Sumerian religion

Before the beginning of kingship in Sumer, the city-states were theocracies, ruled by priests and other 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 such as gods. 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 AnKi or Enki, the son of the An and Ki. Heaven was reserved exclusively for deities. Meanwhile, after death, 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, AnKi/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 Empire, 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 texts often report that the gods possess and perform 'Me'. Recent studies by Annette Zgoll have shown that these 'Me' are rituals whose acquisition and proper performance were central to Mesopotamian culture. 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 parallels between the stories of the ancient Sumerians and those recorded later in the early parts of the Hebrew Bible. ==Worship==

Written cuneiform : "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 . 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") 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 Ur III period. Some ancient Sumerians believed that salt and other minerals were alive, and could even think independent thoughts. Creation story The main source of information about Sumerian creation mythology is the prologue to the epic poem Gilgamesh, Enkidu, and the Netherworld, and a place where holy stars resided. Each dome was made of a different kind of precious stone. The middle dome of heaven was made of saggilmut stone and was the abode of the Igigi. 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 impression showing the god Dumuzid being tortured in the Underworld by galla demons 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 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. During the middle of the third millennium BC, Sumerian society became more urbanized. During the late 2000s BC, the Sumerians were conquered by the Akkadians. 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 patron 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. "Sumerian cities each had their own gods but acknowledged the supremacy of...Enlil." Enki was god of freshwater, male fertility, and knowledge. Inanna was the Sumerian goddess of love, sexuality, prostitution, and war. Deified kings may have re-enacted the marriage of Inanna and Dumuzid with priestesses. 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 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. In later myth, her husband was the god Nergal. 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. Most major gods had a so-called sukkal, a minor deity serving as their vizier, messenger or doorkeeper. ==Legacy==

Akkadians n stone relief from Ninurta's temple at Kalhu: Ninurta chasing Anzû, who stole the Tablet of Destinies from Enlil's sanctuary 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, Parallels Some stories recorded in the older parts of the Hebrew Bible bear strong similarities to the stories in Sumerian mythology. For example, the Genesis flood narrative 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 Sumerian deities==