Religion and ritual in sixth‐millennium B.C. Mesopotamia

Abstract

Surprisingly little evidence that can be interpreted in terms of religious ritual or beliefs has survived from sixth‐millennium B.C. Mesopotamia. From the Hassuna phase there are virtually no relevant data, and only the cemeteries of Sawwan and Samarra reveal the existence of ‘religious’ beliefs among Samarran communities. Halaf settlements have yielded evidence of both ritual activity and buildings, but there is no persuasive evidence for either a ‘bull cult’ or that of a universal ‘Mother‐Goddess’. Only with the earliest ‘Ubaid villages in Sumer do we find buildings that can be described unequivocally as ‘shrines’.

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