Mesopotamia Animism

At the time of 3500-1500 B.C.E two major civilizations started to thrive near the Middle East. Even though Mesopotamia and Egypt had many differences, their civilizations still had many similarities. Egypt and Mesopotamia were similar in farming, theocracy, and the belief of animism. They had more of a contrast between their feelings toward the Gods, unity of the government and states, and the way nature affects the society.The Tigris and Euphrates where a source of help for Mesopotamia as is the Nile to Egypt, but they both have different roles in the civilizations. These two rivers help with the peoples beliefs of Gods and they also helped provide a specific way to view them. The way people viewed the Gods also affected the amount of power …show more content…
Animism is the belief that objects, places and creatures possess a distinct spiritual essence. Both Mesopotamia and Egypt believe the things around them such as, the sun, rivers and natural disasters were controlled by multiple Gods/Goddesses. This is also know as Polytheism, or the belief in many Gods. Although they had the same belief system they differed in the ways they viewed their Gods. In Mesopotamia they believed their Gods to be unmerciful and bitter towards the people. In contrast to Mesopotamia, Egyptians believed their Gods to be kind and understanding. These views reflect onto their geographical and views on government. Some of the conflict it brings in Mesopotamia is the belief that the Tigris and Euphrates river are a punishment towards Mesopotamians for all the bad things they have done. Egypt believes the Nile river is a gift sent down from the Gods and that it in itself is a living God, this helps to show the belief of animism. This also affetcs the way the people view the afterlife. In Egypt they have a very strong belief in afterlife, they went to extreme lengths to make sure higher class peoples had a safe passage to the afterlife. One the ways they prepared for the afterlife is through mummification, the proccess of removing the organs and preserving the body to prevent from decay. In contrast Mesopotamin’s did …show more content…
In Egypt they believe there pharaohs to be a living God in human form and that when they die there soul moves into the body of the pharaohs son. While in Mesopotamia they believe the ruler/priests where not actually living Gods but where able to make contact with them. One example of this is Hamarabi (1792-1750 BCE) he was a ruler, who made a set of codes called Hammurabi’s Code. He had them engraved into a stone that stood over the empire, atop that stone was a image of Hamurabi being given the laws by the God, Shamash (the sun God). Shamash is being shown giving Hamurabi a staff and ring, which helped to symbolize the importance of following these laws. Unlike Egypt Mesopotamia was seperated into seperate city-states. Each city-state had there own government, and patron God, it basically functioned as its own independant country. In Egypt there were no seperate city-states, the king of Upper-Egypt Menes helped to united the two regions: Upper and Lower Egypt (3,100 BCE). Pharaohs were determended by legitimacy, when the people belive a ruler has the right to rule them. While in Mesopotamia the ruler was determined by the amount of power someone has. Even though there were different ways of choosing who was worthy of ruling they had the same basis for who shall rule once the original person dies. This way of ruling