The Priestly Institution in Ancient Mesopotamia
Keywords:
Iraq, priest, religion, temple, priestly organization
Abstract
A class of influential men appeared in ancient Iraq from the earliest times, who confined in their hands the religious and worldly powers and considered themselves the representatives of the gods on the ground, and the mediators between them and the people, and the various material waste revealed by archaeological excavations is a witness to that development. In the priestly organization, and on the basis of this organization, as the temples of the ancient Iraqis left hundreds of statues that prove the ancient priestly phenomenon in Mesopotamia, and its effective and large role in society.
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ʿUkāshah, Tharwat. Al-Fann al-ʿIrāqī: Sumer wa-Bābil wa-Āshūr. Beirut: Maṭbaʿat Fīnīqiyā, n.d.
Von Soden, W. Madkhal ilā Ḥaḍārāt al-Sharq al-Qadīm. Trans. Fārūq Ismāʿīl. Syria: Dār al-Thaqāfah lil-Nashr wa-al-Tawzīʿ, 2003.
Al-Mājidī, Khazʿal. Bukhūr al-Ālihah: Dirāsah fī al-Ṭibb wa-al-Siḥr wa-al-Usṭūrah wa-al-Dīn. 1st ed. Lebanon: al-Ahliyyah lil-Nashr wa-al-Tawzīʿ, 1998.
Al-Mājidī, Khazʿal. Mutūn Sumer. Book 1. Jordan: al-Ahliyyah lil-Nashr wa-al-Tawzīʿ, 1998.
Al-Mājidī, Khazʿal. Mīthūlūjiyā al-Khulūd: Dirāsah fī Usṭūrat al-Khulūd Qabl al-Mawt wa-Baʿdahu fī al-Ḥaḍārāt al-Qadīmah. Amman: al-Ahliyyah lil-Nashr wa-al-Tawzīʿ, 2002.
Najīb, Mīkhāʾīl Ibrāhīm. Miṣr wa-al-Sharq al-Adnā al-Qadīm: Ḥaḍārāt al-Sharq al-Qadīm, al-ʿIrāq wa-Fāris. Vol. 6. Lebanon: Dār al-Maʿārif, 1967.
Nukhbah min al-Bāḥithīn al-ʿIrāqiyyīn. Ḥaḍārat al-ʿIrāq. Vol. 1. Baghdad: Dār al-Ḥurriyyah, 1985.
Al-Hāshimī, Riḍā. "Al-Niẓām al-Kahanūtī fī al-ʿIrāq al-Qadīm." Majallat Kulliyyat al-Ādāb al-ʿIrāqiyyah, no. 14, 1970–1971.
Dhorme, Édouard. Les Religions de Babylonie et d’Assyrie. 2nd ed. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France (PUF), 1949.
Oates, Joan. Babylon. London: Thames and Hudson, 1979.
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2020-06-30
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