Religious Life of the Fertile Crescent

The flooding of the Tigris and the Euphrates was violent and unpredictable: from one day to the next, life-giving rain could change into an agent of devastation.

It was believed the gods controlled these powerful forces, with humans little more than slaves subject to the whims of fate.

This put religion firmly at the center of daily life, with a temple dedicated to one of the major gods at the heart of each town or city.

Initially these were fairly simple mud-brick constructions, decorated with cone geometrical mosaics and frescos with human and animal figures.

A rectangular shrine, known as a "cella", had a brick altar or offering table in front of a rituals, food sacrifices and libations took place on a daily basis, as well as monthly feasts and annual celebrations of the New Year.

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Record Keeping of the Fertile Crescent

The ancient civilization of Sumer had thrived in agriculture, trade and industry.

It was one of the first civilizations to develop a system of writing. 

Initially pictographs or icons were used, with one of the earliest dictionaries containing about 2,000 graphic symbols, each one meant to resemble that which it represented. 

However, as society developed and the need to record complex matters increased, the limitations of pictorial representation became apparent. 

Gradually people realized that written signs could be used to represent sounds rather than things. 

So pictures were replaced by cuneiform script, a written code based on a series of wedge-shaped characters, usually inscribed on to a soft surface, such as clay. 

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Signs and Symbols of the Fertile Crescent

As early hunter-gatherer societies found ways to work the land, more permanent settlements began to appear, particularly in areas where crops would flourish. 

One such area was in Mesopotamia, the "Fertile Crescent" of land between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in what is now southern Iraq. 

From around 5000 BCE small farming villages in the region were gradually developing into towns and cities, giving birth to some of the earliest civilizations - the word civilization comes from the latin civis, which mean "citizen of a city". 

People were inventing written languages, building temples, palaces and complex dwellings, and creating complex societies in which signs and symbols were interwoven with the fabric of daily life.

More Signs and Symbols of the Fertile Crescent:

RECORD KEEPING

RELIGIOUS LIFE

ZIGGURATS

THE GODDESS ISTAR

BABYLON

LAMASSU

Burials of Primordial People

Paleolithic finds include the first evidence of burial for sacred purposes. 

The dead were believed to gain supernatural powers, and would have been respected and referred to for guidance. 

Red ochre was sprinkled over the bodies; some researchers believe that this may have represented blood and symbolized life and the strength for the journey into the other world. 

In Les Hoteaux (in Ain, France), for example, a late Paleolithic skeleton was found in a small trench, covered with red ochre. 

There was a large stone behind its head, and it was buried with  flint tools and an engraved staff that showed the status of a chieftain.

Numerous other examples of bodies have been found in stone tombs or shallow graves, together with valuable jewelry, tools and other ritual objects. 

It seems the dead were being given food and tools , perhaps symbolically, to equip them for their existence in the next world. 

Sometimes buried bodies have been found to have been tied up in a doubled-up position. This may have been intended to stop the dead from returning and tormenting their living descendants. 

In China the remains of human beings at an evolutionary stage halfway between Pithecanthropus and Neanderthal humans were found: apart from their skulls and lower jawbones, the other bones of the bodies had been placed to represent the animals they would have eaten.

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