Culture and Religion
Coordinates: 34°32′58″N 40°53′24″E / 34.54944°N 40.89°E / 34.54944; 40.89 The citizens of Mari were well known for elaborate hair styles and dress, and were considered to be part of Mesopotamian culture, despite being 240 kilometres (150 mi) upriver from Babylon. It is theorized by some that Mari functioned as a trading post for southern Mesopotamia.
The inhabitants of Mari worshiped a vast array of gods and goddesses. Dagan, the deity of storms, had an entire temple dedicated to him, as did Ishtar, the goddess of fertility, and Shamash, the Sun god. Shamash was believed to be all-knowing and all-seeing, and in many seals he is seen standing between two large doors. According to the Epic of Gilgamesh, these doors are between Mount Mashu, and are the eastern doors to heaven. Through Mari's extensive trade network, Sumerian gods and goddesses were taken to non-Sumerian cities such as Ebla and Ugarit and incorporated into their native religions.
Read more about this topic: Mari, Syria
Famous quotes containing the words culture and/or religion:
“... good and evil appear to be joined in every culture at the spine.”
—Flannery O’Connor (1925–1964)
“I read ... an article by a highly educated man wherein he told with what conscientious pains he had brought up all his children to be skeptical of everything, never to believe anything in life or religion or their own feelings without submitting it to many rational doubts, to have a persistent, thoroughly skeptical, doubting attitude toward everything.... I think he might as well have taken them out in the backyard and killed them with an ax.”
—Brenda Ueland (1891–1985)