Intro to Mesopotamian Mythology

Greetings everyone, and welcome to a new month! We’re going to be starting a new mythology today - that of the Mesopotamians. Ironically, Mesopotamian mythology is one of the oldest in the world...so it most certainly is not new!

Before I start talking about the myths, I’d like to answer a quick question: Who are the Mesopotamians?

The word “Mesopotamia” means “the land between two rivers”. The region of land dubbed Mesopotamia was thus named due to its location between (you guessed it!) two rivers - the Tigris and the Euphrates. When I use the term “Mesopotamian mythology”, I am referring to the collective myths of the several ancient civilizations that called Mesopotamia their home.

These civilizations include the Sumerians, the Babylonians, and the Assyrians. They ruled over Mesopotamia for three millennia, up until the Persians conquered them. At times one of their cultures existed simultaneously with another, but for the most part they succeeded one another.

There are several things that make Mesopotamian mythology fascinating. Firstly - its age. Mesopotamia’s myths and pantheon pre-date the Greek and Roman ones by a goodly long while. In fact, scholars believe that the classical myths of Greece and Rome were influenced by Mesopotamian mythology!  For instance, Ishtar, the Mesopotamian goddess of love and war, is very similar to Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love. Worship of Ishtar revolved in part around the planet Venus - which is named for the Roman goddess of love! (This is insanely cool for a myth nerd like me.)  The Mesopotamian god Nabu, god of scribes and wisdom, bears similarities to the Greek god Apollo. These are only a few of many such similarities between Mesopotamia’s myths and those of later civilizations.

The second thing about Mesopotamian mythology that really intrigues me is the fact that the three cultures within Mesopotamia mostly worshipped the same gods. Due to their differences in languages, the gods sometimes had different names in different times/parts of Mesopotamia - but they were essentially the same beings, with basically the same stories.

While we’re on the subject of names - since the gods were often worshipped under more than one name (for example, Ishtar was called Inanna by the Sumerians) I will identify the god by all of its names at the start of my future posts. After that, I will refer to the deity by their Akkadian name (Akkadian being the language of the Babylonians and the Assyrians).

Now that I’ve bored you with all of these details, lets get down to the mythology!

Chief among the Mesopotamian gods was Anu, ruler of heaven. Both he and his son, Ellil (god of the earth) ruled over man and had the right to bestow kingship on mortals. Almost as important as them was Ea, who ruled over water and was thought of as a god of sorcery.

During the Babylonian era a new god rose up to become the chief of the pantheon - Marduk. Marduk was the son of Ea, and had been a farmer’s god associated with agriculture before the Babylonians got their hands on him. They saw Marduk as a champion of good, and told tales of his victories against the forces of evil.

Marduk’s son was Nabu, the scribe god I mentioned earlier in this post. The other deity I mentioned, Ishtar, was said to be the daughter of either Anu, Ellil, or Ea (Which one depends on the myth. Ishtar was also sometimes said to be a consort of Anu). Another possible father of Ishtar was Sin, the god of the moon.

Ishtar’s sister (by one of the multiple father candidates. Seriously. This feels like something out of Mama Mia!.) was Ereshkigal, queen of the Underworld. Their brother, Shamash, was the god of the sun.

Those are the major heavenly players; now lets talk about the human characters. Mesopotamian mythology is closely intertwined with its history. The Babylonians had a story called the Epic of Gilgamesh that tells the tale of a Sumerian king who actually existed. However, the tales of Gilgamesh’s exploits are highly embellished, including multiple interactions with the gods themselves. Gilgamesh is also said to be not entirely human; instead, he is two-thirds god, one-third man (I'm not quite sure how that works...but alright...)

Even the laws of Mesopotamia were influenced by their myths. Hammurabi, a king of Babylon, created the Code of Hammurabi, a collection of laws he claimed had been given to him by Marduk and Shamash themselves. The Code was carved into a stone, at the top of which is a picture of Hammurabi being handed the laws by one of the gods.

With all of that, I think I’ll wrap up my introduction! I’ll be going into stories about the individual deities and their adventures for the next several weeks. Until next post, please feel free to comment below or email me! I’m really looking forward to talking about the Mesopotamian myths, and I hope you guys are too!