Most important Mesopotamian gods

When we speak of Mesopotamia, we refer to a geographical site in which several civilizations lived, which were leaving a series of very defined features. For this reason it is very difficult to find a list with the main deities of the Mesopotamian pantheon, that is Because each civilization must be studied separately to focus on each of these pantheons. In this lesson from a TEACHER we bring you to the most important gods of MesopotamiaTaking into account that we will have to make a series of jumps between the different civilizations, to be able to tell you about the most important cults in the entire area of ​​the two rivers.

As we have said earlier in the introduction about the most important Mesopotamian gods, there are several civilizations that were settling in that place, which had their own pantheon with their respective deities, although on some occasions some of them could coincide in the different civilizations.

Next, we will talk about the main gods of the Sumerians and Akkadians,

for being the most important civilizations and that created the most important cults:

ANU

He is the god of the sky, "an" means sky in the Sumerian language. He is a fundamental god in many of the pantheons of all Mesopotamia, being considered a demiurge, that is, the god creator of the universe.

ENLIL

This god has always been regarded as the creator of humanity, being the substitute for ANU over time, due to the fact that in the scriptures he was closer to men. In the Akkadian pantheon he was their main god.

ENKI

We stand before the god of wisdom and the arts. His kingdom was under the mainland, therefore he was also considered the lord of water and fertilityWe have to take into account that the waters were the ones that left the silt depositions that fertilized the river slopes, fundamental for agriculture in Mesopotamia.

NINGIRSU

He was the protector god of the city of Lagash. He was known to be a very war deity and who was in charge of eliminating demons, on the other hand, he was also assimilated natural disasterslike hurricanes.

NINHURSAG

She was one of Anu's daughters and was also Enki's lover. She is the goddess of medicine and nature. According to Sumerian mythology, she was the creator of humans.

ENBILULU

He is the god of canals and rivers of Mesopotamia, for this reason he is an important god, for being related in a very special way with fertility and with destruction at the same time. Being a secondary god, as he was put to watch over the rivers by Enki, he had many temples throughout time.

WITHOUT

He was the god of moon and everything related to celestial bodies, therefore, we are before the creator of the universe for the Semitic peoples. He was depicted with a crescent moon.

SHAMASH

The god of sun and justice, he is closely related to most of the Semitic kings, with whom he established a relationship to let them know what they should do. In fact, he was the one who handed Hammurabi the first code of laws.

ISHTAR

We will now go on to talk about a well-known deity throughout Mesopotamia, since we are faced with the goddess of sex, fertility, love, war and beauty. Therefore, we can intuit that later the Greeks would assimilate her as Athena and Aphrodite. Furthermore, we know that her planet was Venus (Mesopotamian civilizations had great astronomers, who could "predict" alterations in the cosmos).

She could be represented in various ways, depending on the characteristic that you wanted to highlight about her, For this reason we know temples dedicated to the warrior goddess and others for example dedicated to the goddess of the fertility. In some representations we can find her with a sixteen-pointed star, a flower, a lion or a woman and in other occasions we will find her naked and with wings. We know that in the area of ​​the Syro-Palestinian coast she was assimilated as ANAT.

Being polytheistic religions, we will find gods for everything, that is, if we had to make a list with all the gods existing in Mesopotamia, a very extensive series, because in many cases we will also find gods that For the same, what happens that depending on the geographical area where we are located in Mesopotamia and the civilization that is located there, that god would have a name or other.

On the other hand, and continuing with the list of the most important gods of Mesopotamia, we must know that, in this area, the civilizations that occurred had a very special characteristic, and this was that each city was a state, and only in certain periods will we find the so-called empires, such as the Babylonian, the Assyrian…

Therefore cEvery city had its own protector god, which was the true lord of the cities and the one who won or lost the battles, the king being a simple captain of the armies of the god.

In this other lesson from a TEACHER we offer you a brief summary of Ancient Mesopotamia.