Mesopotamian/Babylonian/Sumerian Pantheon Mythology Chart

Includes 4 PNG files in a Zipped Folder: 2 Copies of the Babylonian and Sumerian Pantheons with Deities Colored by Archetype (i.e. Sun Gods, Sky Gods, etc), and 2 Copies in Grayscale Optimized for Black & White Home-Printing.

I (Joshua J Kes) am passionate about mythology and anthropology. I have a Bachelor of Science in Geography and Sociology; the study of places and people, respectively. I've been working on a database for comparative mythological studies for a few years now, and thought I'd put together some slick informative charts/posters of family trees for various pantheons.

Mesopotamia has some of the oldest attested (written down) gods in West Asia. The roots of Mesopotamian proto-civilization go back 12,000+ years to Gobeklitepe and Tell Abu Hureyra (the Taş Tepeler and Natufian Neolithic cultures, respectively). These ancient astrologers and farmers lived in Upper Mesopotamia (the headwaters of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers, near modern Turkey and Syria), at the feet of the Taurus and Zagros Mountains, where Sheep, Goats, and Cattle were domesticated.

Many successive waves of migrations and discernibly different cultures have come and gone since those ancient peoples first settled in Mesopotamia: the Sumerians, Akkadians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Hurrians, Persians, and Greeks. Many of these adopted, added-to, and syncretized with the religions that came before them. It is difficult to discern where one wave's pantheon ends and another begins. Therefore, by "Babylonian Pantheon" I am referring to the most popular and latest stage of development for the Sumerian-Akkadian-Babylonian pantheon, which is most often generalized as "Mesopotamian", even though the Sumerians, Akkadians/Assyrians, and Amorite/Babylonians each have their own distinct heritages and histories. In short, the biggest distinction would be between the Non-Semitic Sumerians who seem to have lived in Lower Mesopotamia first, and the Semitic Akkadians/Assyrians/Babylonians who migrated from Upper Mesopotamia into Lower Mesopotamia, usurping and ultimately assimilating the Sumerians. For instance, Marduk was not worshipped by the Sumerians, but by the later Babylonians, who promoted him to king of the gods during the Amorite Dynasty, including the reign of Hammurabi, usurping the roles of Enlil and Ninurta before him.

Needless to say, we have to make many compromises when it comes to choosing certain more or less well-attested lineages over others, in order to fit everything within a rectangular paper-sized format, and to visualize everything in a clear and concise way. We implore you to use this chart as an aid for your own learning and research.

I also produce YouTube videos on this subject @Sapienite1, with episodes on individual motifs and pantheons. If you like what you see, you may check them out for more details! Here's my video on the Hittite Pantheon:

https://youtu.be/trmF1qvMfM8

My methodology of comparison for mythological motifs uses a simple coding system including 11 motifs/archetypes, each color-coded and in order from left-to-right:

1. HEARTH - Fire, Blacksmithing, or Domestic Deities like Gerra or Gibil.
2. EARTH - Earth, Fertility, or Agricultural Deities like Ki and Ninurta.
3. SKY - Sky, Storm, or Messenger Deities like Anu and Marduk.
4. WATER - Sea, River, or Wellspring Deities like Tiamat and Dagon.
5. CHTHONIC - Underworld Deities like Enki and Ereshkigal.
6. DAY - Sun or Light Deities like Shamash and Sherida.
7. NIGHT - Moon, Night, or Dusk Deities like Sin and Ningal.
8. LOVE - Dawn, Love, or Justice Deities like Ishtar and Ishtaran.
9. WAR - War Deities like Nergal and Zababa.
10. DEMIGOD - Heroes and Demigods like Gilgamesh and Enkidu.
11. MONSTER - Monsters and Spirits like Pazuzu and Anzu.

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