Question

A short essay on religion of mesopotomia

Answer 1

Answer:

BRITANNICA

HOMEPHILOSOPHY & RELIGIONANCIENT RELIGIONS & MYTHOLOGY

Mesopotamian religion

WRITTEN BY

Thorkild Jacobsen

Professor of Assyriology, Harvard University, 1962–74. Author of The Sumerian Kinglist; "Mesopotamia" in The Intellectual History of Ancient Man; and others.

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ARTICLE CONTENTS

Mesopotamian religion, beliefs and practices of the Sumerians and Akkadians, and their successors, the Babylonians and Assyrians, who inhabited ancient Mesopotamia (now in Iraq) in the millennia before the Christian era. These religious beliefs and practices form a single stream of tradition. Sumerian in origin, Mesopotamian religion was added to and subtly modified by the Akkadians (Semites who emigrated into Mesopotamia from the west at the end of the 4th millennium BCE), whose own beliefs were in large measure assimilated to, and integrated with, those of their new environment. For historical background, see Mesopotamia, history of.

Sites associated with ancient Mesopotamian history.

Answer 2

Religion was central to Mesopotamians as they believed the divine affected every aspect of human life. Mesopotamians were polytheistic; they worshipped several major gods and thousands of minor gods. Each Mesopotamian city, whether Sumerian, Akkadian, Babylonian or Assyrian, had its own patron god or goddess.

The three most important deities in the Mesopotamian pantheon during all periods were the gods An, Enlil, and Enki. An was identified with all the stars of the equatorial sky, Enlil with those of the northern sky, and Enki with those of the southern sky.