the black parapet shewed the upper terrace of bright red brick, and on the top of all the shrine built of glazed bricks of brilliant sky blue. The scheme both of colour and line has been carefully thought out; the vertical lines of the white columns below, the converging lines against the black mass of the first stages of the tower, the plain red step leading up to the blue shining cube of the shrine, all contribute to the effect, and make of the ziggurat of Ur an architectural monument worthy of our admiration and of Nabonidus's pride.

The new buildings whereon the king of Babylon relied for the perpetuation of his name did not last long, and today they are a sorry ruin; luckily enough remains to establish their original character (though few but Mr. F. G. Newton, who fortunately was the architect of the Expedition, could have solved all the riddles of the scanty walls and broken floors), and, though the upper part has suffered much, though the shrine has wholly disappeared and of the stepped terraces but little has survived, yet the massive base with its triple staircase that Ur-Engur built more than four thousand years ago is the most imposing of the ancient monuments of Iraq.
NOTE.-Mr. Woolley, in this report, does not give the dimensions of the Ziggurat at Ur. According to plan prepared last year by Mr. Newton, the lower stage measures 130 by 195 feet and the height of the tower is 92 feet. The Tower of Babel, or the Ziggurat of Babylon, is described on an ancient Babylonian tablet translated by George Smith. According to this document, the Tower of Babel had seven stages. The lowest tower measured 300 feet square and the whole was 300 feet in height. Nothing is left of this tower at the ruins of Babylon. Its sides faced East, West, North and South, whereas the Ziggurat of Ur has its corners towards these points of the compass.

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During the whole of our digging season (1923-24) the greater number of the workmen have been engaged upon the clearing of the Ziggurat, and before the work closed down this, the most imposing of the monuments of Ur, was fully exposed as it had not been since its destruction in the fifth century B.

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Find the heading: "Religion in Ancient Mesopotamia" half way down the article!

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Religion (from the Latin Religio, meaning 'restraint,' or Relegere, according to Cicero, meaning 'to repeat, to read again,' or, most likely, Religionem, 'to show respect for what is sacred') is an organized system of beliefs and practices revolving around, or leading to, a transcendent spiritual experience. There is no culture recorded in human history which has not practiced some form of religion.

In ancient times, religion was indistinguishable from what is known as ' mythology' in the present day and consisted of regular rituals based on a belief in higher supernatural entities who created and continued to maintain the world and surrounding cosmos. Theses entities were anthropomorphic and behaved in ways which mirrored the values of the culture closely (as in Egypt) or sometimes engaged in acts antithetical to those values (as one sees with the gods of Greece). Religion, then and now, concerns itself with the spiritual aspect of the human condition, gods and goddesses (or a single personal god or goddess), the creation of the world, a human being's place in the world, life after death, eternity, and how to escape from suffering in this world or in the next; and every nation has created its own god in its own image and resemblance. The Greek philosopher Xenophanes of Colophon (c. 570-478 BCE) once wrote:

Mortals suppose that the gods are born and have clothes and voices and shapes like their own. But if oxen, horses and lions had hands or could paint with their hands and fashion works as men do, horses would paint horse-like images of gods and oxen oxen-like ones, and each would fashion bodies like their own. The Ethiopians consider the gods flat-nosed and black; the Thracians blue-eyed and red-haired.

Xenophanes believed there was "one god, among gods and men the greatest, not at all like mortals in body or mind" but he was in the minority. Monotheism did not make sense to the ancient people aside from the visionaries and prophets of Judaism. Most people, at least as far as can be discerned from the written and archaeological record, believed in many gods, each of whom had a special sphere of influence. In one's personal life there is not just one other person who provides for one's needs; one interacts with many different kinds of people in order to achieve wholeness and maintain a living.

Ancient people felt that no single god could possibly take care of all the needs of an individual.

In the course of one's life in the present day, one will interact with one's parents, siblings, teachers, friends, lovers, employers, doctors, gas station attendants, plumbers, politicians, veterinarians, and so on. No one single person can fill all these roles or supply all of an individual's needs - just as it was in ancient times.

In this same way, the ancient people felt that no single god could possibly take care of all the needs of an individual. Just as one would not go to a plumber with one's sick dog, one would not go to a god of war with a problem concerning love. If one were suffering heartbreak, one went to the goddess of love; if one wanted to win at combat, only then would one consult the god of war.

The many gods of the religions of the ancient world fulfilled this function as specialists in their respective areas. In some cultures, a certain god or goddess would become so popular that he or she would transcend the cultural understanding of multiplicity and assume a position so powerful and all-encompassing as to almost transform a polytheistic culture to henotheistic.

While polytheism means the worship of many gods, henotheism means the worship of one god in many forms. This shift in understanding was extremely rare in the ancient world, and the goddess Isis and god Amun of Egypt are probably the best examples of the complete ascendancy of a deity from one-among-many to the supreme creator and sustainer of the universe recognized in different forms.

As noted, every ancient culture practiced some form of religion, but where religion began cannot be pinpointed with any certainty. The argument over whether Mesopotamian religion inspired that of the Egyptians has gone on for over a century now and is no closer to being resolved than when it began. It is most probable that every culture developed its own belief in supernatural entities to explain natural phenomena (day and night, the seasons) or to help make sense of their lives and the uncertain state humans find themselves in daily.

While it may be an interesting exercise in cultural exchange to attempt tracing the origins of religion, it does not seem a very worthwhile use of one's time, when it seems fairly clear that the religious impulse is simply a part of the human condition and different cultures in different parts of the world could have come to the same conclusions about the meaning of life independently.

As with many cultural advancements and inventions, the 'cradle of civilization' Mesopotamia has been cited as the birthplace of religion. When religion developed in Mesopotamia is unknown, but the first written records of religious practice date to c. 3500 BCE from Sumer. Mesopotamian religious beliefs held that human beings were co-workers with the gods and labored with them and for them to hold back the forces of chaos which had been checked by the supreme deities at the beginning of time. Order was created out of chaos by the gods and one of the most popular myths illustrating this principle told of the great god Marduk who defeated Tiamat and the forces of chaos to create the world. Historian D. Brendan Nagle writes:

Despite the gods' apparent victory, there was no guarantee that the forces of chaos might not recover their strength and overturn the orderly creation of the gods. Gods and humans alike were involved in the perpetual struggle to restrain the powers of chaos, and they each had their own role to play in this dramatic battle. The responsibility of the dwellers of Mesopotamian cities was to provide the gods with everything they needed to run the world. (11)

The gods repaid humans for their service by taking care of their daily needs in life.

Humans were created, in fact, for this very purpose: to work with and for the gods toward a mutually beneficial end. The claim of some historians that the Mesopotamians were slaves to their gods is untenable because it is quite clear that the people understood their position as co-workers. The gods repaid humans for their service by taking care of their daily needs in life (such as supplying them with beer, the drink of the gods) and maintaining the world in which they lived. These gods intimately knew the needs of the people because they were not distant entities who lived in the heavens but dwelt in homes on earth built for them by their people; these homes were the temples which were raised in every Mesopotamian city.

Temple complexes, dominated by the towering ziggurat, were considered the literal homes of the gods and their statues were fed, bathed, and clothed daily as the priests and priestesses cared for them as one would a king or queen. In the case of Marduk, for example, his statue was carried out of his temple during the festival honoring him and through the city of Babylon so that he could appreciate its beauty while enjoying the fresh air and sunshine.

Inanna was another powerful deity who was greatly revered as the goddess of love, sex, and war, and whose priests and priestesses cared for her statue and temple faithfully. Inanna is considered one the earliest examples of the dying-and-reviving god figure who goes down into the underworld and returns to life, bringing fertility and abundance to the land. She was so popular her worship spread across all of Mesopotamia from the southern region of Sumer. She became Ishtar of the Akkadians (and later the Assyrians), Astarte of the Phoenicians, Sauska of the Hurrians- Hittites, and was associated with Aphrodite of the Greeks, Isis of the Egyptians, and Venus of the Romans.

The temples were the center of the city's life throughout Mesopotamian history from the Akkadian Empire (c. 2334-2150 BCE) to the Assyrian (c. 1813-612 BCE) and afterwards. The temple served in multiple capacities: the clergy dispensed grain and surplus goods to the poor, counseled those in need, provided medical services, and sponsored the grand festivals which honored the gods. Although the gods took great care of humans while they lived, the Mesopotamian afterlife was a dreary underworld, located beneath the far mountains, where souls drank stale water from puddles and ate dust for eternity in the 'land of no return.' This bleak view of their eternal home was markedly different from that of the Egyptians as well as of their neighbors the Persians.

The early religion of the Persian arrived on the Iranian Plateau with the migrations of the Aryans (properly understood as Indo-Iranians) sometime prior to the third millennium BCE. The early faith was polytheistic with a supreme god, Ahura Mazda, presiding over lesser deities. Among the most popular of these was Atar (god of fire), Mithra (god of the rising sun and covenants), Hvar Khshsata (god of the full sun), and Anahita (goddess of fertility, water, health and healing, and wisdom). These gods stood for the forces of goodness and order against the evil spirits of disorder and chaos.

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At some point between 1500-1000 BCE, the prophet and visionary Zoroaster (also given as Zarathustra) claimed a revelation from Ahura Mazda through which he understood that this god was the one supreme being, creator of the universe, and maintainer of order, who needed no other gods beside him. Zoroasters's vision would become the religion of Zoroastrianism - one of the oldest in the world still practiced in the present day.

According to this belief, the purpose of human life is to choose between following Ahura Mazda and the way of truth and order ( Asha) or to follow his eternal adversary, Angra Mainyu (also given as Ahriman) and the path of lies and chaos ( Druj). Humans were considered inherently good and possessing of free will to choose between these two paths; whichever one a person chose would inform that person's life and their destination after death. When a person died, they crossed the Chinvat Bridge where they were judged.

Those who had lived a good life in accordance with the precepts of Ahura Mazda were rewarded by continued life in the paradise of the House of Song while those who had allowed themselves to be deceived by Angra Mainyu were dropped into the hell of the House of Lies ( druj-demana) where they were tortured relentlessly and, even though surrounded by other suffering souls, would feel eternally alone.

Although scholars often characterize Zoroastrianism as a dualistic religion, it seems clear Zoroaster founded a monotheistic faith focused on an all-powerful single deity. The dualistic aspects of the religion appeared later in the so-called heresy of Zorvanism which made Ahura Mazda and Angra Mainyu brothers, the sons of Zorvan (time) and time itself became the supreme power through which all things came into being and passed away.

Zoroastrianism also held that a messiah would come at some future date (known as the Saoshyant - One Who Brings Benefit) to redeem humanity in an event known as the Frashokereti which was the end of time and brought reunion with Ahura Mazda. These concepts would influence the later religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The belief in a single god, unlike human beings and all-powerful, may have also influenced Egyptian religion during the Amarna Period in which the pharaoh Akhenaten (r. 1353-1336 BCE) abolished traditional Egyptian rituals and practices and replaced them with a monotheistic system focused on the one god Aten.

Religion in Egypt

Egyptian religion was similar to Mesopotamian belief, however, in that human beings were co-workers with the gods to maintain order. The principle of harmony (known to the Egyptians as ) was of the highest importance in Egyptian life (and in the afterlife), and their religion was fully integrated into every aspect of existence. Egyptian religion was a combination of magic, mythology, science, medicine, psychiatry, spiritualism, herbology, as well as the modern understanding of 'religion' as belief in a higher power and a life after death. The gods were the friends of human beings and sought only the best for them by providing them with the most perfect of all lands to live in and an eternal home to enjoy when their lives on earth were done.

This belief system would continue, with various developments, throughout Egypt's long history, only interrupted by Akhenaten's religious reforms during his reign. After his death, the old religion was restored by his son and successor Tutankhamun (r. c. 1336-c.1327 BCE) who reopened the temples and revived the ancient rituals and customs.

The first written records of Egyptian religious practice come from around 3400 BCE in the Predynastic Period in Egypt (c.6000-c.3150 BCE). Deities such as Isis, Osiris, Ptah, Hathor, Atum, Set, Nephthys, and Horus were already established as potent forces to be recognized fairly early on. The Egyptian Creation Myth is similar to the beginning of the Mesopotamian story in that originally there was only chaotic, slow-swirling waters. This ocean was without bounds, depthless, and silent until, upon its surface, there rose a hill of earth (known as the ben-ben, the primordial mound, which, it is thought, the pyramids symbolize) and the great god Atum (the sun) stood upon the ben-ben and spoke, giving birth to the god Shu (of the air), the goddess Tefnut (of moisture), the god Geb (of earth), and the goddess Nut (of sky). Alongside Atum stood Heka, the personification of magic, and magic ( heka) gave birth to the universe.

Osiris later served as the Supreme Judge of the souls of the dead in the Hall of Truth.

Atum had intended Nut as his bride but she fell in love with Geb. Angry with the lovers, Atum separated them by stretching Nut across the sky high away from Geb on the earth. Although the lovers were separated during the day, they came together at night and Nut bore three sons, Osiris, Set, and Horus, and two daughters, Isis and Nephthys.

Osiris, as eldest, was announced as 'Lord of all the Earth' when he was born and was given his sister Isis as a wife. Set, consumed by jealousy, hated his brother and killed him to assume the throne. Isis then embalmed her husband's body and, with powerful charms, resurrected Osiris who returned from the dead to bring life to the people of Egypt. Osiris later served as the Supreme Judge of the souls of the dead in the Hall of Truth and, by weighing the heart of the soul in the balances, decided who was granted eternal life.

The Egyptian afterlife was known as the Field of Reeds and was a mirror-image of life on earth down to one's favorite tree and stream and dog. Those that one loved in life would either be waiting when one arrived or would follow after. The Egyptians viewed earthly existence as simply one part of an eternal journey and were so concerned about passing easily to the next phase that they created their elaborate tombs (the pyramids), temples, and funerary inscriptions (the Pyramid Texts, Coffin Texts, and The Egyptian Book of the Dead) to help the soul's passage from this world to the next.

The gods cared for one after death just as they had in life from the beginning of time. The goddess Qebhet brought water to the thirsty souls in the land of the dead and other goddesses such as Serket and Nephthys cared for and protected the souls as they journeyed to the Field of Reeds. An ancient Egyptian understood that, from birth to death and even after death, the universe had been ordered by the gods and everyone had a place in that order.

This principle of order is also paramount in the world's oldest religion still being practiced today: Hinduism (known to adherents as Sanatan Dharma, 'Eternal Order', thought to have been founded as early as 5500 BCE but certainly by c. 2300 BCE). Although often viewed as a polytheistic faith, Hinduism is actually henotheistic. There is only one supreme god in Hinduism, Brahma, and all other deities are his aspects and reflections. Since Brahma is too immense a concept for the human mind to comprehend, he presents himself in the many different versions of himself which people recognize as deities such as Vishnu, Shiva, and the many others. The Hindu belief system includes 330 million gods and these range from those who are known at a national level (such as Krishna) to lesser-known local deities.

The primary understanding of Hinduism is that there is an order to the universe and every individual has a specific place in that order. Each person on the planet has a duty ( dharma) which only they can perform. If one acts rightly () in the performance of that duty, then one is rewarded by moving closer to the supreme being and eventually becoming one with god; if one does not, then one is reincarnated as many times as it takes to finally understand how to live and draw closer to union with the supreme soul.

This belief was carried over by Siddhartha Gautama when he became the Buddha and founded the religion known as Buddhism. In Buddhism, however, one is not seeking union with a god but with one's higher nature as one leaves behind the illusions of the world which generate suffering and cloud the mind with the fear of loss and death. Buddhism became so popular that it traveled from India to China where it enjoyed equal success.

In ancient China, religion is thought to have developed as early as c. 4500 BCE as evidenced by designs on ceramics.

In ancient China, religion is thought to have developed as early as c. 4500 BCE as evidenced by designs on ceramics found at the Neolithic site of Banpo Village. This early belief structure may have been a mix of animism and mythology as these images include recognizable animals and pig-dragons, precursors to the famous Chinese dragon.

By the time of the Xia Dynasty (2070-1600 BCE), there were many anthropomorphic gods worshiped with a chief god, Shangti, presiding over all. This belief continued, with modifications, during the period of the Shang Dynasty (1600-1046 BCE) which developed the practice of ancestor worship.

The people believed that Shangti had so many responsibilities that he had become too busy to handle their needs. It was thought that, when a person died, they went to live with the gods and became intermediaries between the people and those gods. Ancestor worship influenced the two great Chinese belief systems of Confucianism and Taoism, both of which made ancestor worship core tenets of their practices. In time, Shangti was replaced with the concept of Tian (heaven), a paradise where the dead would reside eternally in peace.

In order to pass from one's earthly life into heaven, one had to cross the bridge of forgetfulness over an abyss and, after looking back on one's life for the last time, drink from a cup which purged all memory. At the bridge, one was either judged worthy of heaven - and so passed on - or unworthy - and slipped from the bridge into the abyss to be swallowed up in hell. Other versions of this same scenario claim the soul was reincarnated after drinking from the cup. Either way, the living were expected to remember the dead who had passed over the bridge to the other side and to honor their memory.

Religion in Mesoamerica

Remembrance of the dead and the part they still play in the lives of those on earth was an important component of all ancient religions including the belief system of the Maya. The gods were involved in every aspect of the life of the Maya. As with other cultures, there were many different deities (over 250), all of whom had their own special sphere of influence. They controlled the weather, the harvest, they dictated one's mate, presided over every birth, and were present at one's death.

The Mayan afterlife was similar to the Mesopotamian in that it was a dark and dreary place, but the Maya imagined an even worse fate where one was constantly under threat of attack or deception by the demon lords who inhabited the underworld (known as Xibalba or Metnal). The dread of the journey through Xibalba was such a potent cultural force that the Maya are the only known ancient culture to honor a goddess of suicide (Ixtab) because suicides were thought to bypass Xibalba and go straight to paradise (as did those who died in childbirth or in battle). The Maya believed in the cyclical nature of life, that all things which seem to die simply are transformed, and considered human life just another part of the kind of pattern they saw all around them in nature. They felt death was a natural progression after life and feared the very unnatural possibility that the dead could return to haunt the living.

It was possible that a person would hang on to life for any of a number of reasons (the chief being improper burial), and so ceremonies were performed to remember the dead and honor their spirit. This belief was also held by Mesoamerican cultures other than the Maya such as the Aztec and Tarascan. In time, it developed into the holiday known today as The Day of the Dead ( El Dia de los Muertos), in which people celebrate the lives of those who have passed on and remember their names.

It was not only people who were to be remembered and honored, however, but also a very important deity scholars refer to as the Maize God. The Maize god is a dying-and-reviving god figure in the form of Hun Hunahpu who was killed by the Lords of Xibalba, brought back to life by his sons, the Hero Twins, and emerges from the underworld as corn. The 'Tonsured' Maize God or 'Foliated' Maize God are common images found in Maya iconography. He is always pictured as eternally young and handsome with an elongated head like a corncob, long, flowing hair like corn silk, and ornamented with jade to symbolize the corn stalk. He was considered so important by the Maya that mothers would bind the heads of their young sons to flatten the forehead and elongate their heads to resemble him.

The Maize God remained an important deity to the Maya even when eclipsed by the greatest and most popular of the gods Gucumatz (also known as Kukulcan and Quetzalcoatl) whose great pyramid at Chichen Itza is still visited by millions of people every year in the present day. On the twin equinoxes of every year, the sun casts a shadow on the stairs of the pyramid structure which seems to resemble a great serpent descending from the top to the bottom; this is thought to be the great Kukulcan returning from the heavens to earth to impart his blessings. Even today, people gather at Chichen Itza to witness this event at the equinoxes and to remember the past and hope for the future.

The importance of remembrance of the dead as part of one's religious devotions was integral to the beliefs of the Greeks as well. Continued remembrance of the dead by the living kept the soul of the deceased alive in the afterlife. The Greeks, like the other cultures mentioned, believed in many gods who often cared for their human charges but, just as often, pursued their own pleasure.

Plato consistently criticized the Greek concept of the gods & Critias claimed they were simply created by men to control other men.

The capricious nature of the gods may have contributed to the development of philosophy in Greece as philosophy can only develop in a culture where religion is not providing for the people's spiritual needs. Plato consistently criticized the Greek concept of the gods and Critias claimed they were simply created by men to control other men. Xenophanes, as noted above, claimed the Greek view was completely wrong and God was unimaginable.

Still, to the majority of the Greeks - and central to the function of society - the gods were to be honored and so were those who had passed over into their realm. Just because a person was no longer living on earth did not mean that person was to be forgotten any more than one would forget to honor the invisible gods. As with other ancient cultures, religion in Greece was fully integrated into one's daily life and routine.

The Greeks consulted the gods on matters ranging from affairs of state to personal decisions regarding love, marriage, or one's job. An ancient story tells of how the writer Xenophon (430 - c. 354 BCE) went to Socrates asking whether the philosopher thought he should join the army of Cyrus the Younger on campaign to Persia. Socrates sent him to ask the question of the god at Delphi. Instead of asking his original question, Xenophon asked the god of Delphi which of the many gods was best to court favor with to ensure a successful venture and safe return. He appears to have gotten the correct answer since he survived the disastrous campaign of Cyrus and not only returned to Athens but saved the bulk of the army.

The religion of Rome followed the same paradigm as that of Greece. The Roman religion most likely began as a kind of animism and developed as they came into contact with other cultures. The Greeks had the most significant impact on Roman religion, and many of the Roman gods are simply Greek deities with Roman names and slightly altered attributes.

In Rome, the worship of the gods was intimately tied to affairs of state and the stability of the society was thought to rest on how well the people revered the gods and participated in the rituals which honored them. The Vestal Virgins are one famous example of this belief in that these women were counted on to maintain the vows they had taken and perform their duties responsibly in order to continually honor Vesta and all the goddess gave to the people.

Although the Romans had imported their primary gods from Greece, once the Roman religion was established and linked to the welfare of the state, no foreign gods were welcomed. When worship of the popular Egyptian goddess Isis was brought to Rome, Emperor Augustus forbade any temples to be built in her honor or public rites observed in her worship because he felt such attention paid to a foreign deity would undermine the authority of the government and established religious beliefs. To the Romans, the gods had created everything according to their will and maintained the universe in the best way possible and a human being was obligated to show them honor for their gifts.

This was true not only for the 'major' gods of the Roman pantheon but also for the spirits of the home. The penates were earth spirits of the pantry who kept one's home safe and harmonious. One was expected to be thankful for their efforts and remember them upon entering or leaving one's house. Statues of the penates were taken out of the cupboard and set on the table during meals to honor them, and sacrifices were left by the hearth for their enjoyment. If one were diligent in appreciating their efforts, one was rewarded with continued health and happiness and, if one forgot them, one suffered for such ingratitude. Although the religions of other cultures did not have precisely these same kinds of spirits, the recognition of spirits of place - and especially the home - was common.

Common Themes in Ancient Religion & Their Continuance

The religions of the ancient world shared many of the same patterns with each other even though the cultures may never have had any contact with each other. The spiritual iconography of the Mayan and Egyptian pyramids has been recognized since the Maya were first brought to the world's attention by John Lloyd Stephens and Frederick Catherwood in the 19th century CE, but the actual belief structures, stories, and most significant figures in ancient mythology are remarkably similar from culture to culture.

In every culture, one finds the same or very similar patterns, which the people found resonant and which gave vitality to their beliefs. These patterns include the existence of many gods who take a personal interest in the lives of people; creation by a supernatural entity who speaks it, fashions it, or commands it into existence; other supernatural beings emanating from the first and greatest one; a supernatural explanation for the creation of the earth and human beings; a relationship between the created humans and their creator god requiring worship and sacrifice.

There is the repetition of the figure known as the Dying and Reviving God, often a powerful entity himself, who dies & comes back to life for the good of his people.

There is also the repetition of the figure known as the Dying and Reviving God, often a powerful entity himself, who is killed or dies and comes back to life for the good of his people: Osiris in Egypt, Krishna in India, the Maize God in Mesoamerica, Bacchus in Rome, Attis in Greece, Tammuz in Mesopotamia. There is often an afterlife similar to an earthly existence (Egypt and Greece), antithetical to life on earth (Mesoamerica and Mesopotamia), or a combination of both (China and India).

The resonant spiritual message of these different religions is repeated in texts from Phoenicia (2700 BCE) to Sumer (2100 BCE) to Palestine (1440 BCE) to Greece (800 BCE) to Rome (c. 100 CE) and went on to inform the beliefs of those who came later. This motif is even touched on in Judaism in the figure of Joseph (Genesis 37, 39-45) who is sold by his brothers into slavery in Egypt, goes down into prison following the accusations of Potiphar's wife, and is later released and restored. Although he does not actually die, after his symbolic 'resurrection' he saves the country from famine, providing for the people in the same way as other regenerative figures.

The Phoenician tale of the great god Baal who dies and returns to life to battle the chaos of the god Yamm was already old in 2750 BCE when the city of Tyre was founded (according to Herodotus) and the Greek story of the dying and reviving god Adonis (c. 600 BCE) was derived from earlier Phoenician tales based on Tammuz which was borrowed by the Sumerians (and later the Persians) in the famous Descent of Inanna myth.

This theme of life-after-death and life coming from death and, of course, the judgment after death, gained the greatest fame through the evangelical efforts of St. Paul who spread the word of the dying and reviving god Jesus Christ throughout ancient Palestine, Asia Minor, Greece, and Rome (c. 42-62 CE). Paul's vision of the figure of Jesus, the anointed son of God who dies to redeem humanity, was drawn from the earlier belief systems and informed the understanding of the scribes who would write the books which make up the Bible.

The religion of Christianity made standard a belief in an afterlife and set up an organized set of rituals by which an adherent could gain everlasting life. In so doing, the early Christians were simply following in the footsteps of the Sumerians, the Egyptians, the Phoenicians, the Greeks, and the Romans all of whom had their own stylized rituals for the worship of their gods.

After the Christians, the Muslim interpreters of the Koran instituted their own rituals for understanding the supreme deity which, though vastly different in form from those of Christianity, Judaism or any of the older 'pagan' religions, served the same purpose as the rituals once practiced in worship of the Egyptian pantheon over 5,000 years ago: to provide human beings with the understanding that they are not alone in their struggles, suffering, and triumphs, that they can restrain their baser urges, and that death is not the end of existence. The religions of the ancient world provided answers to people's questions about life and death and, in this regard, are no different than those faiths practiced in the world today.

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Religion (from the Latin Religio, meaning 'restraint,' or Relegere, according to Cicero, meaning 'to repeat, to read again,' or, most likely, Religionem, 'to show respect for what is sacred') is an...

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“Wooden Cartwheel” Image courtesy of Stoonn/ FreeDigitalPhotos.net

When we think about the invention of the wheel, the picture that jumps into our minds is the wheel from a car or maybe an ancient Roman chariot.  The earliest wheels, however, were much different than 21st century wheels or even those used in first century battles.

The wheel was invented by the ancient Sumerians. They lived in the land between the Tigris and the Euphrates Rivers in the Middle East. Much, much later this land became part of the country we call Iraq.  The Sumerians were the first people to develop a written language.  Extensive studies of their writings have led archaeologists and historians to also credit them with the invention of the wheel.

“Potter” Image courtesy of dan/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

The concept of the wheel actually grew out of a mechanical device that the Sumerians had invented shortly after 3500 B.C.—the potter’s wheel.  No other civilization of their time had one.  This was a heavy flat disk made of hardened clay.  It was spun horizontally on an axis to allow the potter to form evenly shaped jars and bowls from wet clay.    The Sumerians didn’t, however, simply turn this clay-splattered wheel on its end and hook it to a wagon to make a wheel.  Instead, the concept of the wheel went through many stages of development before it became a practical method for moving heavy objects from one location to another.

The Sumerians’ First Wheel:  “The Roller”

The wheel started out as a man-made log.  The Sumerians figured out that if they could prop the edge of a heavy crate up onto a long log-shaped object, they would be able to roll the load over the object and move it forward.  They would then place a second log under the front edge of the load and continue rolling it.   Believe it or not, this was the first wheel. Interestingly, the Sumerians did not use large logs cut from trees.  Unfortunately, trees with thick trunks did not grow where they lived.  This land was very dry except for a few swamps near the rivers. The only kinds of trees that grew there were wild fruit trees and soft palm trees.  Neither of these had thick, straight trunks that could be cut down and made into logs.The Sumerians, however, were very creative and didn’t let that stop them.  They cut flat planks from the trees and fastened them together into the shape of a log.  They then chiseled the wood down so that it would be curved enough to roll.  This was the first “wheel.”

The Sumerians’ Second Wheel:  “The Sledge”

Being very practical people, the Sumerians were not satisfied with “The Roller.  They wanted an easier way to move heavy loads.  Their next invention was called “The Sledge.”  It did not have a roller.  Instead, they took their crate and attached a base with runners under it so that it resembled a large sled.  The front edges of these runners were curved up like skis.  Because of this curve, the runners slid more easily across the ground.  There was also a straight crosspiece that connected the two runners in the front.  It braced the two runners and was used as a handle for pulling and guiding the sledge.  It took a lot of pushing and pulling, but people were able to move their loaded crates on the runners. Even though this device looked nothing like a wheel, it accomplished the purpose of a wheel.

This sledge worked well unless the terrain was rocky or bumpy.  The runners kept catching on rocks and tree roots and jerking to a stop.  The Sumerians then decided to combine their roller wheel idea with the sledge idea and placed the sledge on top of rollers.

The Sumerians’ Third Wheel: “A Sledge on Rollers”

This type of wheel worked well as long as the ground was flat.  On hillsides and inclines, though, the runners of the sledge kept inching their way off the roller as it moved. Once the runners started slipping sideways, it was almost impossible to inch them back into place. This was a serious problem when you were transporting something very heavy.  Too many times, one of the runners slipped off the edge of the roller and the whole load tipped over.

But the once again Sumerians would not give up.  There had to be a better answer.  They noticed that after a roller had been used for a while, it started to get grooves where the runners rubbed against the wooden roller.  They came up with a terrific idea: Why not actually cut grooves where you want the runners to ride on the roller?  This would keep them in place.  The Sumerians quickly cut grooves into all their rollers and ended up with a much more efficient wheel.

The Sumerians’ Fourth Wheel:  “A Sledge on a Grooved Roller”

Still, to move loads this way was tiring and required lots of people.  Just moving the rollers to where they had to be used was an exhausting chore.  The Sumerians reasoned that it might not be necessary to use the whole heavy roller.  Only the ends were actually needed to prop up the load.  What would happen if they cut out some of the excess wood in the middle of the roller and just left the two ends connected by a narrower middle piece?  The middle piece or “axle” connected the two ends and at the same time carried the load.  To keep the sledge in place, the Sumerians attached four pegs (two on each side of the sledge).  The “axle” rolled between the pegs and this kept the sledge in the right position on top of the axle. The wooden ends of the roller were what we now call “wheels.”

The Sumerians’ Fifth Wheel:   “Two Wheels With a Fixed Axle Spinning Between Pegs”

What a difference!  The Sumerians now had a lighter-weight cart to carry their loads.  They tinkered with their new invention and decided to get rid of the pegs.  They added a piece of wood to each side of the cart.  These pieces hung down under the cart.  They then drilled holes in these pieces so that the axle could easily roll inside them. These extra pieces were called “bearings” because they bore the weight of the cart.  Now the sledge was permanently attached to the axle and the wheels.

The Sumerians’ Sixth Wheel:  “Two Wheels With an Axle, Attached With Bearings”

What the Sumerians ended up with was a two-wheeled cart.  This was later developed into a chariot that could be pulled by a horse or donkey.  Other surrounding civilizations copied the design and quickly adapted the wheel to the needs of their own cultures.

Who would ever think that a device meant for making pottery would be the inspiration for one of the greatest and most wide-reaching inventions of mankind?  Think about how many ways wheels are used today—not just for transportation, but for manufacturing, home appliances and recreation.  We are in debt to the Sumerians for their ingenuity and persistence.  Imagine how different our world would be if no one had ever invented the wheel!

Activities

Critical Thinking Activity:

1. Wheels and wheel-shaped parts are used every day.  List as many devices as you can think of that we use today that depend on the wheel.  (Consider objects in your home, at school, games and toys, machines, vehicles and engines as you make your list.)

1. Now imagine living in a world without any kind of wheels or rolling devices.  How would life be different?  Would it be harder?  How and why?  Describe what it would be like to live without any wheels.

Build Your Own Wheel:

Click on the appropriate grade level below to download instructions for building your very own wheel model!

2-D Mobile Grades 1-3

3-D Mobile Grades 4-6

Vocabulary Words:

Crate
Chiseled
Mechanical device
Potter’s wheel
Disk
Concept
Planks
Terrain
Inclines
Axle
Ingenuity
Persistence

World’s Oldest Wheel Activities:

The world’s oldest wheel was found in 2002 at an archaeological site approximately 12.5 miles (20 kilometers) south-west of Ljubljana in present-day Slovenia. The wheel is made from oak and ash and has a radius of 27.5 inches (70 centimeters).

Critical Thinking: Use the links below to research the wheel and the area in which it was found. Imagine how the wheel might have been used.

Resources:

Click here to read more about the wheel and its restoration.

Click here to learn about the Ljubljana Marshes where the wheel was found.

Answer the following questions:

Who lived in the Ljubljana Marshes?

What was the land like?

What kinds of things were the people transporting?

Given the size of this wheel, do you think it was used to haul large objects or lighter loads?

Drawing: Draw a picture of a cart with this wheel on it. Fill the cart with likely objects that would have been found in this place and time. Draw the surrounding areas and the people who would be using the cart. See how many details of their lives you can include, such as animals, clothing style, types of carts, local architecture, etc.

Resources

History of Ancient Sumer: http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/sumer_anunnaki/esp_sumer_annunaki04.htm

Sumerian wheel student activity sheet:  http://library.thinkquest.org/C004203/science/science02.htm

*This post was written by Jinni Bradfield.

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KIDS' BLOG! The Invention of the Wheel: How the Ancient Sumerians Got Humanity Rollin'!

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When we think about the invention of the wheel, the picture that jumps into our minds is the wheel from a car or maybe an ancient Roman chariot. The earliest wheels, however, were much different than 21st century wheels or even those used in first century battles.

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The Code of Ur-Nammu (c. 2100-2050 BCE) is the oldest extant law code in the world. It was written by the Sumerian king Ur-Nammu (r. 2047-2030 BCE) or his son Shulgi of Ur (r. 2029-1982 BCE) centuries before the famous Code of Hammurabi was inscribed by the Babylonian king Hammurabi (r. 1795-1750 BCE).

The earliest law code from Mesopotamia was the Code of Urukagina (c. 24th century BCE) which survives in the present day only through references in other ancient works. Although the Code of Ur-Nammu is incomplete, enough of it was preserved to allow scholars to understand the king's vision of law and order in his lands. Presenting himself as the father of his people, Ur-Nammu encouraged his subjects to think of themselves as one family and of his laws as the rules of a home. Punishments, except for capital offenses, took the form of fines in the same way a child might be deprived of a favorite pastime or toy for misbehaving.

Although the laws were issued under the king's name, it is possible they were actually published by his son, Shulgi, after Ur-Nammu's death. The code was further developed by Shulgi's successors and influenced the form and underlying vision of later codes such as the Laws of Eshnunna (c. 1930 BCE) and the laws decreed under the reign of Lipit- Ishtar (c. 1870 to c. 1860 BCE). These codes, in turn, served as a model for the Code of Hammurabi, which would influence the laws of other civilizations, notably the creation of the Mosaic Law of the Bible.

Rise of Ur-Nammu

Ur-Nammu established the Third Dynasty of Ur in Sumer, also referenced as the Ur III Period & the Sumerian Renaissance.

Mesopotamia was ruled by the Akkadian Empire, established by Sargon of Akkad (r. 2334-2279 BCE), until c. 2083 BCE when a combination of climate change (bringing drought and famine) and an invasion by the West Asian Gutians toppled the Sargonid Dynasty. The Gutians (from the area of modern-day Iran) then presented themselves as the Sargonids' successors but, according to Sumerian accounts, lacked the administrative skills and religious cohesion that had allowed Sargon and his successors to rule so efficiently.

Even though Sargon's empire had maintained order for centuries, it was never fully embraced by its subjects who periodically revolted only to be put back in their place through military campaigns. The Gutians differed from any other challengers to Sargonid rule, however, not only in that they were able to exploit the empire's weakness c. 2083 BCE but also because they had nothing in common with the people of Mesopotamia. Scholar Paul Kriwaczek notes:

[According to Sumerian accounts] the Guti were never to be forgiven for being unlike other pretenders to the control of Mesopotamia in having no interest in picking up the baton of civilization and carrying it forward. The chroniclers keep reminding us that these were "unhappy people, unaware of how to revere the gods, ignorant of the right religious practices". It could only be a matter of time before the reviving confidence of the southern cities led to a concerted effort to drive them off. (135)

The moment arrived during the reign of Utu-Hegal of Uruk (c. 2055-2047 BCE) who led a revolt against the Gutians, refused to negotiate with them, and defeated them in at least one major battle. After this victory, he drowned, according to one account, while supervising the construction of a dam. The war with the Gutians, as well as the authority of kingship, then passed to the city of Ur and its governor, Ur-Nammu, Utu-Hegal's son-in-law.

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Ur-Nammu continued the war with the Gutians and reclaimed major cities, including the great city of Eridu, while also devoting efforts to rebuilding and renovating temples and trade centers damaged in the wars. By taking the kingship, he established the Third Dynasty of Ur in Sumer, also referenced as the Ur III Period (2047-1750 BCE) and the Sumerian Renaissance.

Third Dynasty of Ur

Some modern-day scholars object to the term "Sumerian Renaissance", claiming there had never been a decline requiring a rebirth, but Sumerian accounts maintain that the Gutian period was a time when "grass grew high on the highways of the land" and no grain was grown nor fish caught, and there was no wine or syrup due to mismanagement under Gutian rule (Kriwaczek, 130-135). Ur-Nammu, casting himself as the true successor of the Sargonids, revitalized the land through his policies which included public parks, irrigated orchards and gardens in and around cities, and patronage of the arts. He restored the Sumerian economy or, at least, improved upon it by offering jobs to anyone who wanted or needed one. Scholar Marc van de Mieroop comments:

Since the state's assets were so enormous, including fields, fishing grounds, manufacturing workshops, and so on, the demand for manpower was very high. The Ur III state was not a totalitarian regime whose inhabitants were fully subjected to the bureaucracy, so labor had to be recruited by offering sufficient compensation. Many of the texts we have record the issuing of rations, which had to be taken from the state's central resources. (79)

These resources seem to have been vast as building projects multiplied and the Sumerian city-states under Ur-Nammu flourished. In order to maintain this prosperity, Ur-Nammu instituted his law code, ensuring everyone understood what was required of them to live peacefully under his reign.

The Code

He recognized the power of religious beliefs to affect personal behavior and so presented his laws as having been received from the gods. He seems to have made sure people understood the king was only the administrator, not the author, of the code, and when someone broke the law, they were rebelling against the divine will. Kriwaczek comments:

Although it is neither a true law code, being far from comprehensive; nor, some say, even introduced by Ur-Nammu but by his son Shulgi, code or no, although we only have fragments, they are enough to show that the laws covered both civil and criminal matters. Among criminal provisions it specifies which should be capital offences: murder, robbery, deflowering another man's virgin wife, and adultery when committed by a woman. For other misdemeanors the penalty was a fine in silver ... [Ur-Nammu's code stands] in contrast to the more famous laws of Hammurabi, drafted some three centuries later, with its savage provisions of "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth". (148-149)

The code was widely publicized during the reign of Shulgi who, as noted, may even have been the actual author. There was no need, however, for a public display of the laws because the people under Ur-Nammu and Shulgi shared a common set of values and traditions, and the laws were intended to encourage proper behavior within already established parameters. Scholar Samuel Noah Kramer describes the code as it appears in columns on a clay tablet in cuneiform script:

The tablet was divided by the ancient scribe into eight columns, four on the obverse and four on the reverse. Each of the columns contains about forty-five small, ruled spaces, less than half of which are legible. The obverse contains a long prologue which is only partially intelligible because of the numerous breaks in the text. (53)

The prologue details how the moon god Nanna selected Ur-Nammu as King of Ur, helped him defeat the city of Larsa, and provided him with laws under which all subjects were considered equal regardless of social status so that "the orphan did not fall a prey to the wealthy, the widow did not fall a prey to the powerful, the man of one shekel did not fall a prey to the man of sixty shekels" (Kramer, 54). The laws were framed in the conditional sentence pattern of if-this-then-that. A few examples are:

If a man to a man with an instrument...his...the foot has cut off, 10 silver shekels he shall pay.

If a man to a man with a weapon his bones of...severed, 1 silver mina he shall pay.

If a man to a man with a geshpu-instrument the nose has cut off, 2/3 of a silver mina he shall pay. (Kramer, 55)

The code also specified fines for crimes which, under the later Code of Hammurabi, would be treated far more severely. In Ur-Nammu's code, two offenses in particular are noteworthy:

If a man knocked out the eye of another man, he shall weigh out half a mina of silver.

If a man knocked out a tooth of another man, he shall pay two shekels of silver. (Kriwaczek, 150)

Under Hammurabi's code, if one knocked out another man's eye, he paid with one of his own and likewise with a tooth.

Code of Lipit-Ishtar

The Code of Lipit-Ishtar seems to have been created primarily to deal with disputes arising from estate problems, inheritance, & debt enslavement.

There were a number of steps between the Code of Ur-Nammu and that of Hammurabi, however, and good reasons why the fairly benevolent law code of Ur-Nammu had to be changed. The subjects of the Third Dynasty of Ur were, more or less, a homogenous population of Sumerians, but by the time of the last monarch, Ibbi-Sin (r. 1963-1940 BCE), the population was more diverse. This trend continued through the establishment of the Dynasty of Isin by Ishbi-Erra c. 1953/1940. Ishbi-Erra defeated the Amorites and Elamites who had tried to fill the power vacuum after the fall of the Gutians, and some of these people now lived and worked among the Sumerians in greater numbers than before.

During the reign of the fifth king of the Dynasty of Isin, Lipit-Ishtar, a new law code was necessary. One of the major provisions of the Code of Lipit-Ishtar dealt with debt enslavement, which had become widely practiced, whether by people selling themselves into slavery or members of their family. The code also mandated community service for public works and set fair tax rates and estate laws. Although these laws were known and understood by legal assemblies, they were not usually consulted in reaching a verdict, as scholar Gwendolyn Leick explains:

The Mesopotamian justice system relied primarily on customary law that was upheld by the assembly of elders or town official or courts. Judges could be chosen from the local community or be appointed by the king. Affected parties represented their own case and brought witnesses as appropriate. Proceedings, or at least the verdicts, were written down, and numerous tablets have been preserved from most historical periods. In the absence of witnesses, the accused could be referred to an ordeal, such as being thrown into a river or canal. The person's innocence was proved when the "river refused" the culprit. Defendants and plaintiffs were made to swear an oath on the divine emblems, such as the sun disk, which represented the god of justice, Shamash.

As kings were seen as the upholders of law and order, they often issued legal reforms, debt releases, and decrees that were recorded in writing and are often referred to as law codes, although there is no evidence that courts ever referred to such edicts. (105)

Instead, courts relied on traditional methods - such as the ordeal - to establish guilt or innocence and then imposed whatever punishment seemed fit. The Code of Lipit-Ishtar seems to have been created primarily to deal with disputes arising from estate problems, inheritance, and debt enslavement, and while the upper class may have observed the laws strictly as written, villages, towns, and cities seem to have regarded them more as a guideline than a law code, if they even acknowledged them at all.

Hammurabi came to power after his father, Sin-Muballit (r. 1812-1793 BCE), abdicated in his favor. Sin-Muballit had attacked the wealthy city of Larsa, which was protected by the Dynasty of Isin, and he was defeated, forcing him to step down. Hammurabi may have felt that his father was too hasty in launching the campaign against Larsa and so made a show of seeking peace and busying himself with building projects while he quietly raised and equipped the army that would conquer all of Mesopotamia.

It is unclear when Hammurabi's Code was written, but it seems to have been instituted c. 1772 BCE to establish order in Babylon which would provide a stable home front to launch military campaigns from. Babylon's population was far more diverse than the subjects of Ur-Nammu or Lipit-Ishtar as it was a cosmopolitan intellectual and trade center, drawing people from all over the region and as far away as Egypt and Greece. Hammurabi's Code, therefore, had to present a set of laws that transcended any national legal traditions or understandings people may have arrived with as well as any traditional law practices observed in the various Mesopotamian city-states and kingdoms. Kriwaczek comments:

Hammurabi's laws reflect the shock of an unprecedented social environment: the multi-ethnic, multi-tribal Babylonian world. In earlier Sumerian-Akkadian times, all communities had felt themselves to be joint members of the same family, all equally servants under the eyes of the gods. In such circumstances disputes could be settled by recourse to a collectively accepted value system, where blood was thicker than water, and fair restitution more desirable than revenge. Now, however, when urban citizens commonly rubbed shoulders with nomads following a completely different way of life, when speakers of several west Semitic Amurru languages, as well as others, were thrown together with uncomprehending Akkadians, confrontation must all too easily have spilled over into conflict. (180)

Hammurabi, following the lead of Ur-Nammu, claimed his laws had been handed to him by the god Shamash and had a stele engraved with these laws, topped by an image of Shamash giving them to the king, placed in the city square where anyone who could read would have access to them; those who could not, would have had them read to them. Ignorance of the law was therefore no excuse for breaking it because the laws had been publicly proclaimed and were available for consultation at all times. Unlike the Code of Ur-Nammu, which could assume a general understanding among the populace, Hammurabi's Code had to be more explicit - and severe - and, it seems, his code was consulted by the courts. Leick describes the code and its provisions:

[Hammurabi's Code] represents the first known effort to produce a coherent set of abstract legal precepts for the whole country, incorporating diverse local practices and traditional law. There are several main sections (family law, including subsections on adultery, incest, divorce, and inheritance; property law and restitution; loan and hire agreements; and setting standards on charges and wages). It differentiates fines and punishments according to a person's legal status: free, slave, and a category in between. (106)

Instead of monetary fines, the code relied on the concept of retributive justice (also known as Lex Talionis) defined by the famous dictum of "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth". Although almost certainly modeled on Ur-Nammu's Code, Hammurabi's laws were far more detailed to ensure strict compliance.

Conclusion

The one aspect the two codes had in common, besides the standard conditional formula (if-this-then-that), was the claim that they had been received from the gods. This feature would appear in later law codes such as those of the Assyrians and the Mosaic Law of the Bible. Just as Ur-Nammu credited Shamash with authorship of his code, Moses is depicted as having received his from Yahweh.

The Code of Hammurabi was understood as the oldest law code in the world up until 1947 when the Code of Lipit-Ishtar was discovered and then, in 1948, the tablet of the Code of Ur-Nammu was unearthed in Iraq. This was translated by Kramer in 1952, bringing to light the oldest law code in the world. Kramer comments:

How long will Ur-Nammu retain his place as the world's first lawgiver? Perhaps not for long. There are indications that there were lawgivers in Sumer long before Ur-Nammu was born. Sooner or later, a lucky "digger" will come up with a copy of a law code preceding that of Ur-Nammu by a century or more. (55)

While this may well be true, no other law code predating Ur-Nammu's has been found to date and he continues to be regarded as the first lawgiver. Kramer refers to him as "the first Moses" who, in responding to the needs of his people for order, created the first set of laws that applied to all people equally, regardless of social status or supposed privilege.

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The Code of Ur-Nammu (c. 2100-2050 BCE) is the oldest extant law code in the world. It was written by the Sumerian king Ur-Nammu (r. 2047-2030 BCE) or his son Shulgi of Ur (r. 2029-1982 BCE) centuries before the famous Code of Hammurabi was inscribed by the Babylonian king Hammurabi (r.

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Search the Metropolitan Museum's Collection Online.

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Cuneiform: The Earliest Form of Writing from Ancient Mesopotamia

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Though not divine themselves, but rather divinely chosen, the kings of ancient Mesopotamia acted as earthly representatives of the gods. As stated in a Sumerian proverb, "Man is the shadow of god, but the king is god's reflection." The main responsibilities of the kings involved participation in religious rituals, managing the affairs of the state in war and peace, writing laws and guiding the administration and execution of justice.

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The Responsibilities of the King in Ancient Mesopotamia | Synonym

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Though not divine themselves, but rather divinely chosen, the kings of ancient Mesopotamia acted as earthly representatives of the gods. As stated in a Sumerian proverb, "Man is the shadow of god, but the king is god's reflection." The king had a wide variety of responsibilities.

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The Story of Mathematics - A History of Mathematical Thought from Ancient Times to the Modern Day

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Sumerian and Babylonian mathematics was based on a sexegesimal, or base 60, numeric system, which could be counted using 2 hands.

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Ur is an ancient city-state of Mesopotamia located in the Dhi Qar Governorate of southern Iraq.

The earliest period of occupation dates from the prehistoric Ubaid period sometime between 6500 to 3800 BC, when the landscape was flooded regularly by the Euphrates and the Tigris rivers, which some scholars suggest is the source of the Mesopotamian floods from mythology.

During the 4th millennium BC, the region was settled by the Sumerians, a non-Semitic and non-Indo-European agglutinative language isolate that developed a close cultural symbiosis with the East-Semitic Akkadians by the 3rd millennium BC.

The first royal dynasty of Ur was established during the Early Bronze Age, with Ur becoming the capital of southern Mesopotamia around 2500 BC. The city would come under Akkadian influence with the rise of the Akkadian Empire between 2400 and 2200 BC, before coming under Gutian rule with the empire's collapse during the mid-22nd century BC.

Ur would once again come under Sumerian rule with the founding of the Third Dynasty of Ur, also called the Neo-Sumerian Empire by King Ur-Nammu around 2047 BC. This period would see a renaissance of Ur, reaching a population of 65,000 inhabitants and an empire that controlled the cities of Isin, Larsa, and Eshnunna, and extended as far north as Upper Mesopotamia.

The state was organised into a highly centralised bureaucratic system in which the Code of Ur-Nammu was written, the oldest known law code that survives today. Various large-scale building projects were also constructed, most notably the Ziggurat of Ur in dedication to Nanna/Sîn, and an intricate system of irrigation channels to improve crop yields.

By the late Bronze Age, the city came under the first dynasty of (Amorite) of Babylonia, but fell to the native Akkadian ruled Sealand Dynasty for over 270 years, and was reconquered into Babylonia by the successors of the Amorites, the Kassites in the 16th century BC.

Over the centuries, the rulers of Ur would change hands several times, but the power and wealth of Ur would eventually decline around 530 BC with the fall of Babylonia to the Persian Archaemenid Empire, and was abandoned by the early 5th century BC (possibly as a result of the changing river patterns in the region).

Header Image Credit : M.Lubinski - CC BY-SA 2.0

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The earliest period of occupation dates from the prehistoric Ubaid period sometime between 6500 to 3800 BC, when the landscape was flooded regularly by the Euphrates and the Tigris rivers, which some scholars suggest is the source of the Mesopotamian floods from mythology.

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Unlike the rich corpus of ancient Egyptian funerary texts, no such "guidebooks" from Mesopotamia detail the afterlife and the soul's fate after death. Instead, ancient Mesopotamian views of the afterlife must be pieced together from a variety of sources across different genres.

Many literary texts, most famously the Epic of Gilgamesh, contemplate the meaning of death, recount the fate of the dead in the netherworld, and describe mourning rites. Other texts were probably composed in order to be recited during religious rites involving ghosts or dying gods. Of these ritual texts, the most notable are Gilgamesh, Enkidu and the Netherworld; Ishtar's Descent to the Netherworld; and. Further sources for Mesopotamian afterlife beliefs include burials, grave inscriptions, economic texts recording disbursements for funerals or cults of the dead, references to death in royal inscriptions and edicts, chronicles, royal and private letters, lexical texts, cultic commentaries, magico-medical texts, omens, and curse formulas.

In addition to belonging to different genres, the sources for Mesopotamian beliefs in the afterlife come from distinct periods in Mesopotamian history and encompass Sumerian, Akkadian, Babylonian, and Assyrian cultures. We should therefore be careful not to view Mesopotamian afterlife beliefs as static or uniform. Like all cultural systems, Mesopotamian ideas of the afterlife transformed throughout time. Beliefs and practices relating to the afterlife also varied with socio-economic status and differed within official and popular religious paradigms. With this in mind, however, cultural continuity between the Sumerian civilization and its successors allows a synthesis of diverse sources in order to provide a working introduction to Mesopotamian concepts of the afterlife.

The Netherworld

Ancient Mesopotamians conceptualized the netherworld as the cosmic opposite of the heavens and as a shadowy version of life on earth. Metaphysically, it was thought to lie a great distance from the realm of the living. Physically, however, it lay underground and is poetically described as located only a short distance from the earth's surface.

Literary accounts of the netherworld are generally dismal. It is described as a dark "land of no return" and the "house which none leaves who enters," with dust on its door and bolt (Dalley 155). Yet other accounts moderate this bleak picture. For instance, a Sumerian work referred to as the Death of Urnamma describes the spirits of the dead rejoicing and feasting upon the ruler Urnamma's arrival in the netherworld. Shamash, the sun god of justice, also visited the netherworld every night on his daily circuit through the cosmos. Similarly, scholar Caitlín Barrett has proposed that grave iconography - specifically symbolism related to the goddess Inanna/Ishtar who descended and returned from the underworld - indicates a belief in a more desirable afterlife existence than the one described in many literary texts. Although humans could not hope to return to life in exact imitation of Inanna/Ishtar, Barrett argues, by utilizing funerary iconography representing Ishtar, they could seek to avoid the unpleasant aspects of the netherworld from which Inanna/Ishtar herself had escaped. The Mesopotamian netherworld is therefore best understood as neither a place of great misery nor great joy, but as a dulled version of life on earth.

One of the most vivid portrayals of the netherworld describes a subterranean "great city" (Sumerian "iri.gal") protected by seven walls and gates where the spirits of the dead dwell. In the Akkadian Descent of Ishtar to the Underworld, Ishtar passes through these seven gates on her journey to the netherworld. At each gate she is stripped of her garments and jewelry until she enters the city of the dead naked. In light of such descriptions, it is perhaps notable that Mesopotamian funerary rites for the elite could last up to seven days.

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The community of spirits living in the "great city" was sometimes called Arallu in Akkadian or Ganzer in Sumerian, terms of uncertain meaning. Sumerian Ganzer is also a name for the underworld and an entrance to the underworld. Paralleling the Mesopotamian idea of divine authority in heaven and earth, the realm of the dead was governed by particular deities who were ranked in hierarchical order with a supreme chief at their head. In older texts the goddess Ereshkigal ("Mistress of the Great Earth") was queen of the Netherworld. She was later replaced by the male warrior god Nergal ("Chief of the Great City"). An Akkadian myth dating at latest to the mid-second millennium BCE attempts to resolve the conflicting traditions by making Ereshkigal the spouse of Nergal. Like the deities in heaven who met regularly in a divine council to render judgments for the universe, the divine rulers of the underworld were assisted in their decisions by an elite body of divinities called the Anunnaki.

The Mesopotamian netherworld was neither a place of punishment nor reward. Rather, it was the only otherworldly destination for dead spirits.

It must be emphasized that the Mesopotamian netherworld was not a "hell." Although it was understood as the geographic opposite of the heavens, and although its environment was largely an inversion of heavenly realms (for instance, it was characterized by darkness instead of light), it did not stand opposite heaven as a possible dwelling place for dead spirits based on behavior during life. The Mesopotamian netherworld was neither a place of punishment nor reward. Rather, it was the only otherworldly destination for dead spirits whose bodies and graves or cult statues had received proper ritual care.

Human Nature & Fate after Death

In the Old Babylonian Atrahasis epic, the gods created humans by mixing clay with the blood of a rebellious deity named We-ilu who was specially slaughtered for the occasion. Humans therefore contained both an earthly and a divine component. Yet the divine element did not mean that humans were immortal. The Mesopotamians had no concept of either physical resurrection or metempsychosis.[4] Rather, Enki (Akkadian Ea), the Sumerian deity of wisdom and magic, ordained death for humans from their very inception. Mortality defined the fundamental human condition, and is even described as the destiny (Akk. šimtu) of mankind. The most common euphemism for dying in Mesopotamian texts is "to go to one's fate" (Cooper 21). The quest for physical immortality, suggests the Epic of Gilgamesh, was consequently futile. The best humans could strive for was enduring fame through their deeds and accomplishments on earth. Immortality, insofar as it was metaphorically possible, was actualized in the memory of future generations.

Humans were considered alive (Akk. awilu) as long as they had blood in their veins and breath in their nostrils. At the moment when humans were emptied of blood or exhaled their last breath, their bodies were considered empty cadavers (Akk. pagaru. The condition of this empty corpse is compared to deep sleep and, upon burial in the ground, the body fashioned from clay "returned to clay" (Bottéro, "Religion" 107). The biblical euphemism for death as sleep ( New Revised Standard Version, 1 Kgs. 2:10; 2 Kgs. 10:35; 15:38; 24:6; 2 Chron. 9:31) and the statement, "You are dust, and to dust you shall return" (Gen. 3:19; cf. Ecc. 3:20), point to the common cultural milieu underlying ancient Mesopotamian and Israelite paradigms.

The Mesopotamians did not view physical death as the ultimate end of life. The dead continued an animated existence in the form of a spirit, designated by the Sumerian term gidim and its Akkadian equivalent, eṭemmu. The eṭemmu is best understood as a ghost. Its etiology is described in the Old Babylonian Atrahasis epic I 206-230, which recounts the creation of humans from the blood of the slain god We-ilu. The text uses word play to connect the etemmu to a divine quality: We-ilu is characterized as one who has ṭemu, "understanding" or "intelligence". Thus, humans were thought to be composed of a corporeal body and some type of divine insight.

It must be stressed that Mesopotamian notions of the physical body and the eṭemmu do not represent a strict body/soul dualism. Unlike the concept of in Classical Greek thought, the eṭemmu was closely associated with the physical corpse. Some texts even speak of the eṭemmu as if it were identical to the body. For instance, the eṭemmu is sometimes described as "sleeping" in the grave (Scurlock, "Death" 1892) - a description that echoes accounts of the corpse or pagaru. Further, the eṭemmu retained corporeal needs such as hunger and thirst, a characteristic that will be discussed in more detail below. It also unclear whether the eṭemmu existed within the living body prior to death (and was thus an entity that separated from the body), or whether it only came into existence at the moment of physical death (and was thus an entity created by the transformation of some physical life-force). In either case, upon physical death the status of the deceased changed from awilu to eṭemmu. Death was therefore a transitionary stage during which humans were transformed from one state of existence to another.

The eṭemmu was not immediately transported to the netherworld after bodily death, but had to undergo an arduous journey in order to reach it. Proper burial and mourning of the corpse was essential for the eṭemmu's transition to the next world. Provided that the necessary funerary rites were performed, the ghost was required to cross a demon-infested steppe, pass over the Khuber River with the assistance of an individual named Silushi/Silulim or Khumut-tabal (the latter meaning "Quick, take [me] there!"), and be admitted through the seven gates of the netherworld city with the permission of the gatekeeper, Bidu ("Open up!").

Upon arrival in the netherworld, the eṭemmu was "judged" by the court of the Annunaki and assigned a place in its new subterranean community. This judgment and placement was not of an ethical nature and had nothing to do with the deceased's merits during its lifetime. Instead, it had rather a clerical function and confirmed, according to the rules of the netherworld, the etemmu' s entrance into its new home.

Yet the judgment and placement of the eṭemmu in the netherworld was not entirely arbitrary or neutral. Just as social hierarchies existed within living communities, so too did a hierarchy between ghosts exist in the "great city" of the dead. The status of an eṭemmu in the netherworld was determined by two factors: the social status of the deceased while alive, and the post-mortem care its body and grave or cult statue received from the living on earth. Kings like Urnamma and Gilgamesh remained rulers and judges of the dead in the netherworld, and priests remained priests. In this respect the social order underground mimicked that above. Some texts such as Gilgamesh and Enkidu and the Netherworld indicate that the deceased's lot in the underworld depended on the number of children one had. The more descendents, the more privileged the eṭemmu's existence in the netherworld, for there were more relatives to ensure the performance of necessary post-mortem rituals.

In the underworld the eṭemmu could be reunited with relatives who had preceded them in death. It should be noted, however, that although the eṭemmu was capable of recognizing and being recognized by the ghosts of people the deceased had known during life, these ghosts do not seem to have retained the deceased's unique personality traits in the netherworld.

In addition to the eṭemmu, living beings were also thought to be composed of a wind-like emanation called in Akkadian the zaqiqu (or ziqiqu). This spirit was sexless, probably birdlike, and was associated with dreaming because it could depart the body while the individual was asleep. Both the eṭemmu and the zaqiqu descended to the netherworld after physical death. Aside from descriptions of dreams, however, the eṭemmu is mentioned far more prominently than the zaqiqu in Mesopotamian literature. This may be due to the fact that, unlike the eṭemmu, the zaqiqu was considered relatively harmless and unable to interfere either positively or negatively in the affairs of the living. It was therefore natural that a greater number of Mesopotamian texts would focus on proper ritual care for the eṭemmu, since these rites were intended to pacify the spirit of the dead so that it would not haunt the living.

The Relationship Between the Dead & the Living

As indicated above, the fate of the eṭemmu after corporeal death depended on performance of the proper post-mortem rituals by the living. First, funerary rites-specifically burial of the corpse and ritual mourning- at the time of death were necessary for the eṭemmu's successful journey to and integration into the netherworld. Second, continued cultic offerings at the deceased's grave or (at least in the pre-Sargonic period) cult statue were required to ensure the eṭemmu's comfortable existence in the netherworld. We have seen that the eṭemmu retained the needs of a living being. Most importantly, it required sustenance. Yet the netherworld was devoid of any palatable nourishment. As the Death of Urnamma articulates, "The food of the netherworld is bitter and the water is brackish" (Cohen 103). The ghost was therefore dependent on the living for subsistence, which was provided through offerings of food and beverage. Absence of offerings reduced the eṭemmu to a beggar's existence in the netherworld. The primary responsibility for performing these offerings fell to the eldest son of the deceased. Scurlock connects post-mortem duties with Mesopotamian property laws by positing that this "is presumably why [the eldest son] also customarily received an extra share of the inheritance" ("Death" 1888).

Both non-elites and elites required such rituals, but the necessity of death cults for the elite was particularly emphasized. The primary difference between death cults for the non-elite and elite appears to have been that, for ordinary people, only the deceased personally known to their descendants -such as immediate family- required individual eṭemmu cults. Distant relatives seem to have "merged together in a sort of corporate ancestor" (Scurlock, "Death" 1889). In contrast, royal cult offerings were made individually to all ancestors of the reigning king.

As long as offerings continued regularly, the eṭemmu remained at peace in the netherworld. Pacified ghosts were friendly and could be induced to aid the living, or at least were prevented from harming them. A person who did not receive proper burial rites or cultic offerings, however, became a restless ghost or vicious demon. Some cases where this could occur included people who were left unburied, suffered a violent death or other unnatural end, or died unmarried. Vicious ghosts pursued, seized, bound, or even physically abused their victims, and could also possess victims by entering into them via their ears. They could also haunt the dreams of the living. Sickness, both physical and psychological, and misfortune were often believed to be caused by the anger of a restless eṭemmu . For example, the suffering servant of the Babylonian poem Ludlul bēl nēmeqi deplores his fate:

Debilitating Disease is let loose upon me:
An Evil Wind has blown [from the] horizon,
Headache has sprung up from the surface of the underworld....
The irresistible [Ghost] left Ekur
[The Lamastu-demon came] down from the mountain. (Lines 50-55, Poem of the Righteous Sufferer)

The Mesopotamians developed many magical means of dealing with vengeful ghosts. Some methods included the tying of magical knots, the manufacturing of amulets, smearing on magical ointments, drinking magical potions, the burial of a surrogate figurine representing the ghost, and the pouring libations while reciting incantations.

Conclusions

In Mesopotamian conceptions of the afterlife, life did not end after physical death but continued in the form of an eṭemmu, a spirit or ghost dwelling in the netherworld. Further, physical death did not sever the relationship between living and deceased but reinforced their bond through a new set of mutual obligations. Just as the well-being of the ghost in the netherworld was contingent upon offerings from the living, so too was the well being of the living contingent upon on the proper propitiation and favor of the dead. To a notable degree, these afterlife beliefs reflected and reinforced the social structure of kinship ties in Mesopotamian communities.

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Ancient Mesopotamian Beliefs in the Afterlife

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Unlike the rich corpus of ancient Egyptian funerary texts, no such "guidebooks" from Mesopotamia detail the afterlife and the soul's fate after death. Instead, ancient Mesopotamian views of the afterlife must be pieced together from a variety of sources across different genres.

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9 Ancient Sumerian Inventions That Changed the World | HISTORY

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The Sumerian people of Mesopotamia had a flair for innovation. Here’s how they left their mark.

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THE WHEEL All civilizations create new advances in technology. Ancient Sumer had several technological creations. The most important, and popular was the wheel . The wheel has been dated back...

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