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Gods and Goddesses of Sumeria

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Title: Gods and Goddesses of Sumeria


1
Gods and Goddesses of Sumeria
  • World Literature I

Presentation by
Ralph Monday
2
Sumerian Myth
  • The Sumerians developed one of the earliest
    civilizations on earth (3500-1750 B.C.E.)
  • However, their lost civilization was not
    rediscovered until the 19th century.

3
  • The world of the Babylonians was well known.
  • The ancient Egyptians, Hebrews, and Greeks had
    all had contact and written about this
    civilization.
  • No one knew that the Sumerians had come before
    the Babylonians,
  • And had adapted and modified their writing,
    religious, and agricultural systems.

4
  • British, German, and French archeologists in the
    early 19th century began to excavate the
  • Earthen mounds that are the remains of cities
    that existed thousands of years ago in the
  • Tigris and Euphrates river valleys. The region
    was called Mesopotamia (between the rivers).

5
The Gods
  • There are several ways to examine Sumerian
    mythology. The culture was
  • Polytheistic
  • Anthropomorphic
  • Animist

6
Polytheism
  • The belief in or worship of many gods, or more
    than one god.
  • It is the direct opposite of monotheism, the
    major belief system of the
  • Judeo-Christian tradition.

7
Greek Gods of Olympus
8
Anthropomorphic
  • The attributing of human shape or characteristics
    to gods, objects, animals, etc.

Anthropomorphic cabinet-Salvador Dali
9
Animism
  • 1. The belief that all life is produced by a
    spiritual force separate from matter.
  • 2. The belief that natural phenomena and objects
    such as rocks, trees, rivers, oceans, the wind,
    etc., are alive and have souls.

10
  • Indeed, the ancients believed that the earth
    itself is alive.
  • Ki in the Sumerian. Gaia (earth mother) in the
    Greek.

Mother of all things
11
There is a Modern day Biological Theory (Gaia
hypothesis) That examines This ancient idea From
a present Day scientific Perspective.
12
Gilgamesh Major Gods and Goddesses
  • Adad
  • Anunnaki
  • Anu
  • Aruru
  • Ishtar/Inanna
  • Ninurta
  • Nisaba
  • Antum
  • Aya
  • Ea/Enki
  • Enlil
  • Lugulbanda
  • Ninsun
  • Samuqan
  • Shamash

13
  • Like the Greek gods and many other cultures, the
    Sumerian gods
  • Comprise a pantheon, the gods
  • Of a people taken collectively,
  • Or a treatise on them.

14
ADAD
  • In Sumerian mythology, Adad is a storm god, son
    of Anu. He holds a
  • Lightning bolt in his right hand and an axe in
    his left.
  • Partially responsible for the flood, he relates
    to the Canaanite god Hadad.

15
ADAD
16
Flood Tablet Gilgamesh Epic
17
ANNUNNAKI
  • In Sumerian mythology the Annunnaki are the
    underworld gods.
  • Gilgamesh cries out lament over the death of
    Enkidu that these beings have fastened onto
    Enkidu
  • and seized him, taking him to the land of death.

18
In the Sumerian cosmology Enkidu was taken to
Sheol, the underworld.
19
THE ANUNNAKI
20
ANTUM
  • Babylonian consort of Anu, the god of the sky.
  • In Sumerian mythology she is a colorless female
    being.
  • Antum and Anu produced the Anunnaki.
  • She was replaced by Ishtar who is sometimes her
    daughter.

21
ANU
  • In Sumerian and Babylonian mythology, Anu is the
    god of the sky.
  • He is also the creator god of the Sumerian
    pantheon.
  • He is the father of the gods.
  • He is the first and most powerful god.

22
ANU
23
ARURU
  • Aruru is the creator goddess of Sumerian
    mythology.
  • She is the mother goddess of the earth and birth.
  • She is the one who first created humanity from
    clay.
  • She also created Enkidu.

24
ARURU
25
Aruru Creating Enkidu
26
AA/AYA
  • In Babylonian mythology, Aa is the Great-Mother.
    She is the Mother of all things.
  • She is the Goddess of dawn and inspired the
    invention of letters.
  • Consort of Shamash, the sun god.

27
Aya Goddess of the Dawn
28
EA/ENKI
  • In Babylonian and Sumerian mythology, Ea/Enki was
    the god of wisdom, magic, and water.
  • He supplies clear drinking water to the town of
    Dilmun.

29
  • Enki is the god of the watery depths of the Abzu
    who betrayed the pantheon by revealing to
  • Utnapishtim that Enlil was about to destroy
    humanity by a great flood.

30
  • The Sumerians believed that the oceans on the
    surface of the world were paralled by hidden,
    cthonic seas located in vast chambers deep within
    the earth.
  • Abzu is the primordial Lord of these Inner
    Waters. His name is the root behind the modern
    word "abyss".

31
EA/ENKI God of Water and Magic
32
ENLIL
  • In Sumerian mythology Enlil was the first born
    son of Ki (earth) and Anu (heaven). He is the god
    of the sky.
  • He separated the earth from the heavens.
  • He guards the tablets of destiny, power that
    allows him to determine the fate of all things
    animate or inanimate.

33
ENLIL
34
ERESHKIGAL
  • Ereshkigal is the Sumerian and Babylonian Queen
    of the Underworld.
  • She is a death goddess and sister of Ishtar.
    Together with her consort Nergal she rules the
    underworld.

35
No one returns from her domain
36
This terra cotta figure, thousands ofyears old,
is interpreted to be either Ishtar or Ereshkigal.
37
LUGULBANDA
  • A hero of two Sumerian poems, third on the
    post-diluvian King-List, and ruler of Uruk for
    1200 years.
  • He is occasionally referred to by Gilgamesh as
    his semi-divine 'father'.
  • He is a demigod and the protector of Gilgamesh.

38
ISHTAR/INANNA
  • The Sumerian goddess of love and sexuality who
    attempts to seduce Gilgamesh.
  • Knowing her history of sordid and failed love
    affairs, Gilgamesh refuses her advances causing
    much strife for himself and the people of Uruk.

39
Ishtar was personified as the legendaryqueen
Semiramis.
40
NINSUN
  • The mother of Gilgamesh and priestess of the
    temple of Uruk.
  • She helps Gilgamesh interpret his dream about a
    falling star, and makes
  • Utu/Shamash protect Gilgamesh on his journey to
    the Cedar Mountains.

41
NINURTA
  • Ninurta is chamberlain of the Annunnaki.
  • The child of Enlil and Mami, he is also god of
    rain, fertility, war, thunderstorms, wells,
    canals, floods, the plough and the South Wind.
  • His name means "lord of the earth" and mankind
    owed to him the fertile fields and the healthy
    live-stock.

42
Ninurta (890-884 B.C.E.)
43
SAMUQAN
  • The Mesopotamian god of cattle.
  • He is connected to the earth, fertility,
    livestock.

44
SHAMASH
  • The sun god, and since he could see everything on
    earth, he also represented the god of justice.

45
Worship of Shamash
46
SIN
  • The Sumerian moon god.
  • The Moon god had several different names that
    referred to different phases of the Moon. The
    name Sin indicated the crescent Moon, Nanna the
    full Moon, and Asimbabbar the beginning of each
    lunar cycle.

47
SIN
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