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Iškur
Hadad (), Haddad, Adad ( Akkadian: 𒀭𒅎 '' DIM'', pronounced as ''Adād''), or Iškur ( Sumerian) was the storm- and rain-god in the Canaanite and ancient Mesopotamian religions. He was attested in Ebla as "Hadda" in c. 2500 BCE. From the Levant, Hadad was introduced to Mesopotamia by the Amorites, where he became known as the Akkadian (Assyrian-Babylonian) god Adad. Adad and Iškur are usually written with the logogram - the same symbol used for the Hurrian god Teshub. Hadad was also called Rimon/Rimmon, Pidar, Rapiu, Baal-Zephon, or often simply Baʿal (Lord); however, the latter title was also used for other gods. The bull was the symbolic animal of Hadad. He appeared bearded, often holding a club and thunderbolt and wearing a bull-horned headdress. Hadad was equated with the Greek god Zeus, the Roman god Jupiter (Jupiter Dolichenus), as well as the Babylonian Bel. The Baal Cycle or Epic of Baal is a collection of stories about the Canaanite Baal, also referred ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sacred Bull
Cattle are prominent in some religions and mythologies. As such, numerous peoples throughout the world have at one point in time honored bulls as sacred. In the Sumerian religion, Marduk is the "bull of Utu". In Hinduism, Shiva's steed is Nandi, the Bull. The sacred bull survives in the constellation Taurus. The bull, whether lunar as in Mesopotamia or solar as in India, is the subject of various other cultural and religious incarnations as well as modern mentions in New Age cultures. In prehistoric art Aurochs are depicted in many Paleolithic European cave paintings such as those found at Lascaux and Livernon in France. Their life force may have been thought to have magical qualities, for early carvings of the aurochs have also been found. The impressive and dangerous aurochs survived into the Iron Age in Anatolia and the Near East and were worshipped throughout that area as sacred animals; the earliest remnants of bull worship can be found at neolithic Çatalhöyük. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Teshub
Teshub was the Hurrians, Hurrian weather god, as well as the head of the Hurrian pantheon. The etymology of his name is uncertain, though it is agreed it can be classified as linguistically Hurrian language, Hurrian. Both Phonetics, phonetic and Logogram, logographic writings are attested. As a deity associated with the weather, Teshub could be portrayed both as destructive and protective. Individual weather phenomena, including winds, lightning, thunder and rain, could be described as his weapons. He was also believed to enable the growth of vegetation and create rivers and springs. His high position in Hurrian religion reflected the widespread importance of weather gods in northern Mesopotamia and nearby areas, where in contrast with the south agriculture relied primarily on rainfall rather than irrigation. It was believed that his authority extended to both mortal and other gods, both on earth and in heaven. However, the sea and the underworld were not under his control. Depictio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sumerian Language
Sumerian ) was the language of ancient Sumer. It is one of the List of languages by first written account, oldest attested languages, dating back to at least 2900 BC. It is a local language isolate that was spoken in ancient Mesopotamia, in the area that is modern-day Iraq, Iraq. Akkadian language, Akkadian, a Semitic languages, Semitic language, gradually replaced Sumerian as the primary spoken language in the area (the exact date is debated), but Sumerian continued to be used as a sacred, ceremonial, literary, and scientific language in Akkadian-speaking Mesopotamian states, such as Assyria and Babylonia, until the 1st century AD. Thereafter, it seems to have fallen into obscurity until the 19th century, when Assyriologists began Decipherment, deciphering the cuneiform inscriptions and excavated tablets that had been left by its speakers. In spite of its extinction, Sumerian exerted a significant influence on the languages of the area. The Cuneiform, cuneiform script, original ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Baʿal
Baal (), or Baʻal, was a title and honorific meaning 'owner' or 'lord' in the Northwest Semitic languages spoken in the Levant during antiquity. From its use among people, it came to be applied to gods. Scholars previously associated the theonym with solar cults and with a variety of unrelated patron deities, but inscriptions have shown that the name Ba'al was particularly associated with the storm and fertility god Hadad and his local manifestations. The Hebrew Bible includes use of the term in reference to various Levantine deities, often with application towards Hadad, who was decried as a false god. That use was taken over into Christianity and Islam, sometimes under the form Beelzebub in demonology. The Ugaritic god Baal (𐎁𐎓𐎍) is the protagonist of one of the lengthiest surviving epics from the ancient Near East, the Baal Cycle. Name Epithets Ba'al's widely used epithet is "rider (or mounter) of the clouds." (''rkb ʿrpt'', cf. ''rkb bʿrbt'' in P ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Baal-zephon
Baʽal Zephon (; Akkadian: ''Bēl Ḫazi'' ( dIM ḪUR.SAG); Ugaritic: ''baʿlu ṣapāni''; Hurrian: '' Tešub Ḫalbağe''; Egyptian: ''bꜥr ḏꜣpwnꜣ''), also transliterated as Baal-zephon, was an epithet of the Canaanite storm god Baʿal ( "Lord") in his role as lord of Jebel Aqra, called "Mount Zaphon" in antiquity. He is identified in Ugaritic texts as Hadad. Because of the mountain's importance in the Biblical narrative and location, ''Zephon'' () came to metonymously signify "north" in Hebrew. The name is, therefore, sometimes given in translation as . Baʿal Zephon was equated with the Greek god and later with the Roman . Because Baʿal Zephon was considered a protector of maritime trade, sanctuaries were constructed in his honor around the Mediterranean Sea by his Canaanite and Phoenician devotees. "Baal-zephon" thereby became a placename—most notably mentioned in the Book of Exodus as the location where the miraculous Passage of the Red Sea happened du ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dingir
''Dingir'' ⟨⟩, usually transliterated DIĜIR, () is a Sumerian word for 'god' or 'goddess'. Its cuneiform sign is most commonly employed as the determinative for religious names and related concepts, in which case it is not pronounced and is conventionally transliterated as a superscript ⟨d⟩, e.g. The Sumerian cuneiform sign by itself was originally an ideogram for the Sumerian word ''an'' ('sky' or 'heaven');Hayes, 2000 its use was then extended to a logogram for the word ('god' or 'goddess')Edzard, 2003 and the supreme deity of the Sumerian pantheon Anu, and a phonogram for the syllable . Akkadian cuneiform took over all these uses and added to them a logographic reading for the native '' ilum'' and from that a syllabic reading of . In Hittite orthography, the syllabic value of the sign was again only ''an''. The concept of divinity in Sumerian is closely associated with the heavens, as is evident from the fact that the cuneiform sign doubles as the ideogram f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Logogram
In a written language, a logogram (from Ancient Greek 'word', and 'that which is drawn or written'), also logograph or lexigraph, is a written character that represents a semantic component of a language, such as a word or morpheme. Chinese characters as used in Chinese as well as other languages are logograms, as are Egyptian hieroglyphs and characters in cuneiform script. A writing system that primarily uses logograms is called a ''logography''. Non-logographic writing systems, such as alphabets and syllabaries, are ''phonemic'': their individual symbols represent sounds directly and lack any inherent meaning. However, all known logographies have some phonetic component, generally based on the rebus principle, and the addition of a phonetic component to pure ideographs is considered to be a key innovation in enabling the writing system to adequately encode human language. Types of logographic systems Some of the earliest recorded writing systems are logographic; th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Babylonia
Babylonia (; , ) was an Ancient history, ancient Akkadian language, Akkadian-speaking state and cultural area based in the city of Babylon in central-southern Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq and parts of Kuwait, Syria and Iran). It emerged as an Akkadian-populated but Amorites, Amorite-ruled state . During the reign of Hammurabi and afterwards, Babylonia was retrospectively called "the country of Akkad" ( in Akkadian), a deliberate archaism in reference to the previous glory of the Akkadian Empire. It was often involved in rivalry with the older ethno-linguistically related state of Assyria in the north of Mesopotamia and Elam to the east in Ancient Iran. Babylonia briefly became the major power in the region after Hammurabi (floruit, fl. –1752 BC middle chronology, or –1654 BC, short chronology timeline, short chronology) created a short-lived empire, succeeding the earlier Akkadian Empire, Third Dynasty of Ur, and Old Assyrian Empire. The Babylonian Empire rapidly fell apar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Assyria
Assyria (Neo-Assyrian cuneiform: , ''māt Aššur'') was a major ancient Mesopotamian civilization that existed as a city-state from the 21st century BC to the 14th century BC and eventually expanded into an empire from the 14th century BC to the 7th century BC. Spanning from the early Bronze Age to the late Iron Age, modern historians typically divide ancient Assyrian history into the Early Assyrian period, Early Assyrian ( 2600–2025 BC), Old Assyrian period, Old Assyrian ( 2025–1364 BC), Middle Assyrian Empire, Middle Assyrian ( 1363–912 BC), Neo-Assyrian Empire, Neo-Assyrian (911–609 BC), and Post-imperial Assyria, post-imperial (609 BC– AD 240) periods, based on political events and gradual changes in language. Assur, the first Assyrian capital, was founded 2600 BC, but there is no evidence that the city was independent until the collapse of the Third Dynasty of Ur, in the 21st century BC, when a line of independent kings starting with Puzur-Ashur I began rulin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mesopotamian Religion
Ancient Mesopotamian religion encompasses the Religion, religious beliefs (concerning the gods, Ancient near eastern cosmology, creation and the cosmos, the origin of man, and so forth) and practices of the civilizations of ancient Mesopotamia, particularly Sumer, Akkadian Empire, Akkad, Assyria and Babylonia between circa 6000 BC and 500 AD. The religious development of Mesopotamia and Mesopotamian culture in general, especially in the south, were not particularly influenced by the movements of the various peoples into and throughout the general area of West Asia. Rather, Mesopotamian religion was a consistent and coherent tradition, which adapted to the internal needs of its adherents over millennia of development. The earliest undercurrents of Mesopotamian religious thought are believed to have developed in Mesopotamia in the 6th millennium BC, coinciding with when the region began to be permanently settled with urban centres. The earliest evidence of Mesopotamian religion dat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Amorites
The Amorites () were an ancient Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic-speaking Bronze Age people from the Levant. Initially appearing in Sumerian records c. 2500 BC, they expanded and ruled most of the Levant, Mesopotamia and parts of Egypt from the 21st century BC to the late 17th century BC. The Amorites established several prominent city-states in various locations, such as Isin, Kurda, Larsa, Mari, Syria, Mari, and Ebla, and later founded Babylon and the Old Babylonian Empire. They also founded the Fourteenth Dynasty of Egypt during the fragmented era of the Second Intermediate Period of Egypt, Second Intermediate Period in the Nile Delta, which was characterized by rulers bearing Amorite names such as Yakbim Sekhaenre, and were likely part of the later Hyksos. The term in Akkadian and Sumerian texts refers to the Amorites, Amurru (god), their principal deity, and Amurru kingdom, an Amorite kingdom. The Amorites are mentioned in the Hebrew Bible as inhabitants of Ca ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Levant
The Levant ( ) is the subregion that borders the Eastern Mediterranean, Eastern Mediterranean sea to the west, and forms the core of West Asia and the political term, Middle East, ''Middle East''. In its narrowest sense, which is in use today in archaeology and other cultural contexts, it is equivalent to Cyprus and a stretch of land bordering the Mediterranean Sea in Western AsiaGasiorowski, Mark (2016). ''The Government and Politics of the Middle East and North Africa''. p. 5: "... today the term ''Levantine'' can describe shared cultural products, such as Levantine cuisine or Levantine archaeology". .Steiner & Killebrew, p9: "The general limits ..., as defined here, begin at the Plain of 'Amuq in the north and extend south until the Wâdī al-Arish, along the northern coast of Sinai. ... The western coastline and the eastern deserts set the boundaries for the Levant ... The Euphrates and the area around Jebel el-Bishrī mark the eastern boundary of the northern Levant, as d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
