Sumerian and Assyro-Babylonian mythology FAQ
- Jul 9, 2014
- 3 min read
Sumer may very well be the first civilization in the world (although long term settlements at Jericho and Çatal Hüyük predate Sumer and examples of writing from Egypt and the Harappa, Indus valley sites predate those from Sumer). Sumerian cuneiform, the earliest written language, was borrowed by the Babylonians, who also took many of their religious beliefs. In fact, traces and parallels of Sumerian myth can be found in Genesis.
From its beginnings as a collection of farming villages around 5000 BCE, through its conquest by Sargon of Agade around 2370 BCE and its final collapse under the Amorites around 2000 BCE, the Sumerians developed a religion and a society which influenced both their neighbors and their conquerors.
The Sumerians thought that a great domed roof contained the sky, the stars, the moon, and the sun which lighted the cities beneath it; they also believed that below the earth swirled the dim netherworld, a fearsome abode of demons and the kingdom of the dead. The gods of Sumer, much like mortal men, suffered the vicissitudes of fate and many legends tell of their often ineffective exploits.
Enlil and Enki are credited with creating the cattle, sheep, plants, the yoke and the plow to provide sustenance for themselves and less important deities, but these minor gods lacked the resolution to make use of this bounty so man was fashioned from clay and given breath so he might tend the sheep and cultivate the fields for the gods.
The Assyro-Babylonian Mythology
First, some definitions: Mesopotamia, in general, refers to the area of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Assyria, was the northern portion of Mesopotamia, who’s capital was Ashur (until 883 BCE, when it was moved to Calah/Nimrud) and whose reach included the major city of Nineveh (Ninua). Sumer refers to the southern delta region, whose primary cities included Ur, Uruk, and Eridu. Akkad was a region north of Sumer which included the area around modern Baghdad as well as the ancient sites of Babylon, Kish, and Nippur.
The political organization of the region was basically a collection of city-states. Sargon of Agade (2371-16 BCE) united the regions of Sumer and Akkad. His descendants eventually lost control of the empire due to pressures from the Hurrians, the Hittites, and other invaders, not to mention internal pressures. In the south Sumer again gained ascendancy, dominated by the city-state Ur. Sumer then collapsed under the Amorites around 2000 BCE. They established many sub- kingdoms including Assyria and Babylon.
Assyria attained a brief period of dominance under Shamshi-Adad (1813-1781 BCE) but was soon superseded by Babylon under Hammurapi (Hammurabi) (1792-50 BCE) who established what once were thought to be the first written law codes (more recent discoveries include law codes from a couple centuries prior to Hammurapi). The first Babylonian dynasty had begun in 1894 BCE, coinciding with the Old Babyonian period of literature. It collapsed in 1595 BCE when the Hittites sacked its eponymous capital.
Assyria had been taken over by the Mitanni (a Hurrian speaking kingdom) but established its independence in the mid 14th century BCE. Under Tukulti-Ninurta I Assyria dominated the entire fertile crescent in the late 13th century. By the time of Tiglath-Pileser I, about a century later it had directed more of its attention westwards towards the Levant in the West and lost control of Babylon and the south. Slowly Assyria began to expand again, reaching its apex between 750 and 650 BCE under the rulers Tiglath-Pileser III, Sargon II, Sennacherib, and Ashuribanipal (668-627 BCE). The empire collapsed from invaders with Nineveh falling to Nabopalasar of Babylon in 612 BCE and the empire dying in 605 BCE.
Meanwhile, Babylon had been reasserting itself. Nabopalasar had begun the Chaldean dynasty during his rule begining in 625 BCE. This period is also known as the Neo-Babylonian period although that term also describes the language of that era. Under Nabopalasar’s son Nebuchadnezzar II, Babylon expanded westward, taking Jerusalem in 586 BCE. Babylon fell in the mid-540’s to Cyrus the Persian whose empire lasted until the late 300’s BCE when Alexander of Macedon established his empire and renamed the area “Mesopotamia”.
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