Sumerian Gods & Goddesses of the Multiverse - Edition 1

Sumerian Gods & Goddesses of the Multiverse – Edition 1

 

Host: Andrew Rogers – Psychic, Writer, Creative

 

Sumer is the earliest known civilisation in the historical region of southern Mesopotamia (south-central Iraq), emerging during the Chalcolithic and early Bronze Ages between the sixth and fifth millennium BC. It is also one of the first civilisations in the world, along with ancient Egypt, Elam, the Caral-Supe civilisation, the Indus Valley civilisation, the Minoan civilisation, and ancient China. Living along the valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates, Sumerian farmers grew an abundance of grain and other crops, the surplus from which enabled them to form urban settlements. Proto-writing dates back before 3000 BC. The earliest texts come from the cities of Uruk and Jemdet Nasr, and date to between c. 3500 and c. 3000 BC.

 

In the late 4th millennium BC, Sumer was divided into many independent city-states which were divided by canals and boundary stones. Each was centered on a temple dedicated to the particular patron god or goddess of the city and ruled over by a priestly governor (ensi) or by a king (lugal) who was intimately tied to the city's religious rites.

 

The Sumerian city-states rose to power during the prehistoric Ubaid and Uruk periods. Sumerian written history reaches back to the 27th century BC and before, but the historical record remains obscure until the Early Dynastic III period, c. 23rd century BC, when a now deciphered syllabary writing system was developed, which has allowed archaeologists to read contemporary records and inscriptions. The Akkadian Empire was the first state that successfully united larger parts of Mesopotamia in the 23rd century BC. After the Gutian period, the Ur III kingdom similarly united parts of northern and southern Mesopotamia. It ended in the face of Amorite incursions at the beginning of the second millennium BC. The Amorite "dynasty of Isin" persisted until c. 1700 BC, when Mesopotamia was united under Babyloian rule. The Sumerians were eventually absorbed into the Akkadian (Assyro-Babylonian) population

 

Religion

The Sumerians credited their divinities for all matters pertaining to them and exhibited humility in the face of cosmic forces, such as death and divine wrath.

Sumerian religion seems to have been founded upon two separate cosmogenic myths. The first saw creation as the result of a series of hieroi gamoi or sacred marriages, involving the reconciliation of opposites, postulated as a coming together of male and female divine beings, the gods.

This pattern continued to influence regional Mesopotamian myths. Thus, in the later Akkadian Enuma Elish, creation was seen as the union of fresh and salt water, between male Abzu, and female Tiamat. The products of that union, Lahm and Lahmu, "the muddy ones", were titles given to the gate keepers of the E-Abzu temple of Enki in Eridu, the first Sumerian city.

Mirroring the way that muddy islands emerge from the confluence of fresh and salty water at the mouth of the Euphrates, where the river deposits its load of silt, a second hieros gamos supposedly resulted in the creation of Anshar and Kishar, the "sky-pivot" (or axle), and the "earth pivot", parents in turn of anu (the sky) and Ki (the earth).

Another important Sumerian hieros gamos was that between Ki, here known as Ninhursag or "Lady of the Mountains", and Enki of Eridu, the god of fresh water which brought forth greenery and pasture.

At an early stage, following the dawn of recorded history, Nippur, in central Mesopotamia, replaced Eridu in the south as the primary temple city, whose priests exercised political hegemony on the other city-states. Nippur retained this status throughout the Sumerian period.

 

Deities

Sumerians believed in an anthropomorphic polytheism, or the belief in many gods in human form. There was no common set of gods; each city-state had its own patrons, temples, and priest-kings. Nonetheless, these were not exclusive; the gods of one city were often acknowledged elsewhere. Sumerian speakers were among the earliest people to record their beliefs in writing, and were a major inspiration in later Mesopoatamian mythology, religion, and astrology.

 

The Sumerians worshiped:

• An as the full-time god equivalent to heaven; indeed, the wordan in Sumerian means sky and his consort Ki, means earth.
• Enki in the south at the temple in Eridu. Enki was the god of beneficence and of wisdom, ruler of the freshwater depths beneath the earth, a healer and friend to humanity who in Sumerian myth was thought to have given humans the arts and sciences, the industries and manners of civilization; the first law book was considered his creation.
• Enlil is the god of storm, wind, and rain. He was the chief god of the Sumerian pantheonand the patron god of Nippur. His consort is Ninlil, the goddess of the south wind.
• Innana is the goddess of love, sexuality, and war; the deification of Venus, the morning (eastern) and evening (western) star, at the temple (shared with An) at Uruk. Deified kings may have re-enacted the marriage of Inanna and Dumuzid with priestesses.
• The sun-god Utu at Larsain the south and Sippar in the north,
• The moon god Nanna/Sin at Ur.

 

These deities formed the main pantheon, and in addition to this there were hundreds of other minor gods. Sumerian gods were often associated with different cities, and their religious importance often waxed and waned with those cities' political power. The gods were said to have created human beings from clay for the purpose of serving them. The temples organized the mass labour projects needed for irrigation agriculture. Citizens had a labor duty to the temple, though they could avoid it by a payment of silver.

 

Cosmology

Sumerians believed that the universe consisted of a flat disk enclosed by a dome. The Sumerian afterlife involved a descent into a gloomy netheerworld to spend eternity in a wretched existence as a Gidim (ghost).

The universe was divided into four quarters:

• To the north were the hill-dwelling Subartu, who were periodically raided for slaves, timber, and other raw materials.[78]
• To the west were the tent-dwelling Martu, ancient Semitic-speaking peoples living as pastoral nomads tending herds of sheep and goats.
• To the south was the land of Dilmun, a trading state associated with the land of the dead and the place of creation.
• To the east were the Elamites, a rival people with whom the Sumerians were frequently at war.

Their known world extended from The Upper Sea or Mediterranean coastline, to The Lower Sea, the Persian Gulf and the land of Meluhha (probably the Indus Valley) and Magan (Oman), famed for its copper ores.

 

Temple and temple organisation

Ziggurats (Sumerian temples) each had an individual name and consisted of a forecourt, with a central pond for purification. The temple itself had a central nave with aisles along either side. Flanking the aisles would be rooms for the priests. At one end would stand the podium and a mudbrick table for animal and vegetable sacrifices. Granaries and storehouses were usually located near the temples. After a time the Sumerians began to place the temples on top of multi-layered square constructions built as a series of rising terraces, giving rise to the Ziggurat style

 

 

Sumerian Society

Sumerian Society promotion, study and research of the truths and values represented by Sumerian God Nanna God of the Moon and Goddess Ereshkigal Goddess of the Underworld as channelled by Andrew Rogers, Psychic, Creative Director. The Sumerian Society is established by Andrew Rogers, Nanna and Ereshkigal which includes re-establishment and establishment of the Sumerian religion, restoration of temples and building new temples and also Sumerian culture.

 

 

Sumerian Gods & Goddesses

 

Sumerian Society: - Ereshkigal Sumerian Goddess of the Underworld – Channelling, Writer: Andrew Rogers.

 

In Mesopotamian mythology, Ereshkigal {Sumerian "Queen of the Great Earth"} is the goddess of Kur, the land of the dead or underworld in Sumerian mythology. In later myths, she was said to rule Irkalla alongside her husband Nergal. Sometimes her name is given as Irkalla, similar to the way the name Hades was used in Greek mythology  for both the underworld and its ruler, and sometimes it is given as Ninkigal, lit. "Lady of the Great Earth".

 

 

Sumerian Society: - Nanna Sumerian God of the Moon – Channelling, Writer: Andrew Rogers.

 

Nanna,  and in Aramaic syn, syn’, or even shr 'moon', or Nannar is the god of the moon  in the Mesopotamia religions of Sumer, Akkad, Assyria, Babylonia and Atam. He is also associated with cattle, due to the perceived similarity between bull horns and crescent moon. He was always described as a major deity, though only a few sources, mostly these from the reign of Nabonidus, consider him to be the head of the Mesopotamia pantheon. 

 

Sumerian Society: Abzu Sumerian God – Channeling, Writer: Andrew Rogers.

 

Abzu (apsû) is depicted as a deity only in the Babylonian creation epic the Enuma Elish, taken from the library of Assurbanipal (c. 630 BCE) but which is about 500 years older. In this story, he was a primal being made of fresh water and a lover to another primal deity, Tiamat, a creature of salt water. The Enuma Elish begins: "When above the heavens (e-nu-ma e-liš) did not yet exist nor the earth below, Apsu the freshwater ocean was there, the first, the begetter, and Tiamat, the saltwater sea, she who bore them all; they were still mixing their waters, and no pasture land had yet been formed, nor even a reed marsh." This resulted in the birth of the younger gods, who later murdered Apsu in order to usurp his lordship of the universe. Enraged, Tiamat gives birth to the first dragons, filling their bodies with "venom instead of blood", and made war upon her treacherous children, only to be slain by Marduk, the god of Storms, who then forms the heavens and earth from her corpse.

 

 

Sumerian Society: Huntress, Sumerian Warrior, Spirit Guide

 

A warrior is a person specializing in combat or warfare as an institutionalized or professionalized career, especially within the context of a tribal or clan-based warrior culture society that recognizes a separate warrior aristocracies, class, or caste.

 

 

Sumerian Society: Ki Sumerian Earth Goddess:

Ki is the earth goddess in Sumerian religion, chief consort of the sky god An. In some legendsKi and An were brother and sister, being the offspring of Anshar ("Sky Pivot") and Kishar ("Earth Pivot"), earlier personifications of heaven and earth.

 

 

Sumerian Society: Tiamat Creator Goddess:

 

In Mesopotamian religion, Tiamat is a primordial goddess of the sea goddess of the sea, mating with Abzu, the god of the groundwater, to produce younger gods. She is the symbol of the chaos of primordial creation. She is referred to as a woman[4] and described as "the glistening one".[5] It is suggested that there are two parts to the Tiamat mythos. In the first, Tiamat is a creator goddess, through a sacred marriage between different waters, peacefully creating the cosmos through successive generations. In the second Chaoskampf Tiamat is considered the monstrous embodiment of primordial chaos. Some sources identify her with images of a sea serpent or dragon. 

 

 

Sumerian Society: Anunnaki Sumerian Gods

 

The Anunnaki (also transcribed as Anunaki, Annunaki, Anunna, Ananaki and other variations) are a group of deities of the ancient Sumerians, Akkadians, Assyrians and Babylonians. In the earliest Sumerian writings about them, which come from the Post-Akkadian period, the Anunnaki are deities in the pantheon, descendants of An and Ki, the god of the heavens and the goddess of earth, and their primary function was to decree the fates of humanity.

 

 

Sumerian Society: Enki Sumerian God

 

Enki is the Sumerian god of water, knowledge, crafts (gašam), and creation (nudimmud), and one of the Anunnaki. He was later known as Ea or Aein Akkadian (Assyrian-Babylon) religion, and is identified by some scholars with Ia in Canaanite relgion. The name was rendered Aos in Greek sources (e.g. Damascius). 

He was originally the patron god of the city of Eridu, but later the influence of his cult spread throughout Mesopotamia and to the Canaanites, Hittites and Hurrians. He was associated with the southern band of constellations called stars of Ea, but also with the constellation AŠ-IKU, the Field (Square of Pegasus). Beginning around the second millennium BCE, he was sometimes referred to in writing by the numeric ideogram for "40", occasionally referred to as his "sacred number". The planet Mercury, associated with Babylonian Nabu (the son of Marduk) was, in Sumerian times, identified with Enki.

 

 

 

Sumerian Society: Enlil Sumerian God

 

Enlil, later known as Elil, is an ancient Mesopotamian god associated with wind, air, earth, and storms. He is first attested as the chief deity of the Sumerian pantheon, but he was later worshipped by the Akkadians, Babylonians, Assyrians, and Hurrians. Enlil's primary center of worship was the Ekur temple in the city of Nippur, which was believed to have been built by Enlil himself and was regarded as the "mooring-rope" of heaven and earth. He is also sometimes referred to in Sumerian texts as Nunamnir. According to one Sumerian hymn, Enlil himself was so holy that not even the other gods could look upon him. Enlil rose to prominence during the twenty-fourth century BC with the rise of Nippur. His cult fell into decline after Nippur was sacked by the Elamites in 1230 BC and he was eventually supplanted as the chief god of the Mesopotamian pantheon by the Babylonian national god Marduk. The Babylonian god Bel was a Syncretic deity of Enlil’s brother Enki, Enki’s son Marduk, and the shepherd deity Dumizid.

Enlil plays a vital role in the Sumerian creation myth: he separates An (heaven) from Ki (earth), thus making the world habitable for humans. In the Sumerian flood myth, Enlil rewards Ziusudra with immortality for having survived the flood and, in the Babylonian flood myth, Enlil is the cause of the flood himself, having sent the flood to exterminate the human race, who made too much noise and prevented him from sleeping. The myth of Enlil and Ninlil is about Enlil's serial seduction of the goddess Ninlil in various guises, resulting in the conception of the moon-god Nanna and the Underworld deities Nergal, Ninazu, and Enbilulu. Enlil was regarded as the inventor of the mattock and the patron of agriculture. Enlil also features prominently in several myths involving his son Ninurta, including Anzu and the Tablet of Destinies and Lugale.

 

 

 

Sumerian Society: Utu Sumerian God

 

 

Utu, later worshipped by the East Semitic Akkadian- speaking Babylonians as Shamash, is the ancient Mesopotamian sun god, god of justice, morality, and truth, and the twin of the Mesopotamian goddess Innana (Ishtar in the Assyria-Babylonian language), the Queen of Heaven. His main temples were in the cities of Sippar and Larsa. He was believed to ride through the heavens in his sun chariot and see all things that happened in the day. He was the enforcer of divine justice and was thought to aid those in distress. According to Sumerian mythology, he helped protect Dumuzid when the galla demons tried to drag him to the Underworld and he appeared to the hero Ziusudra after the Great Flood. In the Epic of Gilgamesh, he helps Gilgamesh defeat the ogre Humbaba.