history assignment

Name: Aminesh Nayan Gogoi

UID: SM0120004

Subject: History (minor)

Faculty: Abhijit Bharali

National Law University and Judicial Academy, Assam

“Role of temples in ancient Mesopotamia”

The objective of this paper is to trace the temples: the Gods, its
organization, power in Mesopotamian cities and also discuss what their
role was in the ancient Mesopotamia.
1.Introduction:

The presence of temples as places where people nourish their faith and
religion has existed for centuries since the beginning of the earliest
civilizations. Since their foundations, temples of any religion have
represented places where people could find spiritual and religious comfort.
Besides this main function, temples have also played important roles in the
management of their cities, impacting their societies in significant ways.

Ancient Mesopotamian temples fulfilled many roles. Not only were they the
house of the local deity or the patron god of the city, they were also the
administrative centers of the first cities in Sumer. The city of Eridu was
considered the first city in the world by the Sumerians, created by the gods
after their victory of order over the forces of chaos. The origin of the
decrees of civilization (the sacred meh) were thought to come from the
temple there where the god of wisdom, Enki, lived. The
goddess Inanna stole the meh from Enki after a drunken party and brought
them to Uruk, considered by scholars the first city in the world and once
one of the largest and most prosperous. The story of Inanna bringing
the meh from Eridu to Uruk is thought to symbolize the transference of
power from the one city to the other and, specifically, from one temple, one
sacred spot, to another. Uruk was initially ruled by a priest-king, and it is
believed that many early Mesopotamian cities followed the same model,
where the temple was the seat of both religious and secular authority. Even
after the rise of secular kings, however, the temple was the central
structure of every city throughout Mesopotamia serving as a seat of
kingship, of administration, and organizing the distribution of food among
the people.

2. Mesopotamian Gods and temples:

There is still another aspect of the temples of Babylonia and Assyria. We

have already taken note of the tendency to group the chief gods and
goddesses and many of the minor ones also around the main deity, in a
large centre. A god like Enlil at Nippur, Shamash at Sippar, Ningirsu at
Lagash, Sin at Ur, and Marduk at Babylon, is not only served-by a large
body of priests, but, again, as in the case of the great ruler who gathers
around his court the members of his official family, smaller sanctuaries
were erected within the temple area at Nippur to Ninlil, Enlil's consort, to
Ninib, Nusku, Nergal, Ea, Sin, Shamash, Marduk, and others, all in order to
emphasise the dominant position of Enlil. It is safe to state that in the zenith
of Nippur's glory all the important gods of the pantheon were represented in
the cult at that place. We have a list of no less than thirteen sanctuaries at
Lagash, and we may feel certain that they all stood within the sacred area
around E-Ninnu, “house of fifty," which was the name given to Ningirsu's
dwelling at that place. At the close of Babylonian history we find
Nebuchadnezzar II. enumerating, among his numerous inscriptions, the
shrines and sanctuaries grouped around E-Sagila, “the lofty house," as
Mar-duk's temple at Babylon was called. His consort Sar-panit, his son
Nebo, his father Ea, were represented, as were Sin, Shamash, Adad,
Ishtar, Ninib and his consort Gula, Nergal and his consort Laz, and so on
through a long list.1

There was no attempt made to assimilate the cult of these deities to that of
Marduk, despite the tendency to heap upon the latter the attributes of all
the gods. The shrines of these gods, bearing the same names as those of
their sanctuaries in their own centres of worship, served to maintain the
identity of the gods, while as a group around Marduk they illustrated and
emphasized the subsidiary position which they occupied. In a measure, this
extension of the “house” of a deity into a sacred quarter with dwellings for
gods whose actual seat was elsewhere, displaced the original idea
connected with a sanctuary, but kings also erected palaces for themselves
in various places without endangering either the prestige or the conception
of a central dwelling in the capital of the kingdom. The shrines of the gods
within the sacred area of E-Sagila represented temporary abodes, or
“embassies” as it were, and so it happened that even Marduk had a foreign
sanctuary, e.g., at Borsippa to symbolise the close relationship between
him and Nebo.

1
 Morris Jastrow “Aspects of Religious Belief and Practice in Babylonia and Assyria” 1911
3. Mesopotamian temple layout:

Mesopotamian temple usually contained a central shrine with a statute of

the deity placed on a pedestal before an altar. The temples were watched
over by priests and priestesses that lived in apartment in the temple. On
the temple grounds were other quarters for officials, accountants,
musicians and custodians as well as structures that held treasures,
weapons and grain.

 Sumerian pilgrims visited temples honoring Anau in Uruk and Enlil in

Nippur. The largest temple in Mesopotamia was a temple honoring Marduk
in Babylon. Inside was golden statue of statues of Marduk that weighed
perhaps 5,000 pounds and 55 shrines devoted to lower echelon gods. The
200 foot long, 70-foot high ziggurat built in Ur had three platforms, each a
different color, and a silver shrine at the top. 2

 Mesopotamia temples often had off center entrances so that common

people could catch a glimpse of the inner sanctuary when they looked
inside. Temples in Uruk, Ashur and Babylon all have this feature.

3.Temple organization in Mesopotamia:

With the growth of the temple organisation, its administration also assumed
large proportions. The functions of the priests were differentiated, and
assigned to several classes—diviners, exorcisers, astrologers, physicians,
scribes, and judges of the court, to name only the more important; and as
early as the days of Hammurabi, we learn of priestesses attached to the
service of Shamash and of other gods. The importance of these
priestesses, however, appears to have grown less, as the religion
developed. An institution like that of the vestal virgins also existed at an
early period, though the material at our disposal is as yet too meagre to
enable us to specify the nature of the institution, or the share in the cult
allotted to these virgins.

The temple was also the centre of intellectual life. Within the sacred
precinct was the temple school in which the aspirants to the priesthood

2
World Religions edited by Geoffrey Parrinder, Facts on File Publications, New York
were prepared for their future careers—just as to this day the instruction of
the young in Islamism, as well as the discussions of the learned, takes
place within the precincts of the mosques. Learning remained under the
control of the priests throughout all periods of Babylonian and Assyrian
history. In a certain very definite sense all learning was religious in
character, or touched religion at some vital point. In the oldest legal code of
the Pentateuch, the so-called “Book of the Covenant," the term used for the
exercise of legal functions is “to draw nigh to the Lord” (Elohim), i.e., to
appear before God, and this admirably reflects the legal procedure in
Babylonia and Assyria. The laws of the country represented the decrees of
the gods. Legal decisions were accordingly given through the
representatives and servitors of the gods—the kings, in the earlier ages,
and later the priests

4. Role of temples in Mesopotamia:

Temple’s main role was to intervene with the gods for the fortune of their
communities through prayers and offerings to their deities. In exchange, the
community provided priests with food, drink, and clothing. 3Each temple was
dedicated to a major deity, who was the main god of the city. Often the
priests serving the temple might have been the former governor of that
particular city-state.4 Like many religious organizations today, temple
communities also provided help to the people in the community when in
need. Temples, for example, used to take care of orphans, supply grain in
time of famine, and provide ransom for people who might be captured in
battle.5

Mesopotamian temples were not places where people particularly went to

worship. They were thought to be the home of the city deity, and for this
reason they were equipped like households. They were built with kitchens,
tables (in the form of altars), living rooms, and the most important of the
rooms, an inner sanctuary where a statue of the major deity stood in one of

3
Jerry Bentley, Herbert Ziegler, and Heather Streets Salter, Traditions & Encounters: A Brief Global
History Volume 1, 4 edition (McGraw-Hill Education, 2015), 15.
4
Richard L. A. Sterba, “The Organization and Management of the Temple Corporations in Ancient
Mesopotamia,” The Academy of Management Review 1, no. 3 (1976): 16. 
5
Bentley, Ziegler, and Streets Salter, Traditions & Encounters: A Brief Global History Volume 1, 15.
the building’s walls. Often, these temples used to have staircases to the
roof, where rituals and offerings to the deity were performed (e.g. animal
sacrifice to feed their god).6

In hindsight, the role of temple communities was not limited to the

city’s religious life, but they were also large socio-economic
organizations.7Temple communities in Mesopotamia also had an influence
in the economy and social living of the cities. Among many of their
functions, the operation and maintenance of irrigation systems was one of
their highest priorities. They also controlled and managed the industry while
developing and manufacturing products that later would be exchanged in
foreign trade. Along with this, temples were extensive places for storaging
goods and merchandise.8 The records priests and temple staff generated
were so extended that some modern economic historians developed the
conclusion that the Mesopotamian economy “was dominated by the temple,
giving rise to the characterization of ancient Mesopotamia as a ‘temple-
state economy.”9This was clear to see, since temples were also in charge
of the finance of the city. They were in charge of collecting taxes,
administrating a system of price control, regulating interest charges,
financing foreign trade and legislating all private financial transactions.
They also redistributed income by granting money to those in need, and
often they also made loans to private individuals. Temples also played a
role in legal matters and in maintaining social control. Marriages were
performed; priests granted divorce, registered births, and administered the
law.

For the importance of their role as a major socio-economic organization as

well as their role of mediators between the gods and the city, it can be
concluded that Mesopotamian temples possessed a large power among
the events happening in the daily life of the individuals living in a particular
city. Maybe without the temples, it might have been more difficult for the

6
Ronald Wallenfels, World Eras – Vol. 8, Ancient Mesopotamia (Detroit: Gale, 2004), 162.
7
Sterba, “The Organization and Management of the Temple Corporations in Ancient Mesopotamia,” The
Academy of Management Review
8
Ibid 7

9
Wallenfels, World Eras – Vol. 8, Ancient Mesopotamia, 161.
rulers of the city-states to carry out the functions that these religious
organizations used to perform.

5.Temple power in Mesopotamia:

The temple occupied a most important position. It received from its estates,
from tithes and other fixed dues, as well as from the sacrifices (a customary
share) and other offerings of the faithful, vast amounts of all sorts of
naturalia; besides money and permanent gifts. The larger temples had
many officials and servants. Originally, each town clustered round one
temple, and each head of a family had a right to minister there and share
its receipts.10

Even in the purely business activity of the country, the bond between
culture and religion is exemplified by the large share taken by the temples
in the commercial life. The temples had large holdings in land and cattle.
They loaned money and engaged in mercantile pursuits of various kinds;
so that a considerable portion of the business documents in both the older
and the later periods deal with temple affairs, and form part of the official
archives of the temples.11

6. Conclusion:

The modem and occidental view of a temple as a place of worship gives

only a part of the picture when we come to regard the sanctuaries of the
gods in Babylonia and Assyria. Throughout antiquity, the sanctuary
represents, first and foremost, the dwelling of a god. Among the Semites it
grows up around the sacred stone, which, originally the god himself,
becomes either, in the form of an altar, a symbol of his presence, or is
given the outlines of an animal or human figure (or a combination of the
two), and becomes a representative of the deity—his counterfeit.

10
Claude Hermann Walter Johns, Babylonian Law — The Code of Hammurabi. Eleventh Edition of the
Encyclopedia Britannica
11
Morris Jastrow “Aspects of Religious Belief and Practice in Babylonia and Assyria” 1911