SUMERIAN
RELIGION
Wall
plaque showing libations by devotees and a naked priest, to a seated
god and a temple. Ur, 2500 BCE
Sumerian
religion was the religion practiced and adhered to by the people
of Sumer, the first literate civilization of ancient Mesopotamia.
The Sumerians regarded their divinities as responsible for all matters
pertaining to the natural and social orders.
Before
the beginning of kingship in Sumer, the city-states were effectively
ruled by theocratic 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
into ziggurats—tall, pyramidal structures with sanctuaries
at the tops.
The
Sumerians believed that the universe had come into being through
a series of cosmic births. First, Nammu, the primeval waters, gave
birth to Ki (the earth) and An (the sky), who mated together and
produced a son named Enlil. Enlil separated heaven from earth and
claimed the earth as his domain. Humans were believed to have been
created by Enki, the son of Nammu and An. Heaven was reserved exclusively
for deities and, upon their deaths, all mortals' spirits, regardless
of their behavior while alive, were believed to go to Kur, a cold,
dark cavern deep beneath the earth, which was ruled by the goddess
Ereshkigal and where the only food available was dry dust. In later
times, Ereshkigal was believed to rule alongside her husband Nergal,
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, 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 father Nanna, the god
of the moon. During the Akkadian Period and afterward, Inanna, the
goddess of sex, beauty, and warfare, was widely venerated across
Sumer and appeared in many myths, including the famous story of
her descent into the Underworld.
Sumerian
religion heavily influenced the religious beliefs of later Mesopotamian
peoples; elements of it are retained in the mythologies and religions
of the Hurrians, Akkadians, Babylonians, Assyrians, and other Middle
Eastern culture groups. Scholars of comparative mythology have noticed
many parallels between the stories of the ancient Sumerians and
those recorded later in the early parts of the Hebrew Bible.
Worship
:
Written cuneiform :
Evolution
of the word "Temple" (Sumerian: "É")
in cuneiform, from a 2500 BCE relief in Ur, to Assyrian cuneiform
circa 600 BCE.
Sumerian myths were passed down through the oral tradition until
the invention of writing (the earliest myth discovered so far, the
Epic of Gilgamesh, is Sumerian and is written on a series of fractured
clay tablets). Early Sumerian cuneiform was used primarily as a
record-keeping tool; it was not until the late early dynastic period
that religious writings first became prevalent as temple praise
hymns and as a form of "incantation" called the nam-šub
(prefix + "to cast"). These tablets were also made of
stone clay or stone, and they used a small pick to make the symbols.
Architecture
:
Plaque with a libation scene. 2550-2250 BCE, Royal Cemetery
at Ur
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. Temples served as
cultural, religious, and political headquarters until approximately
2500 BC, with the rise of military kings known as Lu-gals (“man”
+ “big”) after which time the political and military
leadership was often housed in separate "palace" complexes.
Priesthood
:
Statuette
of a Sumerian worshipper from the Early Dynastic Period, ca. 2800-2300
BC
Until the advent of the lugals, Sumerian city states were under
a virtually theocratic government controlled by various En or Ensí,
who served as the high priests of the cults of the city gods. (Their
female equivalents were known as Nin.) 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.
Ceremony
:
During the Third Dynasty of Ur, the Sumerian city-state of Lagash
was said to have had sixty-two "lamentation priests" who
were accompanied by 180 vocalists and instrumentalists.
Cosmology
:
The Sumerians envisioned the universe as a closed dome surrounded
by a primordial saltwater sea. Underneath the terrestrial earth,
which formed the base of the dome, existed an underworld and a freshwater
ocean called the Abzu. The deity of the dome-shaped firmament was
named An; that of the earth was named Ki. First the underground
world was believed to be an extension of the goddess Ki, but later
developed into the concept of Kur. The primordial saltwater sea
was named Nammu, who became known as Tiamat during and after the
Sumerian Renaissance.
Creation
story :
Early religious relief (c.2700 BCE) :
Carved figure with feathers. The king-priest, wearing a net skirt
and a hat with leaves or feathers, stands before the door of a temple,
symbolized by two great maces. The inscription mentions the god
Ningirsu. Early Dynastic Period, circa 2700 BCE.
The main source of information about the Sumerian creation myth
is the prologue to the epic poem Gilgamesh, Enkidu, and the Netherworld,
which briefly describes the process of creation: originally, there
was only Nammu, the primeval sea. Then, Nammu gave birth to An,
the sky, and Ki, the earth. An and Ki mated with each other, causing
Ki to give birth to Enlil, the god of wind, rain, and storm. Enlil
separated An from Ki and carried off the earth as his domain, while
An carried off the sky.
Heaven
:
The ancient Mesopotamians regarded the sky as a series of domes
(usually three, but sometimes seven) covering the flat earth. Each
dome was made of a different kind of precious stone. The lowest
dome of heaven was made of jasper and was the home of the stars.
The middle dome of heaven was made of saggilmut stone and was the
abode of the Igigi. The highest and outermost dome of heaven was
made of luludanitu stone and was personified as An, the god of the
sky. The celestial bodies were equated with specific deities as
well. The planet Venus was believed to be Inanna, the goddess of
love, sex, and war. The sun was her brother Utu, the god of justice,
and the moon was their father Nanna. Ordinary mortals could not
go to heaven because it was the abode of the gods alone. Instead,
after a person died, his or her soul went to Kur (later known as
Irkalla), a dark shadowy underworld, located deep below the surface
of the earth.
Afterlife
:
Ancient
Sumerian cylinder seal impression showing the god Dumuzid being
tortured in the Underworld by galla demons
Devotional
scene, with Temple
The Sumerian afterlife was a dark, dreary cavern located deep below
the ground, where inhabitants were believed to continue "a
shadowy version of life on earth". This bleak domain was known
as Kur, and was believed to be ruled by the goddess Ereshkigal.
All souls went to the same afterlife, and a person's actions during
life had no effect on how the person would be treated in the world
to come.
The
souls in Kur were believed to eat nothing but dry dust and family
members of the deceased would ritually pour libations into the dead
person's grave through a clay pipe, thereby allowing the dead to
drink. Nonetheless, there are assumptions according to which treasures
in wealthy graves had been intended as offerings for Utu and the
Anunnaki, so that the deceased would receive special favors in the
underworld. During the Third Dynasty of Ur, it was believed that
a person's treatment in the afterlife depended on how he or she
was buried; those that had been given sumptuous burials would be
treated well, but those who had been given poor burials would fare
poorly, and were believed to haunt the living.
The
entrance to Kur was believed to be located in the Zagros mountains
in the far east. It had seven gates, through which a soul needed
to pass. The god Neti was the gatekeeper. Ereshkigal's sukkal, or
messenger, was the god Namtar. Galla were a class of demons that
were believed to reside in the underworld; their primary purpose
appears to have been to drag unfortunate mortals back to Kur. They
are frequently referenced in magical texts, and some texts describe
them as being seven in number. Several extant poems describe the
galla dragging the god Dumuzid into the underworld. The later Mesopotamians
knew this underworld by its East Semitic name: Irkalla. During the
Akkadian Period, Ereshkigal's role as the ruler of the underworld
was assigned to Nergal, the god of death. The Akkadians attempted
to harmonize this dual rulership of the underworld by making Nergal
Ereshkigal's husband.
Pantheon
:
Development :
The
dragon Mušhuššu on a vase of Gudea, circa 2100 BCE
It is generally agreed that Sumerian civilization began at some
point between c. 4500 and 4000 BC, but the earliest historical records
only date to around 2900 BC. The Sumerians originally practiced
a polytheistic religion, with anthropomorphic deities representing
cosmic and terrestrial forces in their world. The earliest Sumerian
literature of the third millennium BC identifies four primary deities:
An, Enlil, Ninhursag, and Enki. These early deities were believed
to occasionally behave mischievously towards each other, but were
generally viewed as being involved in co-operative creative ordering.
During
the middle of the third millennium BC, Sumerian society became more
urbanized. As a result of this, Sumerian deities began to lose their
original associations with nature and became the patrons of various
cities. Each Sumerian city-state had its own specific patron deity,
who was believed to protect the city and defend its interests. 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 of cuneiform tablets.
During
the late 2000s BC, the Sumerians were conquered by the Akkadians.
The Akkadians syncretized their own gods with the Sumerian ones,
causing Sumerian religion to take on a Semitic coloration. Male
deities became dominant and the gods completely lost their original
associations with natural phenomena. People began to view the gods
as living in a feudal society with class structure. Powerful deities
such as Enki and Inanna became seen as receiving their power from
the chief god Enlil.
Major
deities :
Akkadian
cylinder seal from sometime around 2300 BC or thereabouts depicting
the deities Inanna, Utu, Enki, and Isimud
The majority of Sumerian deities belonged to a classification called
the Anunna (“[offspring] of An”), whereas seven deities,
including Enlil and Inanna, belonged to a group of “underworld
judges" known as the Anunnaki (“[offspring] of An”
+ Ki). During the Third Dynasty of Ur, the Sumerian pantheon was
said to include sixty times sixty (3600) deities.
Enlil
was the god of air, wind, and storm. He was also the chief god of
the Sumerian pantheon and the patron deity of the city of Nippur.
His primary consort was Ninlil, the goddess of the south wind, who
was one of the matron deities of Nippur and was believed to reside
in the same temple as Enlil. 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 of Girsu and one of
the patron deities of Lagash.
Enki
was god of freshwater, male fertility, and knowledge. His most important
cult center was the E-abzu temple in the city of Eridu. He was the
patron and creator of humanity and the sponsor of human culture.
His primary consort was Ninhursag, the Sumerian goddess of the earth.
Ninhursag was worshipped in the cities of Kesh and Adab.
Ancient Akkadian cylinder seal depicting Inanna resting her foot
on the back of a lion while Ninshubur stands in front of her paying
obeisance, c. 2334 - 2154 BC
Inanna was the Sumerian goddess of love, sexuality, prostitution,
and war. She was the divine personification of the planet Venus,
the morning and evening star. Her main cult center was the Eanna
temple in Uruk, which had been originally dedicated to An. Deified
kings may have re-enacted the marriage of Inanna and Dumuzid with
priestesses. Accounts of her parentage vary; in most myths, she
is usually presented as the daughter of Nanna and Ningal, :ix-xi,
xvi but, in other stories, she is the daughter of Enki or An along
with an unknown mother. The Sumerians had more myths about her than
any other deity.:xiii, xv Many of the myths involving her revolve
around her attempts to usurp control of the other deities' domains.
Utu
was god of the sun, whose primary center of worship was the E-babbar
temple in Sippar. Utu was principally regarded as a dispenser of
justice; he was believed to protect the righteous and punish the
wicked. Nanna was god of the moon and of wisdom. He was the father
of Utu and one of the patron deities of Ur. He may have also been
the father of Inanna and Ereshkigal. Ningal was the wife of Nanna,
as well as the mother of Utu, Inanna, and Ereshkigal.
Ereshkigal
was the goddess of the Sumerian Underworld, which was known as Kur.
She was Inanna's older sister. In later myth, her husband was the
god Nergal. The gatekeeper of the underworld was the god Neti.
Nammu
was the primeval sea (Engur), who gave birth to An (heaven) and
Ki (earth) and the first deities; she eventually became known as
the goddess Tiamat. An was the ancient Sumerian god of the heavens.
He was the ancestor of all the other major deities and the original
patron deity of Uruk.
Legacy
:
Akkadians :
Assyrian
stone relief from the temple of Ninurta at Kalhu, showing the god
with his thunderbolts pursuing Anzû, who has stolen the Tablet
of Destinies from Enlil's sanctuary (Austen Henry Layard Monuments
of Nineveh, 2nd Series, 1853)
The Sumerians had an ongoing linguistic and cultural exchange with
the Semitic Akkadian peoples in northern Mesopotamia for generations
prior to the usurpation of their territories by Sargon of Akkad
in 2340 BC. Sumerian mythology and religious practices were rapidly
integrated into Akkadian culture, presumably blending with the original
Akkadian belief systems that have been mostly lost to history. Sumerian
deities developed Akkadian counterparts. Some remained virtually
the same until later Babylonian and Assyrian rule. The Sumerian
god An, for example, developed the Akkadian counterpart Anu; the
Sumerian god Enki became Ea. The gods Ninurta and Enlil kept their
original Sumerian names.[citation needed]
Babylonians
:
The Amorite Babylonians gained dominance over southern Mesopotamia
by the mid-17th century BC. During the Old 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, either in the form of
transcribed Sumerian texts (most notably the Babylonian version
of the Epic of Gilgamesh) or in the form of Sumerian and Akkadian
influences within Babylonian mythological literature (most notably
the Enûma 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 counterpart Ishtar
during the Old Babylonian Period.
Hurrians
:
The Hurrians 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 goddess
Ninlil, whose mythos had been drastically expanded by the Babylonians.[citation
needed]
Parallels
:
Some stories recorded in the older parts of the Hebrew Bible bear
strong similarities to the stories in Sumerian mythology. For example,
the biblical account of Noah and the Great Flood bears a striking
resemblance to the Sumerian deluge myth, recorded in a Sumerian
tablet discovered at Nippur. The Judaic underworld Sheol is very
similar in description with the Sumerian Kur, ruled by the goddess
Ereshkigal, as well as the Babylonian underworld Irkalla. Sumerian
scholar Samuel Noah Kramer has also noted similarities between many
Sumerian and Akkadian "proverbs" and the later Hebrew
proverbs, many of which are featured in the Book of Proverbs.
Genealogy
of the Sumerian deities :
Source
:
https://en.wikipedia.org/
wiki/Sumerian_religion