Sumerian Religion: Did you mean...?

Ancient Persian religion developed in the region of Greater Iran by the 3rd millennium BCE and corresponds to what is known today as ancient Persian mythology. This belief system informed the Persian Achaemenid Empire, even after the acceptance...

The ancient Greeks believed the gods were an ever-present influence on humanity, for both good and bad. The belief that these gods might be influenced in turn is evidenced in the widespread building of temples dedicated to them as well as...

The polytheistic religion of ancient Mesopotamia was instrumental in shaping its government and held great significance in the lives of its people. Mesopotamian religion revolved around the belief that humans were created to work alongside...

Eridu (present-day Abu Shahrein, Iraq) was considered the first city in the world by the ancient Sumerians and is among the most ancient of the ruins from Mesopotamia. Founded circa 5400 BCE, Eridu was thought to have been created by the...

Mesopotamian religion was informed by the belief that humans were co-workers with the gods in maintaining the order created at the beginning of time and so religious expression was integral to daily life in ancient Mesopotamia in how they...

The Gutians were a West Asiatic people who are thought to have lived around the Zagros Mountains in a region referred to as Gutium. They had no written language and all that is known of them comes from their enemies, including the Akkadians...

Elam was a region in the Near East corresponding to the modern-day provinces of Ilam and Khuzestan in southern Iran (though it also included part of modern-day southern Iraq) whose civilization spanned thousands of years from circa 3200 to...

Maya religion and culture is among the most advanced and sophisticated of the Pre-Colombian Americas as evidenced by the ruins of their great cities and what remains of their writings after most were burned by the Spanish in 1562. The Maya...

Government and religion in ancient Egypt were fully integrated beginning with the First Dynasty of Egypt (c. 3150 to c. 2890 BCE). The king was understood as a representative of a god, the specific deity sometimes changing with different...

This hymn to the goddess Ishtar is written in Sumerian; after every line in Sumerian, the text is translated in Akkadian. Such translations have been invaluable to modern scholars. They reflect how the Sumerian language had become difficult...