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Sumerian religion was thereligion practiced by the people ofSumer, the firstliterate civilization found in recorded history and based inancient Mesopotamia, and what is modern dayIraq. The Sumerians widely regarded theirdivinities as responsible for all matters pertaining to the natural and social orders of their society.[3]: 3–4
Before the beginning ofkingship in Sumer, thecity-states were effectively ruled bytheocratic priests and religious officials. Later, this role was supplanted by kings, but priests continued to exert 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 intoziggurats—tall, pyramidal structures with sanctuaries at the tops.
The Sumerians believed that theuniverse had come into being through a series ofcosmic births such as gods. First,Nammu, the primeval waters, gave birth toKi (the earth) andAn (the sky), who mated together and produced a son namedEnlil. Enlil separated heaven from earth and claimed the earth as his domain.Humans were believed to have been created byAnKi orEnki, the son of the An and Ki.
Heaven was reserved exclusively for deities. Meanwhile, after death, all mortals' spirits, regardless of their behavior while alive, were believed to go toKur, a cold, dark cavern deep beneath the earth, which was ruled by the goddessEreshkigal and where the only food available was dry dust. In later times, Ereshkigal was believed to rule alongside her husbandNergal, the god of death.
The major deities in the Sumerian pantheon included An, the god of the heavens, Enlil, the god of wind and storm, AnKi/Enki, the god of water and human culture,Ninhursag, the goddess of fertility and the earth,Utu, the god of the sun and justice, and his fatherNanna, the god of the moon. During theAkkadian Empire,Inanna, the goddess of sex, beauty, and warfare, was widely venerated across Sumer and appeared in many myths, including the famous story of herdescent into the Underworld.
Sumerian texts often report that the gods possess and perform 'Me'. Recent studies by Annette Zgoll have shown that these 'Me' are rituals whose acquisition and proper performance were central to Mesopotamian culture.[4]
Sumerian religion heavily influencedthe religious beliefs of later Mesopotamian peoples; elements of it are retained in the mythologies and religions of theHurrians,Akkadians,Babylonians,Assyrians, and other Middle Eastern culture groups. Scholars ofcomparative mythology have noticed parallels between the stories of the ancient Sumerians and those recorded later in the early parts of theHebrew Bible.[citation needed]
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Sumerian myths were passed down through theoral tradition until the invention of writing (the earliest myth discovered so far, theEpic of Gilgamesh, is Sumerian[dubious –discuss] and is written on a series of fractured clay tablets). Early Sumeriancuneiform was used primarily as a record-keeping tool; it was not until the lateEarly Dynastic period that religious writings first became prevalent as temple praise hymns[6] and as a form of "incantation" called thenam-šub (prefix + "to cast").[7] These tablets were also made of stone clay or stone, and they used a small pick to make the symbols.
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.[10]Temples served as cultural, religious, and political headquarters until approximately 2500 BC, with the rise of military kings known asLu-gals ("man" + "big")[7] after which time the political and military leadership was often housed in separate "palace" complexes.
Until the advent of theLugal ("King"), Sumerian city-states were under a virtuallytheocratic government controlled by variousEn orEnsí, who served as thehigh priests of the cults of the city gods. (Their female equivalents were known asNin.) 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 matters of state including the large irrigation processes necessary for the civilization's survival.
Some cities in Sumer had periods where their kings were worshipped as gods, and occasionally, these times spread to all cities in the region.[11]
During theThird Dynasty of Ur, the Sumerian city-state ofLagash was said to have had sixty-two "lamentation priests" who were accompanied by 180 vocalists and instrumentalists.[12]
The Sumerians envisioned the universe as a closed dome surrounded by a primordial saltwater sea.[13] Underneath the terrestrial earth, which formed the base of the dome, existed an underworld and a freshwater ocean called theAbzu. The deity of the dome-shapedfirmament was namedAn; that of the earth was namedKi. First the underground world was believed to be an extension of the goddess Ki, but later developed into the concept ofKur. The primordial saltwater sea was namedNammu, who became known asTiamat during and after theUr III period. Some ancient Sumerians believed that salt and other minerals were alive, and could even think independent thoughts.[14]
The main source of information about Sumerian creation mythology is the prologue to the epic poemGilgamesh, Enkidu, and the Netherworld,[16]: 30–33 which briefly describes the process of creation: originally, there was onlyNammu, the primeval sea.[16]: 37–40 Then, Nammu without a father gave birth toUtu, then went on to create An the sky, andKi, the earth.[16]: 37–40 An and Ki mated with each other, causing Ki to give birth toEnlil, the god of wind, rain, and storm.[16]: 37–40 Enlil separated An from Ki and carried off the earth as his domain, while An carried off the sky.[16]: 37–41
The ancient Mesopotamians regarded the sky as a series of domes (usually three, but sometimes seven) covering theflat earth[17]: 180 and a place whereholystars resided.[18] Each dome was made of a different kind of precious stone.[17]: 203 The lowest dome of heaven was made ofjasper and was the home of thestars.[19] The middle dome of heaven was made ofsaggilmut stone and was the abode of theIgigi.[19] The highest and outermost dome of heaven was made ofluludānītu stone and was personified asAn, the god of the sky.[20][19] Thecelestial bodies were equated with specific deities as well.[17]: 203 The planetVenus was believed to beInanna, the goddess of love, sex, and war.[21]: 108–109 [17]: 203 Thesun was her brotherUtu, the god of justice,[17]: 203 and themoon was their fatherNanna.[17]: 203 Ordinary mortals could not go to heaven because it was the abode of the gods alone.[22] Instead, after a person died, his or her soul went toKur (later known asIrkalla), a dark shadowyunderworld, located deep below the surface of the earth.[22][23]
TheSumerian afterlife was a dark, dreary cavern located deep below the ground,[23][24] where inhabitants were believed to continue "a shadowy version of life on earth".[23] This bleak domain was known asKur,[21]: 114 and was believed to be ruled by the goddessEreshkigal.[23][17]: 184 All souls went to the same afterlife,[23] and a person's actions during life had no effect on how the person would be treated in the world to come.[23]
The souls inKur were believed to eat nothing but drydust[21]: 58 and family members of the deceased would ritually pourlibations into the dead person's grave through a clay pipe, thereby allowing the dead to drink.[21]: 58 Nonetheless, there are assumptions according to which treasures in wealthy graves had been intended as offerings forUtu and theAnunnaki, so that the deceased would receive special favors in the underworld.[24] During theThird Dynasty of Ur, it was believed that a person's treatment in the afterlife depended on how he or she was buried;[21]: 58 those that had been given sumptuous burials would be treated well,[21]: 58 but those who had been given poor burials would fare poorly, and were believed to haunt the living.[21]: 58
The entrance to Kur was believed to be located in theZagros Mountains in the far east.[21]: 114 It had seven gates, through which a soul needed to pass.[23] The godNeti was the gatekeeper.[17]: 184 [21]: 86 Ereshkigal'ssukkal, or messenger, was the godNamtar.[21]: 134 [17]: 184 Galla were a class of demons that were believed to reside in the underworld;[21]: 85 their primary purpose appears to have been to drag unfortunate mortals back to Kur.[21]: 85 They are frequently referenced in magical texts,[21]: 85–86 and some texts describe them as being seven in number.[21]: 85–86 Several extant poems describe thegalla dragging the godDumuzid into the underworld.[21]: 86 The later Mesopotamians knew this underworld by itsEast Semitic name:Irkalla. During theAkkadian Period, Ereshkigal's role as the ruler of the underworld was assigned toNergal, the god of death.[23][17]: 184 The Akkadians attempted to harmonize this dual rulership of the underworld by making Nergal Ereshkigal's husband.[23]
It is generally agreed that Sumeriancivilization began at some point between c. 4500 and 4000 BC, but the earliest historical records only date to around 2900 BC.[25] The Sumerians originally practiced apolytheistic religion, withanthropomorphicdeities representing cosmic and terrestrial forces in their world.[17]: 178–179 The earliestSumerian literature of the third millennium BC identifies four primary deities:An,Enlil,Ninhursag, andEnki. These early deities were believed to occasionally behave mischievously towards each other, but were generally viewed as being involved in co-operative creative ordering.[26]
During the middle of the third millennium BC, Sumerian society became more urbanized.[17]: 178–179 As a result of this, Sumerian deities began to lose their original associations with nature and became the patrons of various cities.[17]: 179 Each Sumerian city-state had its own specific patron deity,[17]: 179 who was believed to protect the city and defend its interests.[17]: 179 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 ofcuneiform tablets.[27]
During the late 2000s BC, the Sumerians were conquered by theAkkadians.[17]: 179 The Akkadianssyncretized their own gods with the Sumerian ones,[17]: 179 causing Sumerian religion to take on a Semitic coloration.[17]: 179 Male deities became dominant[17]: 179 and the gods completely lost their original associations with natural phenomena.[17]: 179–180 People began to view the gods as living in afeudal society withclass structure.[17]: 179–181 Powerful deities such asEnki andInanna became seen as receiving their power from the chief godEnlil.[17]: 179–180
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The majority of Sumerian deities belonged to a classification called theAnunna ("[offspring] ofAn"), whereas seven deities, including Enlil and Inanna, belonged to a group of "underworld judges" known as theAnunnaki ("[offspring] of An" +Ki). During theThird Dynasty of Ur, the Sumerian pantheon was said to include sixty times sixty (3600) deities.[17]: 182
Enlil was the god of air, wind, and storm.[28]: 108 He was also the chief god of the Sumerian pantheon[28]: 108 [29]: 115–121 and the patron deity of the city ofNippur.[30]: 58 [31]: 231–234 His primary consort wasNinlil, the goddess of the south wind,[32]: 106 who was one of the patron deities ofNippur and was believed to reside in the same temple as Enlil.[33]Ninurta was the son of Enlil and Ninlil. He was worshipped as the god of war, agriculture, and one of the Sumerian wind gods. He was the patron deity ofGirsu and one of the patron deities ofLagash. "Sumerian cities each had their own gods but acknowledged the supremacy of...Enlil."[34]
Enki was god of freshwater, male fertility, and knowledge.[21]: 75 His most important cult center was the E-abzu temple in the city ofEridu.[21]: 75 He was the patron and creator of humanity[21]: 75 and the sponsor of human culture.[21]: 75 His primary consort wasNinhursag, the Sumerian goddess of the earth.[21]: 140 Ninhursag was worshipped in the cities ofKesh andAdab.[21]: 140
Inanna was the Sumerian goddess of love, sexuality, prostitution, and war.[21]: 109 She was the divine personification of the planetVenus, the morning and evening star.[21]: 108–109 Her main cult center was theEanna temple inUruk, which had been originally dedicated to An.[36] Deified kings may have re-enacted the marriage of Inanna andDumuzid with priestesses.[21]: 151, 157–158 Accounts of her parentage vary;[21]: 108 in most myths, she is usually presented as the daughter of Nanna and Ningal,[35]: ix–xi, xvi but, in other stories, she is the daughter of Enki or An along with an unknown mother.[21]: 108 The Sumerians had more myths about her than any other deity.[35]: xiii, xv [16]: 101 Many of the myths involving her revolve around her attempts to usurp control of the other deities' domains.[37]
Utu was god of the sun, whose primary center of worship was the E-babbar temple inSippar.[38] Utu was principally regarded as a dispenser of justice;[17]: 184 he was believed to protect the righteous and punish the wicked.[17]: 184 Nanna was god of the moon and of wisdom. He was the father of Utu and one of the patron deities ofUr.[39] He may have also been the father of Inanna and Ereshkigal.Ningal was the wife of Nanna,[40] as well as the mother of Utu, Inanna, and Ereshkigal.
Ereshkigal was the goddess of the SumerianUnderworld, which was known asKur.[17]: 184 She was Inanna's older sister.[41] In later myth, her husband was the godNergal.[17]: 184 The gatekeeper of the underworld was the godNeti.[17]: 184
Nammu was a goddess representing the primeval waters (Engur), who gave birth to An (heaven) and Ki (earth) and the first deities; while she is rarely attested as an object of cult, she likely played a central role in the early cosmogony of Eridu, and in later periods continued to appear in texts related to exorcisms.[42]An was the ancient Sumerian god of the heavens. He was the ancestor of all the other major deities[43] and the original patron deity ofUruk.
Most major gods had a so-calledsukkal, a minor deity serving as their vizier, messenger or doorkeeper.[44]
The Sumerians had a linguistic and cultural exchange with the SemiticAkkadian peoples in northern Mesopotamia for generations prior to the conquests ofSargon of Akkad in 2340 BC. Sumerian mythology and religious practices were rapidly integrated into Akkadian culture.[45]
TheAmorite Babylonians gained dominance over southernMesopotamia by the mid-17th century BC. During theOld 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,[6] either in the form of transcribed Sumerian texts (most notably the Babylonian version of theEpic of Gilgamesh) or in the form of Sumerian and Akkadian influences within Babylonian mythological literature (most notably theEnûma 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 counterpartIshtar during the Old Babylonian Period.
TheHurrians adopted the Akkadian god Anu into their pantheon sometime no later than 1200 BC. Other Sumerian and Akkadian deities adapted into the Hurrian pantheon include Ayas, the Hurrian counterpart to Ea; Shaushka, the Hurrian counterpart to Ishtar; and the goddessNinlil.[46]
Some stories recorded in the older parts of the Hebrew Bible bear strong similarities to the stories in Sumerian mythology. For example, theGenesis flood narrative bears a striking resemblance to theSumerian deluge myth, recorded in a Sumerian tablet discovered atNippur.[47]: 97–101 The Judaic underworldSheol is very similar in description with the SumerianKur, ruled by the goddessEreshkigal, as well as the Babylonian underworldIrkalla. Sumerian scholarSamuel Noah Kramer has also noted similarities between many Sumerian and Akkadian "proverbs" and the later Hebrew proverbs, many of which are featured in theBook of Proverbs.[48]: 133–135
| An | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Ninḫursaĝ | Enki born toNamma | Ninkikurga born toNamma | Nisaba born toUraš | Ḫaya | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Ninsar | Ninlil | Enlil | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Ninkurra | Ningal maybe daughter ofEnlil | Nanna | Nergal maybe son of Enki | Ninurta maybe born toNinḫursaĝ | Baba born toUraš | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Uttu | Inanna possibly also the daughter of Enki, of Enlil, or of An | Dumuzid maybe son of Enki | Utu | Ninkigal married Nergal | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Meškiaĝĝašer | Lugalbanda | Ninsumun | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Enmerkar | Gilgāmeš | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Urnungal | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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{{cite book}}:ISBN / Date incompatibility (help){{citation}}:ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)| Primordial beings | | |
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| Primary deities | ||
| Other major deities | ||
| Minor deities | ||
| Demons, spirits, and monsters | ||
| Mortal heroes | ||
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