Mesopotamian mythology

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Fertile Crescent myth series
Image:Palmsymbol.png
Mesopotamian
Levantine
Arabian
Yezidic
Mesopotamia
Gods Enlil Ishtar Tiamat and Tablets of Destiny Annunaki Marduk and Babylon Heroes Utnapishtim Tammuz Gilgamesh and Enkidu Monsters Zu Humbaba Kingu Resheph Namtar Related Me, divine decrees Ma, primeval land Irkalla, the underworld Mesopotamian religion The Fertile Crescent

Mesopotamian mythology is the collective name given to Sumerian, Akkadian, and Assyrian, and Babylonian mythologies from the land between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in modern Iraq.

The Sumerians practiced a polytheistic religion, with anthropomorphic gods or goddesses representing forces or presences in the world, much as in the later Greek mythology. The gods originally created humans as servants for themselves, but freed the humans when they became too much to handle.

Many stories in Sumerian religion appear homologous to stories in other middle-eastern religions. For example, the Biblical account of the creation of man as well as Noah's flood narrative resemble earlier Sumerian tales very closely though the Sumerian myths were written many years earlier then the Bible. Gods and goddesses from Sumer have distinctly similar representations in the religions of the Akkadians, Caananites, and others. A number of related stories and deities have Greek parallels as well; for example, Inanna's descent into the underworld strikingly recalls (and predates) the story of Persephone.

1 What deities did they worship?
2 Deities
- 2.1 The primary deities for each phase of Mesopotamian religion
- 2.2 The three Sky deities
3 Divine relationships
4 Sources
5 See also
6 External links

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What deities did they worship?

A. The Four Primary Deities
B. The Seven who decreed fate
C. The Annuna and others
D. The Demigods, mortal Heroes and Monsters

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Deities

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The primary deities for each phase of Mesopotamian religion

An, The god of Heaven (Pan-Mesopotamian)
Enlil, The god of the air and storms (Pan-Mesopotamian)
Enki, The god of water and earth (Pan-Mesopotamian)
Ki, The goddess of the earth (Assyrian)
Ashur, Main God of Assyria (sky god) (Assyrian)
Ninlil, goddess of creation (Sumerian)
Inanna, The goddess of love and war (Sumerian)
Marduk, Main god of Babylon (Babylonian)

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The three Sky deities

Nanna, The God of the moon
Shamash (aka Utu), The Sun God
Ishtar (aka Inanna), The Queen of the Heavens and goddess of love and war

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Divine relationships

The universe first appeared when Nammu, a presumably formless abyss, curled in upon herself, and in an act of self-procreation gave birth to An and Ki.

The union of An and Ki produced Enlil, who eventually became leader of the pantheon. After the banishment of Enlil from Dilmun (the home of the gods) for raping Ninlil, Ninlil had a child, Sin (god of the moon), also known as Nanna. Sin and Ningal gave birth to Inanna and to Shamash. During Enlil's banishment, he fathered three underworld deities with Ninlil, most notably Nergal.

Nammu also gave birth to Enki. Enki also controlled the Me until Inanna took them away, holy decrees that governed such basic things as physics and complex things such as social order and law.

This accounts for the origin of most of the world as we know it according to the a summary of most of the myths.

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