Mesopotamia Essay - Grade: A- PDF

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Erick Splick His 101 Prof. Lopez Jantzen

Ancient Mesopotamian Rulers & Gods

Gods are divine figures with supreme force of power and wisdom. In the Ancient Mesopotamia the gods were represented as human stereotypes; this representation was projected through the rulers who controlled the people. It was a regular practice to worship the gods: people commanded by the rulers used to make sacrifices like praying for long hours, fasting for days and giving offerings to fulfill the deities’ ambition. The relationship between the rulers and the gods was powerful because the deities were in control of the natural forces of the wind, water, light, and heat ( Early Mesopotamia, p.8). These natural events gave the rulers power over the people to satisfy the god’s needs in a vicious circle of power and ego. Therefore, gods’ personalities, instincts, needs, feelings, weaknesses, morality and powers were as diverse as the rulers’ (Wallenfels, p.294). The first ruler of the land was the King Hammurabi of Babylon, who assembled “The Law Code,” which consists of almost three hundred laws and punishments. These laws were one of the most influential acts made by a ruler. They transmitted the wishes and desires of the gods in how to rule humankind. (Hammurabi, p.28-36). Before these laws, there was no a guideline of how a civilization should be ruled. Therefore, after the creation of these laws and putting them in practice it was easy for the rulers to have absolute power over subjects. These punishments, written by the wise king, instilled fear and obedience in the people in the Ancient world.

There were several gods of different levels of importance in the Ancient Mesopotamia. Marduk was the supreme god who named Hammurabi as the king to rule the people and bring help to the country. With the divine power given to the wise king, he established the laws and justices in the language of the land and promoted the welfare of the people at that time (Hammurabi, p.5). Mesopotamia being the first civilization, there was plenty of work to be done by the wise king, since there was no system that could provide support and safety to the people of the land. That’s why the Hammurabi created the laws to organize the way mankind used to act and establish a solid and lawful government. At the same time, these laws gave the king power and control of the land. The relationship between gods, rulers and people can of course be a source of unfairness and inequality. Even the physical appearance of gods can be made to reinforce that inequality. In ancient Mesopotamia, for example, the gods were described as having a sort of natural light that glowed on their whole bodies with a terrifying luster. Their beings were filled with power and strength that evoked terror in mankind (Wallenfels, p. 294). Sometimes the gods were depicted as real animals such as a lion, or a lioness, imaginary animals, such as a dragon, or as natural phenomena such as storm, lightning, thunder and mountain (Alster, p. 295). For mankind, the gods were figures of mercy and kindness on the one hand, but on the other hand they used to demand fear and obedience from the people. Additionally, the relationship between the rulers and gods was more direct than the relationship between the people and the gods, since the rulers were considered intermediaries. The rulers were therefore free to associate these gods with the forces of nature, making it easier easy for

the rulers to control the people. By illustrating gods through terrifying animals and inexplicably natural events, the rulers made the people respect the mandates of the gods. The rulers were normally performing rituals and making sacrifices to the gods. Mesopotamian rulers believed that the gods possessed a supernatural and divine plan for mankind, which was incomprehensible to human being minds (Ebeling, p.294). Contrary to monotheistic religion like Christianity, which adores one God and shows the God’s plan to the people; the gods of the Mesopotamian people never reveal their plans to man. It was virtually impossible for the people in the ancient world to know what their destiny was or how they were to live a better life. Deities did not have a written book for the people to follow, so their desires and revelation were a mystery, to be interpreted by the rulers. Of course, admiration was a must for the people towards the gods. A Babylonian poet expressed these thoughts in a composition called: “The Babylonian Theodicy:”

“The plans of the gods are as far from us as the center of heaven: To understand them properly is impossible, No one can understand them.” (Lambert, p.296)

Mesopotamian writings regarded the sun as fixed and the earth as moving. On the other hand, other cultures, like the Greeks, thought differently: to them, the sun moved and the earth was fixed (Ibid. p.219). This Babylonian theory about the sun being fixed was based on their belief in Shamash, the sun god. As humans, we are moving around the powerful god. In this way, the earth’s moves benefit from the light provide by the god.

In ancient Mesopotamia the rulers identified gods with the planets (Ibid. p.219). For example, Shamash was named god of sun, in charge of light, and Nanna was named god of moon, in charge of clarity during darkness. One of the most powerful relationships of mankind with the gods was the ritual of praise of Marduk. This ritual illustrates mankind’s inability to decipher the will of the gods. According to the opening lines of Enūma Eliš tablets V 1-2, Marduk as the creator of heavens explains features of the constellation as representations of a number of deities (Ibid, p.160). The wise god Marduk mainly organized the universe, setting up the stars, constellations, planets and the sun as great gods, making them visible to the people and instilling to belief in these celestial figures. According to Mesopotamian theology, for mankind to understand better the power of the gods, they should not question the actions of the divine forces. Gods managed the world, heavens and skies, and also predetermined the historical events, most of the time based on their moods or people’s past transgressions (Bottéro, p.297). For example, the defeat in war was defined as divine retribution from the gods for kings’ crimes. The Cursing of Agade, the Sumerian document from the Ur III period of the Mesopotamia circa 20471750 BCE, describes one such crime, when the king Naram-Sin of the city of Agade (Bottéro, p.298), dishonored the holy shrine of the god Enlil. The deity responded by destroying cities, ravaging the land and decimating the fields. This event shows the dark side of the gods, when rulers like king Naram-Sin were disobedient to the deities’ commands. When it comes to religion, Mesopotamia was a polytheistic civilization, which recognized the existence of several gods. By the end of the third millennium B.C.E, the

Sumerians rulers claimed there were 3,600 deities (Wallenfels, p. 298). It was easy for the rulers to claim and show to the people the existence of all of these gods because of the natural events of the earth like the storms as the power of the sky and earthquakes as the power of the land. The deities who ruled with their cosmological abilities were considered the greatest of the gods. It is important to mention that by the second quarter of the third millennium B.C.E, each city in ancient Mesopotamia was thought to have its own patron deity who could place and depose its rulers (Cooper, p.299). Some examples are: like the city of Ur was the home of the moon god Nanna, the city of Eridu was home of the sun god Utu, and many other cities (Cooper, p.299). In Ancient Mesopotamia, we can observe the development of culture and a huge variety of rituals, traditions and religious ceremonies, these manifestations became an important part of people in the ancient world. Moreover, the belief in the power of the deities was the base for a new age for mankind, as rulers started to create laws and justice for theor subjects with the help of the wise god Marduk, (Hammurabi, p.14). One of the most concrete examples was the creation of the three hundred laws by the king Hammurabi of Babylon. Lastly, the affiliation of the gods with planets, animals and natural elements (Foster, p.299) and the function of the rulers as the intermediaries between gods and common people describe the distribution of political power in Ancient Mesopotamia....