Ancient Mesopotamian religion

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The god Marduk and his dragon Mu?uu

Part of a series on
Ancient
Mesopotamian religion
Chaos Monster and Sun God
Primordial beings[show]
Seven gods who decree[show]
Other major deities[show]
Minor deities[show]
Demigods and heroes[show]
Spirits and monsters[show]
Tales[show]
Related topics
Ancient Near Eastern religions
Sumerian religion
Babylonian religion
v t e
Mesopotamian religion refers to the religious beliefs and practices of the
civilizations of ancient Mesopotamia, particularly Sumer, Akkad, Assyria and
Babylonia between circa 3500 BC and 400 AD, after which they largely gave way to
Syriac Christianity. A few traces remained among Assyrian communities in isolated
pockets of what had been Assyria until the 10th century AD, with the very latest
attestation being found in this region in the 16th century AD.[1] The religious
development of Mesopotamia and Mesopotamian culture in general was not particularly
influenced by the movements of the various peoples into and throughout the area,
particularly the south. Rather, Mesopotamian religion was a consistent and coherent
tradition which adapted to the internal needs of its adherents over millennia of
development.[2]

The earliest undercurrents of Mesopotamian religious thought date to the mid 4th
millennium BCE, and involved the worship of forces of nature as providers of
sustenance. In the 3rd millennium BCE objects of worship were personified and
became an expansive cast of divinities with particular functions. The last stages
of Mesopotamian polytheism, which developed in the 2nd and 1st millenniums,
introduced greater emphasis on personal religion and structured the gods into a
monarchical hierarchy with the national god being the head of the pantheon.[2]
Mesopotamian religion finally declined with the spread of Iranian religions during
the Achaemenid Empire and with the Christianization of Mesopotamia.

Contents [hide]
1 Reconstruction
2 History
2.1 Effect of Assyrian religious beliefs on its political structure
2.1.1 Religion in the Neo-Assyrian Empire
2.2 Later Mesopotamian history
3 Mythology
3.1 Deities
4 Cultic practice
4.1 Public devotions
4.2 Private devotions
5 Morality, virtue and sin
6 Afterlife
7 Eschatology
8 Historical study
8.1 Challenges
8.2 Panbabylonism
9 Continuing influence
9.1 Popular culture
9.2 New religious movements
9.3 Biblical eschatology
10 Fringe theories
11 See also
12 Notes
13 References
14 External links
Reconstruction[edit]
As with most dead religions, many aspects of the common practices and intricacies
of the doctrine have been lost and forgotten over time. Fortunately, much of the
information and knowledge has survived, and great work has been done by historians
and scientists, with the help of religious scholars and translators, to re-
construct a working knowledge of the religious history, customs, and the role these
beliefs played in everyday life in Sumer, Akkad, Assyria, Babylonia, Ebla and
Chaldea during this time. Mesopotamian religion is thought to have been an
influence on subsequent religions throughout the world, including Canaanite,
Aramean, and ancient Greek.

Mesopotamian religion was polytheistic, worshipping over 2,100 different deities,

[3] many of which were associated with a specific state within Mesopotamia, such as
Sumer, Akkad, Assyria or Babylonia, or a specific Mesopotamian city, such as;
(Ashur), Nineveh, Ur, Nippur, Arbela, Harran, Uruk, Ebla, Kish, Eridu, Isin, Larsa,
Sippar, Gasur, Ekallatum, Til Barsip, Mari, Adab, Eshnunna and Babylon.

Some of the most significant of these Mesopotamian deities were Anu, Enki, Enlil,
Ishtar (Astarte), Ashur, Shamash, Shulmanu, Tammuz, AdadHadad, Sin (Nanna), Kur,
Dagan (Dagon), Ninurta, Nisroch, Nergal, Tiamat, Ninlil, Bel, Tishpak and Marduk.

Mesopotamian religion has historically the oldest body of recorded literature of

any religious tradition. What is known about Mesopotamian religion comes from
archaeological evidence uncovered in the region, particularly numerous literary
sources, which are usually written in Sumerian, Akkadian (Assyro-Babylonian) or
Aramaic using cuneiform script on clay tablets and which describe both mythology
and cultic practices. Other artifacts can also be useful when reconstructing
Mesopotamian religion. As is common with most ancient civilizations, the objects
made of the most durable and precious materials, and thus more likely to survive,
were associated with religious beliefs and practices. This has prompted one scholar
to make the claim that the Mesopotamian's entire existence was infused by their
religiosity, just about everything they have passed on to us can be used as a
source of knowledge about their religion.[4] While Mesopotamian religion had almost
completely died out by approximately 400-500 CE after its indigenous adherents had
largely become Assyrian Christians, it has still had an influence on the modern
world, predominantly because many biblical stories that are today found in Judaism,
Christianity, Islam and Mandaeism were possibly based upon earlier Mesopotamian
myths, in particular that of the creation myth, the Garden of Eden, the flood myth,
the Tower of Babel, figures such as Nimrod and Lilith and the Book of Esther. It
has also inspired various contemporary Neo-pagan groups.

History[edit]
See also Sumerian religion and Babylonian religion
Overview map of ancient Mesopotamia.
In the fourth millennium BCE, the first evidence for what is recognisably
Mesopotamian religion can be seen with the invention in Mesopotamia of writing
circa 3500 BCE.

The people of Mesopotamia originally consisted of two groups, East Semitic Akkadian
speakers (later divided into the Assyrians and Babylonians) and the people of
Sumer, who spoke a language isolate. These peoples were members of various city-
states and small kingdoms. The Sumerians left the first records, and are believed
to have been the founders of the civilisation of the Ubaid period (6500 BCE to 3800
BCE) in Upper Mesopotamia. By historical times they resided in southern
Mesopotamia, which was known as Sumer (and much later, Babylonia), and had
considerable influence on the Akkadian speakers and their culture. The Akkadian
speaking Semites are believed to have entered the region at some point between 3500
BCE and 3000 BCE, with Akkadian names first appear in the king lists of these
states circa 29th century BCE.

The Sumerians were advanced as well as inventing writing, they also invented early
forms of mathematics, early wheeled vehiclesChariots, astronomy, astrology, written
code of law, organised medicine, advanced agriculture and architecture, and the
calendar. They created the first city-states such as Uruk, Ur, Lagash, Isin, Kish,
Umma, Eridu, Adab, Akshak, Sippar, Nippur and Larsa, each of them ruled by an ens.
The Sumerians remained largely dominant in this synthesised culture, however, until
the rise of the Akkadian Empire under Sargon of Akkad circa 2335 BCE, which united
all of Mesopotamia under one ruler.[5]

There was increasing syncretism between the Sumerian and Akkadian cultures and
deities, with the Akkadians typically preferring to worship fewer deities but
elevating them to greater positions of power. Circa 2335 BCE, Sargon of Akkad
conquered all of Mesopotamia, uniting its inhabitants into the world's first empire
and spreading its domination into ancient Iran, the Levant, Anatolia, Canaan and
the Arabian Peninsula. The Akkadian Empire endured for two centuries before
collapsing due to economic decline, internal strife and attacks from the north east
by the Gutian people.

Following a brief Sumerian revival with the Third Dynasty of Ur or Neo-Sumerian

Empire, Mesopotamia broke up into a number of Akkadian states. Assyria had evolved
during the 25th century BCE, and asserted itself in the north circa 2100 BCE in the
Old Assyrian Empire and southern Mesopotamia fragmented into a number of kingdoms,
the largest being Isin, Larsa and Eshnunna.

In 1894 BCE the initially minor city-state of Babylon was founded in the south by
invading West Semitic-speaking Amorites. It was rarely ruled by native dynasties
throughout its history.

Some time after this period, the Sumerians disappeared, becoming wholly absorbed
into the Akkadian-speaking population.

Assyrian kings are attested from the late 25th century BCE and dominated northern
Mesopotamia and parts of eastern Anatolia and northeast Syria.

Circa 1750 BCE, the Amorite ruler of Babylon, King Hammurabi, conquered much of
Mesopotamia, but this empire collapsed after his death, and Babylonia was reduced
to the small state it had been upon its founding. The Amorite dynasty was deposed
in 1595 BCE after attacks from mountain-dwelling people known as the Kassites from
the Zagros Mountains, who went on to rule Babylon for over 500 years.

Assyria, having been the dominant power in the region with the Old Assyrian Empire
between the 20th and 18th centuries BCE before the rise of Hammurabi, once more
became a major power with the Middle Assyrian Empire (13911050 BCE). Assyria
defeated the Hittites and Mitanni, and its growing power forced the New Kingdom of
Egypt to withdraw from the Near East. The Middle Assyrian Empire at its height
stretched from the Caucasus to modern Bahrain and from Cyprus to western Iran.

The Neo-Assyrian Empire (911605 BCE) was the most dominant power on earth and the
largest empire the world had yet seen between the 10th century BCE and the late 7th
century BCE, with an empire stretching from Cyprus in the west to central Iran in
the east, and from the Caucasus in the north to Nubia, Egypt and the Arabian
Peninsula in the south, facilitating the spread of Mesopotamian culture and
religion far and wide under emperors such as Ashurbanipal, Tukulti-Ninurta II,
Tiglath-Pileser III, Shalmaneser IV, Sargon II, Sennacherib and Esarhaddon. During
the Neo-Assyrian Empire, Mesopotamian Aramaic became the lingua franca of the
empire, and also Mesopotamia proper. The last written records in Akkadian were
astrological texts dating from 78 CE discovered in Assyria.