Week 2 Blog Post RELS 6.66

In the second week of class, we learned about the cultures of ancient Mesopotamia, which included ancient Babylon. Ancient Mesopotamia had a large area of what is now modern Iraq and Northeastern Syria. They had religious beliefs, practices, and traditions which varied upon the time period. We also learned that the people of ancient Mesopotamia were Sumerian, East Semitic Akkadian, Assyrian, Babylonian, and Chaldean.

Also in the second week of class, we learned about the term "apotropaic magic", which are basically charm makers, and have something to do with good luck charms, amulets, and gestures. People of back then really relied on magic to make sense of how the worlds work. We also started to talk about Enûma Elišh, which had about 1000 lines and has a few similarities to genesis. We also began to talk about Zoroastrianism, which emerged out of a common prehistoric Indo-Iranian religious system dating back to early 2nd millennium B.C.E. It also appeared as a religious figure and philosopher from 600-1000 B.C.E.


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