180985-Sample.Pdf

Sample file Pantheons II Nergal, like the Kemetic Setesh, was the god of the Sumero-Akkadian violence of nature: scorching summer heat, the death of the grain fields, and eventually the underworld itself. Marduk, This is the Sumero-Akkadian Pantheon. originally the god of the chief city of the Sumero-Akkadians, In the ancient days when lonely campfires dotted the hills eventually came to supplant Anu as the chief of the gods. and ancient masters first stretched their art across the walls The gods of the Sumero-Akkadian pantheon are myriad, of their caves, the divine persona of the earth was masculine, possibly more numerous than Kemetic deities. Most Sumero- the divinity of the sky was feminine. This is echoed in the Akkadian deities are associated with at least one of the Kemetic people pantheon, so long-preserved by its isolation countless mud-brick settlements and cities that dotted the in the fertile river valley where those gods dwell. In the ancient landscape, creating a collegiate of deities often with Sumero-Akkadian pantheon, however, a vital shift had overlapping roles and responsibilities. In addition to that, the already taken place. The male deity had ascended to the sky constant warfare and turmoil of the region led to a near as Anu, the first sky-father, while the female deity came to the constant reassociation and reappropriation of temples, earth as Ninhursag, the first mother-earth. This was the ziggurats, and realms. beginning of the end of the age of the goddesses. Soon, god- Despite this chaos, a core set of deities make up the heart kings would come to dominate a new era of dynastic, hieratic of the Sumero-Akkadian pantheon. A full write-up of all city-states through ego, force, and fear. Sumero-Akkadian deities would be exhaustive, but the Echoes of older traditions live on in these new gods, following is a list of the principle deities and their respective however. Tammuz embodies an agrarian divinity present in Challenge Ratings; only the bolded deities are presented as the lifecycle of the wheat and barley. Inanna remains a strong creatures in this text: representative of the dual aspect of nature, both loving and cruel. Ereshkigal, queen of the underworld, was subjugated Anu (CR 35). God of the sky, father of the gods. and displaced by Nergal but remained his wife. Despite the Enki (CR 33). God of water and mischief. displacements, feminine deities still remained associated Enlil (CR 33). God of air; second king of the gods. with and held considerable influence over their porfolios. Inanna (CR 33). Goddess of love and cruelty. No deity nor sociopolitical conflict had as large and lasting Marduk (CR 31). God of cities and kingship. an effect on the Sumero-Akkadian people as the revelatory Nammu (CR 35). Goddess of the primeval sea. alignment of the natural order of the heavens and the Nergal (CR 32). God of plague and death. sexigesimal system of arithmetic. Time and space were in Ningal (CR 30). Goddess of reeds. accord with the divinity of these numbers, measurable and Ninhursag (CR 34). Goddess of the earth. understandable through a patient study of the movements of Ninlil (CR 32). Goddess of the open field. the stars. From atop their ziggurats, the Sumero-Akkadian Ninurta (CR 32). God of warfare and the hunt. priests bridged the divide between the earthly and heavenly Suen (CR 31). God of the moon. realms, creating a conduit for communication with the gods. Tammuz (CR 34). God of the agrarian cycle. So transfixed was the Sumero-Akkadian culture on the Uttu (CR 30). Goddess of weaving. power of the numbers that all of nature was brought to heel Utu (CR 31). God of the sun. under its influence. All of time was seen as static, the world unchanging. For their Kemetic cousins, this concept was The Clergy understood as the ma'at, but for the Sumero-Akkadians this As one of the earliest religions, the Sumero-Akkadian clergy was referred to as the me. Even the gods were seen as but hews very close to the ancient paleolithic agriculture cults. manifestations of the me, mere derivations of the singular Nonetheless, the Sumero-Akkadian people were quite unlike principle of the profound truth of numbers. their ancestors, who dwelt so long in the shelter of the caves. Unfortunately, the profundity of this concept could not save These people were the first city-builders, the first the people of the Sumero-Akkadian culture. In spite of astronomers, the first mathematicians. Their priests were the surviving war-torn conditions for thousands of years, first to focus the attention of their worship to the stars, genocides, pillages, diasporas, and plagues of all manner and seeking augury from the movements of the stars and the description, the great gods of the Sumero-Akkadian pantheon planets in the heavens of Anu. faded through a combination of time and the incursion of With the revelation of the link between the circles of space neighboring gods and people. and time, the awe inherent in the work of the clergy greatly increased. They alone could divine the me, which in Kemet The Gods was known as ma’at, and among the Indo-Aryans as dharma. Anu, the first sky-father, gave forth all the gods, though he did Thus the clergy held high station in society, alone empowered not retain the high seat of the pantheon forever. Ninhursag to read the secret fate of the cosmos and maintain harmony was the first mother-earth, as well as the primeval mother of between heaven and earth. humanity. Inanna embodied the dualistic love-war essense of natureSample. file

PANTHEONS II: SUMERO-AKKADIAN 2