Ancient Mesopotamian Religion

Mesopotamian religion is the original religious beliefs and practices of the civilizations of ancient Mesopotamia, particularly Sumer, Akkad, Assyria and Babylonia between circa 6000 BCE and 400 AD. The earliest evidence of Mesopotamian religion dates to the mid-4th millennium BC, coincides with the invention of writing, and is focused on the worship of forces of nature as providers of sustenance. In the 3rd millennium BC, objects of worship were personified and became incorporated into an expansive cast of divinities with specific functions. The last stages of Mesopotamian polytheism, developed in the 2nd and 1st millennia BC, placed greater emphasis upon personal religious experience and attanged the gods into a hierarchy. The national god stood at the apex of this hierarchy. Mesopotamian religion eventually declined after the spread of Iranian religions during the Achaemenid Empire and with the Christianization of Mesopotamia. Mesopotamian religion was polytheistic, acknowledging the existence of a multitude of distinct deities, both male and female. Some gods were thought to be superior to others by cities or city-states that drafted them to serve as their tutelary deity. The most significant surviving artifact of ther Mesopotamian religion is the Epic of Gilgamesh. The Epic of Gilgamesh contains the earliest known reference to The Great Flood.