Talk:Sumerian religion/Archive 1

I'm not at all sure what to do with: "The religion was originally female-based." A female creator? What? The society wasn't matriarchal. --MichaelTinkler

"Egalitarian"? I don't know the facts on this.


 * that's not a synonym for 'female' in my book. --MichaelTinkler

Mine neither. :-) I wasn't sure what the question was, whether it meant: "the religion was not in fact matriarchal". Carry on. :-)

The religion focused mostly around worship of Nammu and other goddesses like Inanna and ninhursag for a very long time. Fertility rituals were very big. Temple priestesses got a lot of respect. This is why a lot of feminist philosphies refer to it. Admittedly, yes the society still opressed women, and very few enjoyed the freedom Innana (of course fictional) had that feminists tout so much.

Eventually, Enlil worship and finally Marduk worship took precedence. Is this what you are thinking of?

--Alan D
 * maybe that's what the first author was thinking of, but merely worshiping goddesses doesn't ever really imply niceness to women. The cult of the Virgin Mary in the middle ages and Renaissance has been exploded as an upward mobility factor for females (at tiresome length).  Feminist philosophies are seldom, unfortunately, connected to historical evidence.  Feminist art history and feminist history sometimes is. --MichaelTinkler


 * ...and sometimes isn't. *grin*  There was a "Venus figurine" in an anthropological research article that everyone in one of my upper-level Anthro seminars (five females, one male, and the instructor) said looked more like a dildo.......  Though I doubt the author would've appreciated us pointing this out to her, given the tone of her writing.  Pgdudda

I wrote the initial entry--I did not intend to imply that the religion liberated women in any tangible way. I will modify accordingly. --AlanD

OK, I'm going to have to seriously plan this out before I change it. The problem here is that how could I ever do better than the Sumerian Mythology FAQ???


 * ...much like greek mythology

Is there any documentation that supports existence of link between Greek and Summerian mythology or is it just author's subjective opinion ? --Taw

Oh, I see what you are referring to now. The wording is a little awakwward for the point I wanted to make. For the most part greek mythology is not taken from sumerian mythology, but there are a few stories from sumeria that had been adapted to feature greek gods, and there are a few gods that have too strong a similarity to be denied.

--Alan D

Are there any documents on the web that are translations of the Sumerian creation and flood stories ? The general terms here don't remind me of the biblical stories at all. Other than that both are examples of creation out of nothing. Which is a very general sort of similarity, in my mind. -- BenBaker

I changed analogous to hmology, because it is very likely that Sumerian stories were sources for other traditions, but in other traditions similar stories may have different functions, SR

I recall there being some translations in a book in the university of Iowa that ought to be old enough to be public domain now, so I'll have to check that out sometime. Not all sumerian stories are present in the bible, and the ones referred to I haven't detailed. If you read the stories, the connection is undeniable, so yes, we need to get a link or something.

Please do not revert this page
Please do not revert this page without discussing it on this talk page first. The creation of this page was not an act of vandalism, but was rather discussed and affirmed on the Mesopotamian Mythology Talk Page. It is a step in the process of separating Mesopotamian mythology from an erroneously lumped-together article into sourced articles that depict each mythology accurately. see: Babylonian mythology, which has already been established for this purpose.

Thank you for your diligence. NJMauthor (talk) 23:42, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

Sources and the Sumerians
Sumerology as an independent field of study is relatively young compared to Egyptology and Assyriology. Because of this, and the historical interrelationships between Assyrian, Babylonian, Akkadian and Sumerian mythologies, examination of sources is very important to determine which mythology a given source is referring to. Many sources refer to Babylonian, Akkadian or even Assyrian texts as Sumerian texts. It is important to note that sources older than the ninteen-forties might be void of any information related to the Sumerians even if they use the name "Sumerians" to describe their subject. Many sources, especially from the late 1800's and early 1900's, contain information now deemed inaccurate, biased or even racist.

No sources should be dismissed outright because of age or authorship; but as objective students of history we must give our sources careful scrutiny.

Thank you for contributing to wikipedia. NJMauthor (talk) 23:42, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

Monotheism
What of the references to Sumerian monotheism by Stephen Herbert Langdon? Faro0485 (talk) 17:45, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

This outdated source seems to offer no actual textual support. The oldest societies tended to deify cosmic and terrestrial forces, not have vague supreme beings that were later "polluted" by polytheism.NJMauthor (talk) 21:42, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

On Ki being the goddess of the earth at Esagila
Is the "at the Esagila" temple part necessary? I mean, Ki in general is 'earth' in sumerian, and in all sumerian and in some akkadian texts, she is the goddess of earth, not just at Esagila. As for the citation being needed, I added a link to the sumerian language page (or at least I am as soon as I am done here). But couldn't we just get rid of the "at the Esagila" part? Abdishtar (talk) 22:48, 4 February 2010 (UTC) 17:04 27 January 2010 —Preceding undated comment added 22:05, 27 January 2010 (UTC).

We certainly could. I see no problem with removing it. NJMauthor (talk) 06:56, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Ishtar isn't Akkadian
I don't know if it was my mistake or whose, but Ishtar isn't akkadian. Besides in some parts being called Innin, and at times Nannaya, Inanna pretty much stayed as Inanna until the OldBabylonian period. For example, if you read Enheduana's hymns, they're to Inanna and not Ishtar. Inanna was merged with Ishtar later on. Abdishtar (talk) 17:29, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

Hello. Please cite your sources properly for any changes. Then we can put the change to Ishtar under the Babylonian section rather than the Akkadian one.NJMauthor (talk) 20:54, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

Enheduanna's hymns at ETCSL is one source: http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/cgi-bin/etcsl.cgi?text=c.4.07*&charenc=j#

And in the Babylonian texts the name Ininn/Inanna is replaced by Ishtar, for example the babylonian hymns: http://books.google.com/books?id=IigBAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA160&dq=ishtar+raising+of+the+hand&lr=&as_brr=3&cd=1#v=onepage&q=ishtar%20raising%20of%20the%20hand&f=false

(often they were written in akkadian, but they themselves weren't akkadian, so I can see where the confusion comes in. Akkadian was used like Latin, as a language for literature, though Ishtar herself wasn't akkadian)

Abdishtar (talk) 15:49, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Cool, go ahead and put it in, maybe with an explanation for the possible confusion. If you don't want to I'll go ahead and do it after a few days. NJMauthor (talk) 00:14, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Hittites
The Hittites included a Hurrian population but what is this about talking straight about the Hurrians... and then referring to Anu and Ea as 'Arabian' gods? Either a few words are mistyped or the whole thing should be thrown out... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:400:8000:7650:402A:29C2:89B5:42F3 (talk) 22:29, 29 March 2016 (UTC)

Premarital sex
User:Saronsacl, About the following, which you been adding to various articles:

On the basis of its myths, it appears that Sumerian society banned premarital sex. An exception would be the sacred prostitution of the worship of Inanna. The Sumerians worshipped her as the goddess of love, but she was not seen as a role model for how lovers ought to behave.

The Launderville book discusses only post-Sumer sources on pp 254-256 - this is not "sumerian religion". It is also even less certain than the content you crafted. I don't know in what Wikipedia article you found the Black/Green ref but the snf citation style doesn't work unless the whole citation is in the article, and it isn't here. Please say where you found that citation. Thanks!--Jytdog (talk) 16:53, 13 June 2017 (UTC)
 * User:Jytdog, the statement, "The Sumerians worshipped her as the goddess of love, but she was not seen as a role model for how lovers ought to behave." is directly copied and pasted from Inanna. I know this because I am the one who originally put it there in the first place. The full citation is given in the bibliography of the Inanna article. User:Saronsacl seems to have copied the shortened citation from the text, but not the full citation given at the end of the article.


 * --Katolophyromai (talk) 20:08, 13 June 2017 (UTC)


 * , I took it from page 28, which clearly talks about Sumerian myths. Thanks for your thoughts!.Saronsacl (talk) 23:26, 13 June 2017 (UTC)


 * And yes I copied it from the Inanna article, as I said in the Ancient Mesopotamian religion edit history.Saronsacl (talk) 23:28, 13 June 2017 (UTC)
 * User:Saronsacl, before you get too involved putting this information on all the articles about ancient Sumer, you may want to check what other sources say on the issue and try to give a slightly more nuanced explanation. Simply stating that the Sumerians "banned premarital sex" seems like a bit of an oversimplification and I suspect that there may be more exceptions to this cultural convention than the article currently seems to imply. Also, for almost all issues involving Sumerian society, there is usually more than one scholarly opinion. I suspect that other authorities may have slightly different perspectives on the issue, perspectives which should be taken into account for any encyclopedia entry on the subject. --Katolophyromai (talk) 01:32, 14 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Okay, thanks for the advice.Saronsacl (talk) 02:09, 14 June 2017 (UTC)

Recent edits re sexuality morality etc
Please see Talk:Ancient_Mesopotamian_religion Jytdog (talk) 05:34, 14 June 2017 (UTC)

WP:VERIFY, WP:BURDEN


Moving the image to the right here for now.

The caption is unsourced. Per WP:V, there should be a source here for the caption. Per WP:BURDEN, if content is challenged it cannot be restored without providing a source. What some person wrote on the commons, is not a reliable source.

About the note. WP is aimed at a general readership. The number of humans who can read cuneiform at all is miniscule, and the number of readers of WP who can read cueinform is probably infintisimal, and among those who can read it and see this, the likelihood that any one of them would find "Inanna" appearing under two names to be "confusing" is probably zero. The note is not needed, and unsourced in any case. Jytdog (talk) 15:43, 4 September 2017 (UTC)
 * I was not suggesting that people would be confused by the cuneiform text. I was suggesting that they would be confused by the double occurrence in the English translation of the names found in the caption. In any case, since you seem to be so virulently opposed to the note, I will not attempt to restore it. --Katolophyromai (talk) 01:45, 5 September 2017 (UTC)

"Epic of Gilgamesh" not Sumerian
The "Worship" section begins with the following text:

"Sumerian myths were passed down through the oral tradition until the invention of writing (the earliest myth discovered so far, the Epic of Gilgamesh, is Sumerian and is written on a series of fractured clay tablets)."

If you go the Wikipedia pages for "Epic of Gilgamesh" and "Gilgamesh", both will tell you that, while Gilgamesh probably was a Sumerian king, and while there are Sumerian poems about Gilgamesh from the late 3rd Millennium BCE and evidence Sumerians even worshiped him, these older stories are not the same as the well-known "Epic of Gilgamesh". The actual "Epic of Gilgamesh" is written in Akkadian, not Sumerian, and does not appear until the Babylonian period in the 2nd Millenium BCE. Obviously, Wikipedia shouldn't be based off of Wikipedia, and there may be an argument that the older Sumerian poems count as "The Epic of Gilgamesh" or that the story written down by the Babylonians existed in from Sumerian times, but I think maybe someone who thought they knew more then they did may have uncritically added this parenthetical. DubleH (talk) 10:03, 10 November 2021 (UTC)

Inanna not the Akkadian Pantheon
In the Overview section, discussing major deities in the third paragraph, it states: “During the Akkadian period and afterward, Inanna…” The Akkadian adaptation of Inanna was Ishtar. I believe that entry is incorrect as Inanna was part of the Sumerian Pantheon and Ishtar the Akkadian Pantheon. Further in the article, under Pantheon: Major deities, it further identifies Inanna as a Sumerian goddess, which is in conflict with the above mentioned entry. 174.0.145.24 (talk) 03:27, 1 February 2022 (UTC)


 * So you're not familiar with the fact that Sargon's daughter Enheduanna wrote the official temple hymns and rituals of Akkad, and that the name she used for the Goddess was Inanna? For example The Exaltation of Inanna, Hymn to Inanna, and Inanna and Ebih are all attributed to her. Sorry to tell you, but the transition to the use of the name Ishtar came later. The amazing thing is that these are the first religious hymns to be written by a named author; moreover Enheduanna is the first named author in the history of the world. So we know for a fact that Inanna continued to be worshiped into the Akkadian Empire. Skyerise (talk) 12:59, 1 February 2022 (UTC)