Religion-Gods+-+Nika

__Gods And The Temples  __  Sumerian temples consisted of a central nave with aisles along either side. The aisles would be rooms for the priests. At one end would stand the podium and on the other a mud brick table for animal and vegetable sacrifices. Granaries and storehouses were usually located near the temples. After, the Sumerians began to place the temples on top of multi-layered square constructions built as a series of rising terraces which they called ziggurates. The religion of the ancient Sumerians still remains alive in the entire Middle East. Not only are its temples and ziggurats scattered about the region, but the literature, cosmogony and rituals influenced their neighbors to such an extent that we can see the affect in the Judeo-Christian-Islamic tradition today. From these ancient temples, and to a greater extent, through cuneiform writings of hymns, myths, lamentations, incantations, and archaeologist. Each city had a temple that was which was for a major god in the Sumerian pantheon. As the gods controlled the powerful forces that often dictated a human's fate. The city leaders had a to do very good and please the town's patron deity, not only for the good will of that god or goddess, but also for the good will of the other deities in the council of gods. The priesthood initially held this role, and even after secular kings ascended to power, the clergy still held great authority through the interpretation of omens and dreams. Many of the secular kings claimed divine right; Sargon of Agade. The rectangular central shrine of the temple, known as a 'cella,' had a brick altar or offering table in front of a statue of the temple's deity. The cella was lined on its long ends by many rooms for priests and priestesses. These mud-brick buildings were decorated with cone geometrical mosaics, and the occasional fresco with human and animal figures. These temple complexes eventually evolved into towering ziggurats. Priests, priestesses, musicians, singers, castrates and hierodules staffed the temple. Various public rituals, food sacrifices, and libations took place there on a daily basis. There were monthly feasts and annual, New Year celebrations. During the later, the king would be married to Inanna as the resurrected fertility god Dumuzi, whose exploits are dealt with below. If you narrow it down a little more to more private things, a Sumerian remained devout. Although the gods preferred justice and mercy, they had also created evil and misfortune. A Sumerian had little that he could do about it. Judging from Lamentation records, the best one could do in times of duress would be to "plead, lament and wail, tearfully confessing his sins and failings." Their family god or city god might intervene on their behalf, but that would not necessarily happen. After all, man were created as a broken, labor saving, tool for the use of the gods and at the end of everyone's life, lay the underworld, a generally dreary place.  Religion was the central organizing principle of the city-states; each city belonged to a different deity who was worshipped in a large temple. Families also had their own special gods or goddesses, and people prayed by putting their hands in front of their chests.  Today, people don’t believe in the same gods they believed 8000 B.C. Now 80% of people are Muslim, and they only believe one god. As the people got more complex they found out that some of the gods were only an imagination basically they now think that most of the gods their ancestors believed were based on their imagination and didn’t exist.  Over all, people in summer had different religions and gods. Each family believed a different god and thought of the other gods as the evil and misfortune one. One of the important things about people in summer is that they visited the temples and prayed. They were one of the first civilizations to create ziggurats. They didn’t think of gods as someone they could talk to, they looked at the gods as their rulers (president). I hope after reading this passage you get the idea of what the Sumerians’ thought about gods and temples. 