Mesopotamia the Earliest Known Human

Mesopotamia

The earliest known human civilization was located in the region between the Rivers Tigris and Euphrates (present day Iraq), later named "Mesopotamia" (land between two rivers) by the Greeks. Many different civilizations developed in the region with the oldest being the Sumerian, followed by Akkadian, Babylonian, and the Assyrian civilizations. These ancient Mesopotamian civilizations existed over a long time-frame but had enough similarities in their cultures, religions and societies to be bracketed under a generic name of Mesopotamian civilization. This paper discusses the religion and society of these ancient civilizations of Mesopotamia.

Religion

Importance: The importance of religion in the lives of the ancient Mesopotamian people was overwhelming which affected all aspects of their lives. In the absence of other fields of intellectual discourse such as are available to the modern man, it was only religion which could provide to the Mesopotamians an explanation of the forces that governed their existence or a framework for their lives. Religion, therefore, has influenced the Mesopotamian culture, politics, society, and every other part of their lives. The influence of the Mesopotamian religion eventually spread beyond the region throughout the ancient Middle East, diffusing its religious ideas to Syria-Palestine, Asia Minor, and the Mediterranean world. Traces of its beliefs and rituals can be found even today in the Judeo-Christian and Islamic religious traditions.

Sources of Information: Archeologists and historians have reconstructed information about the earliest Mesopotamian religious practices from the remains of temples, burial sites, and artistic imagery, from as far back as the 7th millennium BC. Written sources about religious practices have been unearthed from the Sumerian era at the end of the 4th millennium BC as well as in the Akkadian and other Semitic languages beginning about 2500 BC.

Sumerian Beliefs

The Mesopotamian religion was, therefore, essentially Sumerian in origin, which was added to and subtly modified by the Akkadians, Babylonians and the Assyrians who followed. The Sumerians believed that the universe was ruled by a group of living beings, who were human in form, but were immortal and possessed superhuman powers. These beings, though invisible, guided and controlled the world and heavens according to a well-laid out plan.

Heaven, earth, air, and water were regarded as the four major components of the universe and for each of these components; there were deities, known as creating gods. According to the Sumerian belief the 'creating' gods could create anything by just uttering a command and had devised a set of universal laws and rules to keep the cosmos in harmonious operation and to avoid confusion and conflict.

In addition to the creating deities there were hundreds of other, less important deities such as the sky deities: Nanna, the god of the moon; Utu, the sun god; and Inanna -- the queen of heaven and the goddess of love, procreation, and war. Other Sumerian gods were supposed to be in charge of things important to the Mesopotamian people such as rivers, mountains, and plains; cities, fields, and farms; even tools such as pickaxes, and plows.

The Sumerians concept about the creation of human beings was that they were fashioned out of clay and were created for the purpose of supplying the gods with food, drink, and shelter, so that the gods might have full leisure for their divine activities. Life was considered precious despite the tribulations as death was supposed to bring a more wretched life in the hereafter. Developmental Stages of the Mesopotamian Religion

After the Sumerians, the Akkadians, Babylonians and the Assyrians, adapted the essential structure of Sumerian religion to their own beliefs and practices, for example, after the Sumerian civilization was absorbed by speakers of Semitic languages, many Sumerian deities were called interchangeably by Sumerian and Semitic names.

The development of the Mesopotamian religion can be tentatively divided into various stages. The first stage (tentatively dating back to the 4th millennium BC and even earlier) was characterized by worship of the forces in nature (usually depicted in non-human forms) that were important to the people in their everyday living such as the sun, water and earth. One of the typical figures of object of worship in early stage of the Mesopotamian religion was that of the "dying god" (a fertility deity displaying death and regeneration characteristics). The traits of the deity figure varied depending on whether the god was being worshipped by marsh dwellers, orchard growers, herders, or farmers. (Jacobsen, Para on "Stages of Religious Development)

The second stage (during the 3rd millennium BC) was characterized by a visualization of the gods in human shape with each deity having their special functions. The third stage evolved during the 2nd and 1st millennia BC, which was characterized by a growing emphasis on personal religion involving concepts of sin and forgiveness. The Mesopotamian religion had probably become more personalized with the passage of time since the great gods started to seem increasingly remote, powerful, and inaccessible to the individual and the people gradually turned to the worship of personal deities. Nevertheless, the ancient Mesopotamians were intensely conservative in religious matters and rarely discarded past religious practices which explain the relative uniformity of a unique religious tradition over such a long period. (Ibid.)

Temples

From the end of the 4th millennium BC, monumental temple complexes called the "zuggarats" dominated the Mesopotamian cities with each city being home to a major deity which was placed in a statue form in a central part of the temple. These temple complexes were typically raised on huge platforms so as to be visible at a great distance, and were decorated with architectural ornament, paintings, clay mosaics, and statues. The temples were considered to be the household of the deities and had a full-fledged staff to look after the "needs" of the deity. They were also the center of the community performing a number of functions including social services, such as employment of the poor, blind, and orphaned; serving as banks; as repositories for important documents, and as the place for oaths taking.

Mesopotamian Society

The characteristics of the Mesopotamian society and the way in which developed were largely determined by the geography of the region. The rich fertile soil of the area, which was the result of the rich silt and water provided by the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, attracted settlers to Mesopotamia. The rich land meant the creation of food surpluses which allowed some settlers to move away from agriculture and into trade. It also resulted in the growth of the population that, in turn, gave rise to the process of urbanization. Most of the land was owned by temples and the king, which was "leased" out to workers who were provided with the land and tools in return for part of the profit.

Mesopotamian society was organized around city-states. In early Sumerian times, a priest-king (en) ruled as a representative of the city's god, assisted by an assembly of citizens or elders. Later, as multicity states formed, a king ("lugal," in Sumerian and "sharrun" in Akkadian) reigned, and each individual city was administered by a governor ("ensi" or "ishiakkum").