The Sumerians, as you remember, had a lot of gods. Not as much as the Hindus, of course, but plenty. We have already found out the literary reason for this diversity, now let's talk about the practical benefits. As you remember, the god Ea, as a gesture of goodwill, gave people useful inventions and revealed the secrets of agriculture and animal husbandry to them. And so that there was order, as in a state farm, a separate god was responsible for each branch of the economy. The Sumerians had quite a lot of classes, so each had its own patron god, protecting his followers and giving them all kinds of nishtyaks, if they regularly prayed to him and presented gifts on time.
But no matter how cool all this is, most of these gods for us, descendants, appear to be very impersonal entities. Judge for yourself: will a simple farmer have time to think about what his beloved god looks like? After all, it is necessary to ebash the beds until God gives water and does not send locusts! And even if these gods had a description, over time it was simply lost, or the tablet fell into disrepair - and this is a real scourge for the researcher. It happened in a different way. As you remember, the development of civilization in Mesopotamia took place in several stages, and each of them was characterized by the rise of one or another settlement above others. Therefore, deities from the dominant pantheon simply drove their colleagues from other cities, and they went into the abyss of oblivion. A diametrically opposite picture was also observed - one and the same god was so revered by the population that in connection with the rise of different cities it acquired different hypostases, each of which was worshiped in different ways, and the functions performed by them were very different.
Therefore, of course, we will not analyze all the gods. Only the most noted. So, let's go:
EA (ENKI) - I've already said enough about him. God of wisdom, lord of the underworld and groundwater, one of the key figures in the pantheon of the gods of Mesopotamia. In fact, he can be considered the creator of man, for he was the initiator, and he himself made a man out of clay (see the second part). For this reason, he treats people with paternal care and does not overload with affairs. However, in case the children bury themselves, it can give them pussy (as in the case of the Tower of Babel). Belongs to the generation of the most senior gods. He was very revered by the priests, was loved in the city of Eridu. It is very interesting that during the excavations at his temples, many fish bones were found, the owners of which may have taken part in a divine ritual.
ANU - "the father of the gods" (in fact, far from quite), the god of the sky, the main seat of the heavenly abode of Esharru. Father of Ea and Enlil, grandfather of Marduk. Spawned winds, which he gave to his grandson to control. Unlike his son, he did not differ in special love for people and, if necessary, did not hesitate to shit in their souls by sending a hurricane or some kind of monster. The prototype of all the rulers, something like Ra among the Egyptians.
ENLIL - brother of Ea, son of Anu, god of air and fertility. It was he who separated heaven from earth, not without the help of the gods Anshar and Kishar. From his father he inherited a complex character and a dislike for two-legged, whom he repeatedly tried to destroy, sending floods and natural disasters. Despite all this, Enlil was loved and revered (especially in the city of Nippur), and during the period of the late Sumerian kingdom, he was generally proclaimed the supreme god. Stockholm Syndrome …
MARDUK is the son of Ea, the savior of the gods and the creator of the world among the Babylonians. He was the most that neither is ubermensch, with which most of the gods in their abilities and did not stand next to. He was extraordinarily handsome, strong and smart, knew how to extinguish and light the stars at the snap of a finger, wink tenderly with two pairs of eyes, raise the dead and heal the hopelessly sick, destroy monsters and a bunch of other things. He was so fond of the population that the Babylonian priests considered all the other gods only the incarnation of Marduk. And he had more names than the titles of Nicholas II (by the way, one of his names is Nibiru. Gendir Ren-TV is detected).
INANNA is the central female deity among the Sumerians (!). Goddess of food, abundance, victory, justice, family well-being and strife. Quite a controversial set, isn't it? Apparently, the Sumerians already then knew about the secrets of female psychology, so they stuffed everything that was not puffed into one female image. Her character is also not sugar - she is very insidious, often freaks out, lies and betrays. Many of the most important myths among the Sumerians are associated with it. Honored in the city of Uruk. In order not to go far from the cashier, let us analyze the goddess Ishtar - the equivalent of Inanna among the Akkadians and Assyrians (!!), who were later than the Sumerians. The functions performed by Ishtar were similar to those of the Inannovs, but the duties of the goddess of war, fertility and procreation were added to them. Such a wide range of interests led Ishtar to suppress the rest of the deities of Mesopotamia,which led to her unprecedented rise, and with the arrival of the Assyrians - and in general to her becoming almost the most important deity, which became the wife of the god of war Ashur. For the same reason, it has the largest number of hypostases. So, despite the fact that Ishtar was created, in fact, on the basis of Inanna, they, in my opinion, can be considered two completely different deities. It is noteworthy that the cult of Inanna-Ishtar implied all sorts of various sexual perversions, such as self-exclusion, torture, severe forms of sado-maso and sexual liberation.can be considered two completely different deities. It is noteworthy that the cult of Inanna-Ishtar implied all sorts of various sexual perversions, such as self-exclusion, torture, severe forms of sado-maso and sexual liberation.can be considered two completely different deities. It is noteworthy that the cult of Inanna-Ishtar implied all sorts of various sexual perversions, such as self-exclusion, torture, severe forms of sado-maso and sexual liberation.
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ADAD is the god of bad weather, chief of thunder and lightning. Nevertheless, he patronized farmers and cattle breeders, in connection with which he was portrayed in the form of a bull.
ASHUR - god of war, patron saint of hunters. Unlike many deities, he found himself in the pantheon much later, when the Assyrians began to rule the ball, with whom he also at first was in the position of an ordinary tribal god. However, then his business went uphill, and he occupied the dominant niche among the Assyrians, becoming for the Assyrians already the ruler of the universe. Ishtar's husband.
NERGAL is the ruler of the underworld, the god of death, pestilence, destruction and, suddenly, fertility. In this regard, the prayers directed in his direction were very strange - they drove him away from the cattle and did not allow them to sow the plague, and at the same time they tried to lure out of him a good harvest and direct his anger to the enemies so that they all cough there. According to one version, he is not quite a chthonic deity, driven underground by Marduk, but a completely normal god, imprisoned there not of his own free will.
SIN (NANNA) - God of the Moon, son of Enlil and his wife Ninlil. For some reason, he is very old and bearded, his beard is long, blue and flutters beautifully when the god travels across the sky on his boat. The eternal enemy of evil spirits, for with its light it interferes with their vile designs.
SHAMASH is the sun god, the exact opposite of Sin. SUDDENLY ranked second, after Sin. The thing is that the countdown of the day for the Sumerians began in the evening, so first there was the Moon, and then only the Sun. As old as Sin, wears a long white beard and a tall turban. It is considered the son of the moon god, but in some myths it acts as his enemy. After the fall of the Sumerians, he was replaced by Utu - the god of the Sun and law and order among the Akkadians.
NINHURSAG (KI) - the goddess of the earth, often revered as a mother goddess. One of the older deities, in some versions the consort of Enki. In general, many deities were considered mother goddesses among the Sumerians, but Ninhursag was noted more significantly, as it appeared in one of the myths about the creation of the world. Interestingly, those same Anshar and Kishar are, perhaps, other names for Anu and Ki, so a whole generation of gods in the family tree is simply deleted … but who cares, I beg you.
GULA is the goddess of healing and disease. Creates diseases and medicines for them. Quite a common hobby.
NABU is the god of wisdom and the patron saint of scribes. Most likely, it was he who invented the cuneiform script.
ERESHKIGAL - ruler of the underworld, sometimes referred to as the wife of Nergal. Eternal rival of Inanna. Her kingdom is called Irkalla. Most likely, it was the personification of winter (I'll tell you why later).
In addition to these gods, there were also chthonic deities. They have nothing in common with chthonic monsters like Hel, Fenrir and Jormungard among the Scandinavians. They received the title "chthonic" for their place of residence under the ground. It is interesting that at first the chthonic gods were the most revered, and only then they were ousted by the inhabitants of heaven. So it is likely that ancient people believed that the gods lived underground and not above the earth. Chthonic gods have almost the same functions as those described above, so there is no particular interest in listing them here. Those wishing to learn about them are invited to Wikipedia and the libraries.
Finally, I will tell you about the most remarkable places in Sumerian mythology. In general, at the location, the Sumerians have a rather meager memory, and very little is known about them. So, almost nothing is known about the heavenly abode of Esharru. The most famous palace is Dulkug, the dwelling place of all the gods, somewhere in the heavens east of Babylon, although there is almost nothing to say about its decoration either. The gods lived there, and that's it. Apsu, the very elemental force killed by Ea (see the first part) is also the ocean surrounding the earth and trying to flood it. It is curious that Apsu was a specialist in fresh waters, not salty ones … There is also the mysterious country of Aratta, in which there is a lot of gold, silver and other valuable loot and in which the goddess Inanna lives. A sort of Sumerian Eldorado. And there is also the city of Dilmun. Let's dwell on it in more detail.
You see, my friends, there is a very serious problem in history that the Sumerians left to their descendants. So it is called - "Sumerian question". The fact is that the Sumerians in Mesopotamia did not appear so long ago, and there was a reason for that - the valley of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers was flooded by the waters of the Persian Gulf for a long time! That is, the Sumerians were not aborigines, but mimoccodiles, who liked Mesopotamia so much that they stayed there for a couple of thousand years. But where did they come from? And they didn’t just take it, like some pissing nomads - but as really well-trained people who knew how to use technologies that were complex for that time! How else to explain the irrigation canals among the Sumerians, without which agriculture in Mesopotamia would be completely impossible due to the instability of the coastal borders? Versions of the origin of the Sumerians as a nation,a lot - people from the Arabian desert, children of the Caucasus Mountains …
A vague allusion to the answer to the "Sumerian question" is given by the Sumerians themselves. In the very myth of the creation of the world, the city of Dilmun appears - a fabulous place where there is no old age, abundance and wealth are everywhere, but there is no fresh water. And, suddenly, it turns out that there is an island that used to be called Dilmun. And on it you can find the remains of an ancient rather big settlement! This island still exists, only it is called Bahrain. People with sharp eyesight and holders of magnifying glasses can find it on maps - a tiny state in the Persian Gulf off the coast of Saudi Arabia (by the way, very rich). But there are no rivers there. Apparently, this led to the migration of the Sumerian ancestors from the island to the mainland. Well, where did they come from initially on this island - that's a completely different story …
So, now just a moment of attention. Since I burst in here with these Sumerian gods too suddenly, the majority of the local population, most likely, is generally in a state of confusion: what is Sumer? who are all these people? what for Akkad? hul is so hard ahhh? So in the process I can tell you about the history of this civilization and the stages of its development, of course, without departing from the main topic. The problem is that it may take a long time to present the material (maybe even more than one paste will come out). In addition, history is a very controversial thing, and there can be a lot of versions of what is happening in the Sumer Valley several thousand years ago, so local historians can attack me with accusations of the implausibility of the presentation. And in general, yazhtekhnar, have mercy for Christ's sake!..
In general, decide for yourself, vote. But not for Grudinin (gee, politeka).
Therefore, I do not say goodbye to you. Peaceful sky, rich harvest and Enki's blessings to you.