Dictionary of the Gods

Gods, Demons and Symbols of Ancient Mesopotamia: An Illustrated Dictionary by Jeremy Black
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Several thousands of years ago the first civilization, Sumeria , was born in Mesopotamia ( the land between two rivers. They had system of gods and theology. They developed cities with irrigation and organized political leadership. Their culture was the basis for the later Babylonians, Assyrians and Chaldeans would later rule Mesopotamia after the Sumerians. Mesopotamian culture would have a profound impact of the neighboring cultures who would borrow extensively from Sumeria. Most obvious would be the gods. They were copied by other culture with sometime little or no modification. Other nations like the Elamites, Gudeans and Isis Larsin would come in and conquer parts of Mesopotamia but in the end they would become Sumerianized.

This book gives a dictionary entry for different aspects of Mesopotamian civilization. The book talks about the gods. Using Inana as an example. Inanna was a goddess if love initially. Later n as the Akkadians took over she became Ishtar, goddess of love and war. Mind you she was a protectress of prostitutes and she had them in her temple. Before she became the Inanna we love and know there were other goddesses of love like Isharra who were absorbed into her. Plus there were other Inannas for different town and cities. These different Inanna’s had different characteristics and performed different functions, eventually they god absorbed. Still wonder why we say all Goddesses are one Goddess.
Assur and Marduk are ones that got exchanged quite a bit. Marduk was the God who slew Tiamat and Kingu when they rebelled and threatened chaos. It was Marduk that slew them an created humanity and the world from them. Marduk was so popular that some worshipped him strictly to the point of becoming a monotheistic religion. When the Assyrians came to power they chose their god Assur to take his place. He would take on different characteristic of different gods. He would become the head honcho who took down Tiamat.
Exactly who were the inhabitants of Ancient Mesopotamia. First were the Sumerians and they did not have a mighty empire but rather they were divided by city states. Each state had its own patron deity. They were honored usually in a high temple called a Ziggurat. The top of the Ziggurat was the portal the god came through on. All the way down to the lower level is where people gathered to worship the god. The Sumerians appeared to just pop up in Mesopotamia and they spoke an agglutinative language. They wrote in Cuneiform. Next would come the Akkadians who were Semitic invader descended from Amorites. Hammurabi was Amorite. From the Akkadians would spring the Assyrians and the Babyonians..
The Babylonians had 2000 gods many with no names. If you read this book you will get a good in depth history of these gods. Some gods came from other pantheons and settled into the Mesopotamian way of doing things. More often their gods were borrowed by neighboring cultures. Such borrowing would include Ishtar. She was borrowed by the Canaanites and called Astarte. Ishtar then traveled to Greece where she became Aphrodite. The storm god Adad who is represent by cattle of Bison was present among the Hurrians and Canaanites. For those of you involved in paganism and magic you will not be surprised to know that the Sumerians started the magic circle. They also started Hieros Gamos or the mating of the Gods.

The book is short but crammed with lots of information. If you enjoy Mesopotamian history then this book is for you. Definitely red in conjunction with other books on the subject.


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