There were two types of doctors in ancient Mesopotamia: the Asu (a medical doctor who treated illness ‘scientifically’) and the Asipu (a healer who relied upon what modern people would call ‘magic’). Joshua J. Mark Doctors in ancient Mesopotamia
The great flood A flood myth or deluge myth is a narrative in which a great flood, usually sent by a deity or deities, destroys civilization, often in an act of divine retribution. Parallels are often drawn between the flood waters of these myths and the primaeval waters found in certain creation myths, as the […]
The Sun, the Moon, the planets, and the stars all rise in the east and set in the west. And that’s because Earth spins — toward the east. However, this is a generalization. Actually, the Sun only rises due east and sets due west on 2 days of the year — the spring and fall […]
Nineveh (URUNI.NU.A Ninua) was an ancient city of Upper Mesopotamia, located on the outskirts of Mosul in modern-day northern Iraq. It is located on the eastern bank of the Tigris River. Today it is a common name for the half of Mosul which lies on the eastern bank of the Tigris. Nineveh was one of […]
The Moon Nanna (Sumerian: ŠEŠ.KI, NANNA) was the Sumerian god of the moon. He became identified with the Semitic Sīn or Suen (Akkadian: Su’en, Sîn). The two chief seats of Nanna’s/Sīn’s worship were Ur in the south of Mesopotamia and Harran in the north. A moon god by the same name was also worshipped in […]
Tyr In Germanic mythology, Týr (Old Norse), Tíw (Old English), and Ziu (Old High German) is a god. Stemming from the Proto-Germanic deity *Tīwaz and ultimately from the Proto-Indo-European deity *Dyeus, little information about the god survives beyond Old Norse sources. Due to the etymology of the god’s name and the shadowy presence of the […]
The sky often has important religious significance. Many religions, both polytheistic and monotheistic, have deities associated with the sky. The daylit sky deities are typically distinct from the night-time sky (or “heaven of the stars”) deities. Stith Thompson’s Motif-Index of Folk-Literature reflects this by separating the category of “Sky-god” from that of “Star-god”. Daytime-gods and […]
Index of known Goddesses Glossary for Her Cycle of Transformations & related documents Origins of the ancient constellations: The Mesopotamian traditions The Celestial Pole in the Apocalypse Damgalnuna, Damkina, Davcina, Ninhursaga: Mistress of the Earth Sumerian Goddesses – Goddess-Guide.com
Akitu or Akitum (“the barley-cutting”, “barley-sowing”, “head of the year”) was a spring festival in ancient Mesopotamia. The name is from the Sumerian for “barley”, originally marking two festivals celebrating the beginning of each of the two half-years of the Sumerian calendar, marking the sowing of barley in autumn and the cutting of barley in […]
