Religion in Mesopotamia - History

History

The people of Mesopotamia originally consisted of two peoples, the Semitic Akkadians (later to be known as Assyrians and Babylonians) and the Sumerians. These peoples were not originally one united nation, but members of various different city-states. In the fourth millennium BCE, when the first evidence for what is recognisably Mesopotamian religion can be seen with the invention in Mesopotamia of writing circa 3500 BCE, the Sumerians appeared, although it is not known if they migrated into the area in prehistoric times or whether they were some of the original inhabitants. They settled in southern Mesopotamia, which became known as Sumer, and had a huge influence over the Semitic Akkadian peoples and their culture. The Sumerians were incredibly advanced: as well as inventing writing, they also invented early forms of mathematics, early wheeled vehicles, astronomy, astrology and the calendar and they created the first city states/nations such as Uruk, Ur, Lagash, Isin, Umma, Eridu, Nippur and Larsa. Akkadian Semitic names first appear in king lists of these states circa 2800 BCE. Sumerians (who spoke a language isolate) remained largely dominant in this synthesised Sumero-Akkadian culture however, until the rise of the Akkadian Empire under Sargon the Great in 2334 BCE which united all of Mesopotamia under one ruler.

Gradually there was increasing syncreticism between the Sumerian and Akkadian cultures and deities, with the Akkadians typically preferring to worship fewer deities but elevating them to greater positions of power. In circa 2300 BCE the Akkadian king Sargon the Great conquered all of Mesopotamia, uniting the Akkadian and Sumerians in the world's first empire, though this Akkadian empire collapsed after two centuries. Following a brief Sumerian revival the empire broke up into two Akkadian states, Assyria in the north, and some time later Babylon in the south (although Babylon was founded by invading Amorites, and was rarely ruled by native dynasties throughout its history). Some time after this the Sumerians disappeared, becoming wholly absorbed into the Assyrio-Babylonian population. Assyrian kings are attested from the mid 23rd century BCE, and dominated northern Mesopotamia and parts of Asia Minor. Babylon was founded as an independent state in 1894 BCE. In around 1800 BCE, the Amorite king of Babylon, King Hammurabi, conquered much of Mesopotamia, but this Babylonian empire collapsed after his death due to attacks from mountain-dwelling people known as the Kassites from Asia Minor, who went on to rule Babylon for over 500 years. Assyria, having had a brief period of empire in the 19th and 18th centuries BCE, became a major power from the 14th Century BCE onwards (1385- 1074BCE), after throwing off the influence of the Hittites and Mitanni. The Neo-Assyrian Empire (911-605BCE) was probably the most dominant power on earth between the 10th Century BCE and the late 7th Century BCE, with an empire stretching from Cyprus in the west to central Iran in the east, and from the Caucasus mountains in the north to Nubia, Egypt and Arabia in the south, facilitating the spread of Mesopotamian culture and religion far and wide under emperors such as Ashurbanipal, Tukulti-Ninurta, Tiglath-Pileser, Shalmanesser IV, Sargon II, Sennacherib and Esarhaddon. The empire fell in 608 BCE with the death of Ashur-uballit II after a period of internal strife followed by an attack by a coalition of Babylonians, Medes, Scythians, Persians and Cimmerians led by Nabopolassar, the Chaldean ruler of Babylon and Cyaxares of Media/Persia. During the Neo Assyrian Empire Mesopotamian Aramaic became the lingua franca of the empire, and also Mesopotamia proper. The last written records in Akkadian were Astrological Texts dating from 78 AD discovered in Assyria.

Like many nations in Mesopotamian history, Assyria was originally, to a great extent, an oligarchy rather than a monarchy. Authority was considered to lie with "the City", and the polity had three main centres of power — an assembly of elders, a hereditary ruler, and an eponym. The ruler presided over the assembly and carried out its decisions. He was not referred to with the usual Akkadian term for "king", šarrum; that was instead reserved for the city's patron deity Assur, of whom the ruler was the high priest. The ruler himself was only designated as "the steward of Assur" (iššiak Assur), where the term for steward is a borrowing from Sumerian ensi(k). The third centre of power was the eponym (limmum), who gave the year his name, similarly to the archons and consuls of Classical Antiquity. He was annually elected by lot and was responsible for the economic administration of the city, which included the power to detain people and confiscate property. The institution of the eponym as well as the formula iššiak Assur lingered on as ceremonial vestiges of this early system throughout the history of the Assyrian monarchy.