MESOPOTAMIA religion: gods and characteristics

Since the first civilizations, human beings have sought a way to understand the world through religions, creating myths and gods so that everything we saw or happened made sense. One of the first mythologies in the history of mankind had its origin in Mesopotamia, the cradle of civilization, and to know it in this lesson from a Professor we must talk about the Mesopotamian religion.

Index

1. Characteristics of the religion of Mesopotamia
2. Gods of Mesopotamian religion
3. Myths of the religion of Mesopotamia

The Mesopotamian mythology Is the set of beliefs and myths characteristic of older Mesopotamians, being these replaced years later by the Persian beliefs or Babylonians.

To understand the complex religion of Mesopotamia that served as a model for many of the later mythologies, we must list some of its main features to understand the importance of Mesopotamian mythology.

The main features of the religion of Mesopotamia are the following:

• They were polytheists, that is, they believed in the existence of numerous gods that covered many aspects of life, being the opposite of the most modern religions that proclaim the existence of a single god.
• The gods looked like human beingsThey had the shape of a person and performed common tasks of human beings such as having children or eating.
• The gods were immortal, This being what distanced them from human beings and made them able to be called gods. Unlike in many other mythologies, in Mesopotamia the gods could give immortality to whoever they wanted.
• The gods were evil causing numerous atrocities against the human being, causing the Mesopotamians to have no love or respect towards their gods, but only a fear that forced them to pray and pay tributes so as not to receive their attack and revenge.
• The powers of the gods were eternal and unlimited, causing that they could affect any moment of people's lives, being the cause of all the good and bad things that happen in people's lives.
• Human beings were servants of the gods, so they had to make the gods happy or they would kill them through disease or catastrophe.
• For human beings, the afterlife was a horrible world without food and in which everything was dangerous, there being no good place to go after death.
• Demons, Geniuses, and Spirits they were defining elements of Mesopotamian beliefs, being less powerful than the gods and being able to be both good and evil.
• Each city had a patron god for their protection, a huge temple being built in each place to keep the deity happy.
• The priests were members of the upper classes of society, being people with a lot of power within the society of Mesopotamia.

Image: Herodotus

As in any ancient religion, in that of Mesopotamia the gods play a vital role, being very important to know all of them to understand the different influences they had on society, and at the same time compare them with other similar deities of other beliefs. Therefore, the main Mesopotamian godsare as follows:

• Anu: Father of all gods and protector of Heaven and justice.
• Enlil: God of the storms, the wind and the breath, being he who decided if the harvests would go well or not.
• Enki: God of rivers and subsoil waters, and at the same time the main defender of the creation of human beings.
• Shamash: God of the Sun and justice.
• Without: God of the Moon and other celestial bodies, being the patron of the city of Ur he was considered the supreme god when it reached its peak.
• Ishtar: God of love, fertility, sex, beauty and war, who is considered to be the family of the Roman goddess Venus.
• Ninhursag: The creator of the mountains.
• Ninlil: Goddess of the air, considered as a human transformed into a god.
• Nanmu: Considered as the first deity and therefore creator of almost everything.
• Nergal: God of the dead and therefore who rules the Underworld.
• Nabu: God of writing and scribes, he is in charge of writing the destiny of all human beings.
• Ninurta: God of agriculture, he is recognized as the hero of mythology, performing enormous feats.

To conclude this lesson on the religion of Mesopotamia we must talk about the main existing myths in these beliefs, being very important to know them to understand the Mesopotamian society, and at the same time serving to analyze the parallels with other beliefs. Some of the main myths of Mesopotamia are as follows:

• Atra-Hasis: They talk about the creation of humans by the goddess Nintu in order to have labor, and as years later the god Enlil created natural disasters to control the population, causing a huge Universal Flood in which the god Enki had to build a boat to save the humans.
• Eridu Genesis: Count how, after the Deluge, human beings began to respect the gods more, and the first great cities were created.
• The Seven Wicked and Seven Wise Men: After the flood there were these 14 figures that were key in advising the kings on how they should treat the gods and how to survive.
• Gilgamesh: It tells the adventures of King Gilgamesh, being very similar to the adventures of Greek heroes such as Hercules or Perseus.

If you want to read more articles similar to Mesopotamian religion, we recommend that you enter our category of History.

• Garrido, J. M. (1984). The Mesopotamian Religion. Judaic Notebooks, (14), ag-1.
• Reade, J. (1998). Mesopotamia (Vol. 2). AKAL editions.
• McCall, H. (1994). Mesopotamian Myths (Vol. 1). AKAL editions.