Ancient Mesopotamia And Ancient Civilizations

Similar to Egyptians, Mesopotamians were polytheists and their gods created the natural phenomena. However, the temple in each city-state mainly worshipped a local god and was the central power in the city. The Mesopotamians ascribed human’s appearance and characteristics to represent their deities. The presence of the cult image in the temple indicated the presence of the deity in the city. Each cult image of the local god was placed in the city’s largest and most sophisticated sanctuary. For instance, the cult image of Marduk–Babylon’s city deity–resided in the Esagila temple. Mesopotamians believed the shrine of the Esagila temple was the heart of the universe. According to the inscriptions in the Steinplatten, the cult statue, the walls and the ceilings of the sanctuary were plated in gold. In practice of the daily ritual, the servants or priests of the temple cleansed and dressed the cult statue in new clothes. Since the priests directly served the patron city god, they were respected by common people. Additionally, the inscriptions from king Neriglissar’s cylinder revealed that he was submissive to the gods and thus the king’s power was shared to the priests and the local government. Local government governed the city and controlled the economy on behalf of the city’s god. Consequently, the cult’s control over the economy and society was limited inside the city-state.

When you look back in history to the development and the contributions of both the Mesopotamian and Egyptian civilizations, you see that there was a lot accomplished, as well as a lot created. The earliest forms of writing developed in Mesopotamia, while Egypt was referred to the “Gift of the Nile” by traveler Herodotus (McKay,42). Development of cities was another major marker, especially in the “old world”, of how people eventually determined civilizations and what they represented. According to McKay, civilizations were determined by people who considered themselves more “civilized”, urban people mostly. Made up of cities, written rules of law, and social justice codes, Mesopotamia and Egypt would develop into two of the largest civilizations in history.

In both Greek and Roman civilizations, mythology played an important part in their empire’s success. Both of these civilizations were polytheistic religions. Likewise, they had major and minor gods and goddesses as part of their religion as well. However, since the Roman Empire conquered many cultures including the Greeks, their gods blended with many similarities with the gods that the Ancient Greeks worshipped.

The Ancient Egyptians, Mesopotamia, and Greeks were some of the oldest complex societies, although similar in many aspects. Mesopotamia is located in the Fertile Crescent, land in and between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers usually known as modern day Iraq and Eastern Syria.(24) In Egypt, the Nile River creates a fertile valley which is rich in nutrients and essential to their survival. The Nile flows from Burundi, slightly south of the equator eventually traveling through Egypt and into the Mediterranean. Ancient Greece is situated very closely to Egypt so trading was easy between them. How are these three civilizations comparable and different?

Mesopotamia and Egypt were very different because of their geography and world view. Mesopotamia was often flooded because of their bad geography, but the land around the Nile river was built well so the Egyptians didn 't have to worry about the river flooding as often. The land in Mesopotamia was often attacked and invaded. Ultimately the geography of Egypt was significantly better than Mesopotamia because of the benefits of the nile river created a positive world view, a strong government and a universal religion.

Hammurabi’s Code of Laws, The Great Hymn to the Aten, and The Epic of Gilgamesh: Tablet XI depicted various gods as omnipotent, omniscience, and omnibenevolent. In polytheism, followers upheld that the gods ruled on good and evil and so, people lived to obey their gods. Leaders of ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia depended on the gods’ guidance and order because they believed they respected that their capabilities exceeded humans. Therefore, ancient civilizations relied on god and goddesses to dictate their actions and beliefs.

Think for a second about a world without civilization, without laws. I bet you don't know who developed civilization! The Mesopotamians did, they also created lots of amazing inventions! Some of these civilizations also developed in China and Egypt. Ancient Mesopotamia. Two contributions from the Mesopotamian Civilization were the invitation of the cuneiform and Hammurabi’s Code.

In ancient times, gods were a holy image in people’s mind. Each god had its own role in the universe. Such as the role of creation, the controller of the nature, and the role of the destiny control. The gods had extreme powers, and controlled everything in the world. Worshiped gods became a daily routine for ancient people. In the minds of people in ancient times, worshiped their gods were to prevent these gods became furious, and punished them with their extreme power. Even though the gods were extremely powerful, in many epic texts we could see they also had emotions and characteristics that were just like humans. However, there were still some major differences between the gods and humans.

The world of the ancient Near East believed in a creator deity as member within a plethora of deities; that is, there was no supreme being. Within this plethora, each deity held a specific responsibility, representing such matters as order, justice, love, and truth, to name but a few. Among ANE inhabitants, according to Philip J. Nel, “a normative principle of justice was maintained as part and parcel of the created universe. The human life-world and the order of nature were seen as inextricable entwined.” It is not surprising, therefore, how ancient civilizations understood justice to be a concomitant attribute of a deity within a pantheon of deities; a pantheon where members had origins and, in most instances, were familial in nature. According to their understanding of creation, ancient civilizations held views on social and economic justice as a means that would “facilitate the service of the community to the divine world.” Nel observes that, “The principle of justice was . . . not so much regarded as a system of moral order, but rather the assumption of an existing/created autonomous design/order which should be upheld and adhered to in all sectors of society.” The Sumerians, and the Egyptians, serve as examples.

Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia present a valuable area of historical research. They are of great importance mostly because of their ethnic kinship (Watson, 2017). In such case, comparison and contrast essay is very promising as causal relationships can be formed based on a mutual starting point. This comparison-contrast essay focuses on differences and similarities in these societies’ economic, political and cultural life in order to make further implications regarding the circumstances the peoples of ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia faced.

This tells us that the relationship between Mesopotamians and the gods was that the Mesopotamians

Just as each culture built unique places of worship as was their style of worship unique. In the Mesopotamian religion there were well over 3000 gods and goddesses. Each city had its own patron god who was in charge of that city. It was also believed that each person had his own lesser god who would appeal with the greater gods on his own account. At the upper part of the Mesopotamian pantheon sits An, the Lord of heaven and Enlil, Lord of the earth. These two gods had a sour attitude towards the human beings. It was Enki, god of sweet waters, magic and wisdom, that was humanity's friend. The Mesopotamians also had an interesting view on doing evil and evil acts. They never blamed themselves; instead it was all put on a demon taking over the person's body. So instead of punishing the individuals for their crimes, the Mesopotamians would try to exorcise them. People wore amulets or charms to try to keep the evil demons away. If they performed a ritual fault or accident, such as touching a cursed person, it could invoke the wrath of the gods and that was when a person's personal god would have to defend you before the greater gods (Garber, 204).

Throughout history, humans have concocted ideas of divine beings and forces that control what happens in the world. In every culture, the being or force exists in a different form, but many are in the forms of gods or goddesses. In ancient cultures, polytheism was very prevalent, and the interactions between these gods and goddesses, and the humans they guided were easily observed, especially in the literature of the time. Ancient Greece was one of those cultures. In other cultures, some religions had one God that governed the earth, much like in Hellenistic Rome and Palestine.

Historian Jean Bottero, who is one of the most knowledgeable individuals on ancient Mesopotamian religion, believes that “their gods were not viewed mystically, who had to be obeyed and feared as opposed to loved and adored.” The city-states of Mesopotamia also had patron gods or goddesses much like the Poleis of the ancient Greek city-states. Each city would adopt a particular god or goddess who they would pray to and offer sacrifices in order to please them. They looked to all the gods with respect as their rulers but their patron god or goddess was of the utmost importance to please. They believed that all fortune, good or bad, stemmed from the deity that watched over their particular city.

They created Greek gods and goddesses, and made sacrifices to the gods before