JOURNAL OF QUJING NORMAL UNIVERSITY ›› 2018, Vol. 37 ›› Issue (2): 77-83.

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A Study of the Netherworld Gods Worshipped by the Sumerian in the Ancient Mesopotamia

Zhang Baoli   

  1. The College of Humanities, Qujing Normal University, Qujing Yunnan 655011, China
  • Received:2017-10-25 Online:2018-03-26

Abstract: The Sumerian in the Mesopotamia believe that human must die, and then they will continue to live in the Netherworld as a soul. The Sumerian believe there has comparability between the Real-world and the Netherworld. The gods in the Netherworld replaced the Earth king and officers of each level, and they constituted the administrative system of the Netherworld, managed and governed those souls of the Netherworld. This paper takes The Death of Ur-Namma, which dated to the Ur third Period, The Death of Gilgame and An Elegy on the Death of Nannaya, both dated to the Old Babylonian Period, and other texts as the literature evidence, to establish the system of the Netherworld Gods that the Sumerian worshiped, and to analyze the title and the function of these Gods in the Netherworld.

Key words: Sumerian, the Netherworld, Gods in the Netherworld

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