Sumerian religionSumerian religion was the religion practiced by the people of Sumer, the first literate civilization of ancient Mesopotamia. The Sumerians regarded their divinities as responsible for all matters pertaining to the natural and social orders. Before the beginning of kingship in Sumer, the city-states were effectively ruled by theocratic priests and religious officials. Later, this role was supplanted by kings, but priests continued to exert great influence on Sumerian society.
QatnaQatna (modern: تل المشرفة, Tell al-Mishrifeh) (also Tell Misrife or Tell Mishrifeh) was an ancient city located in Homs Governorate, Syria. Its remains constitute a tell situated about northeast of Homs near the village of al-Mishrifeh. The city was an important center through most of the second millennium BC and in the first half of the first millennium BC. It contained one of the largest royal palaces of Bronze Age Syria and an intact royal tomb that has provided a great amount of archaeological evidence on the funerary habits of that period.
HyksosHyksos (ˈhɪksɒs; Egyptian ḥqꜣ(w)-ḫꜣswt, Egyptological pronunciation: hekau khasut, "ruler(s) of foreign lands") is a term which, in modern Egyptology, designates the kings of the Fifteenth Dynasty of Egypt (fl. c. 1650–1550 BC). The seat of power of these kings was the city of Avaris in the Nile delta, from where they ruled over Lower and Middle Egypt up to Cusae. In the Aegyptiaca, a history of Egypt written by the Greco-Egyptian priest and historian Manetho in the 3rd century BC, the term Hyksos is used ethnically to designate people of probable West Semitic, Levantine origin.
YamhadYamhad (Yamḫad) was an ancient Semitic-speaking kingdom centered on Ḥalab (Aleppo) in Syria. The kingdom emerged at the end of the 19th century BC and was ruled by the Yamhad dynasty, who counted on both military and diplomacy to expand their realm. From the beginning of its establishment, the kingdom withstood the aggressions of its neighbors Mari, Qatna and the Old Assyrian Empire, and was turned into the most powerful Syrian kingdom of its era through the actions of its king Yarim-Lim I.
Gibeon (ancient city)Gibeon (, Gīḇəʻōn; Γαβαων, Gabaōn) was a Canaanite and later an Israelite city, which was located north of Jerusalem. According to , the pre-Israelite-conquest inhabitants, the Gibeonites, were Hivites; according to , they were Amorites. The remains of Gibeon are located in the southern portion of the Palestinian village of al-Jib. After the destruction of Jericho and Ai, the Hivite people of Gibeon sent ambassadors to trick Joshua and the Israelites into making a treaty with them.
KassitesThe Kassites (ˈkæsaɪts) were people of the ancient Near East, who controlled Babylonia after the fall of the Old Babylonian Empire 1531 BC and until 1155 BC (short chronology). They gained control of Babylonia after the Hittite sack of Babylon in 1531 BC, and established a dynasty generally assumed to have been based first in that city, after a hiatus. Later rule shifted to the new city of Dur-Kurigalzu. By the time of Babylon's fall, the Kassites had already been part of the region for a century and a half, acting sometimes with the Babylon's interests and sometimes against.
LarsaLarsa (Sumerian logogram: UD.UNUGKI, read Larsamki), also referred to as Larancha/Laranchon (Gk. Λαραγχων) by Berossos and connected with the biblical Ellasar, was an important city-state of ancient Sumer, the center of the cult of the sun god Utu. It lies some southeast of Uruk in Iraq's Dhi Qar Governorate, near the east bank of the Shatt-en-Nil canal at the site of the modern settlement Tell as-Senkereh or Sankarah. Isin-Larsa period The historical "Larsa" was already in existence as early as the reign of Eannatum of Lagash (reigned circa 2500–2400 BCE), who annexed it to his empire.
HurriansThe Hurrians (ˈhʊəriənz; cuneiform: ; transliteration: Ḫu-ur-ri; also called Hari, Khurrites, Hourri, Churri, Hurri or Hurriter) were a people who inhabited the Ancient Near East during the Bronze Age. They spoke the Hurrian language, and lived throughout northern Syria, upper Mesopotamia and southeastern Anatolia. The Hurrians were first documented in the city of Urkesh, where they built their first kingdom. Their largest and most influential Hurrian kingdom was Mitanni.
NergalNergal (Sumerian: dKIŠ.UNU or dGÌR.UNU.GAL; ; Aramaic: ܢܸܪܓܲܠ; Nirgal) was a Mesopotamian god worshiped through all periods of Mesopotamian history, from Early Dynastic to Neo-Babylonian times, with a few attestations indicating that his cult survived into the period of Achaemenid domination. He was primarily associated with war, death, and disease, and has been described as the "god of inflicted death". He reigned over Kur, the Mesopotamian underworld, depending on the myth either on behalf of his parents Enlil and Ninlil, or in later periods as a result of his marriage with the goddess Ereshkigal.
InannaInanna is an ancient Mesopotamian goddess of love, war, and fertility. She is also associated with beauty, sex, divine law, and political power. She was known by the Akkadian Empire, Babylonians, and Assyrians as Ishtar (and occasionally the logogram ). Her primary title was "the Queen of Heaven", and she was the patron goddess of the Eanna temple at the city of Uruk, which was her early main cult center.
