Wikipedia: Sumerian Mythology/Talk

I'm not at all sure what to do with: "The religion was originally female-based." A female creator? What? The society wasn't matriarchal. --MichaelTinkler

"Egalitarian"? I don't know the facts on this.

: that's not a synonym for 'female' in my book. --MichaelTinkler

Mine neither. :-) I wasn't sure what the question was, whether it meant: "the religion was not in fact matriarchal". Carry on. :-)

The religion focused mostly around worship of Nammu and other goddesses like Inanna and ninhursag for a very long time. Fertility rituals were very big. Temple priestesses got a lot of respect. This is why a lot of feminist philosphies refer to it. Admittedly, yes the society still opressed women, and very few enjoyed the freedom Innana (of course fictional) had that feminists tout so much.

Eventually, Enlil worship and finally Marduk worship took precedence. Is this what you are thinking of?

--Alan D

: maybe that's what the first author was thinking of, but merely worshiping goddesses doesn't ever really imply niceness to women. The cult of the Virgin Mary in the middle ages and Renaissance has been exploded as an upward mobility factor for females (at tiresome length). Feminist philosophies are seldom, unfortunately, connected to historical evidence. Feminist art history and feminist history sometimes is. --MichaelTinkler

I wrote the initial entry--I did not intend to imply that the religion liberated women in any tangible way. I will modify accordingly. --AlanD?

OK, I'm going to have to seriously plan this out before I change it. The problem here is that how could I ever do better than the Sumerian Mythology FAQ???

: ...much like greek mythology

Is there any documentation that supports existence of link between Greek and Summerian mythology or is it just author's subjective opinion ? --Taw

Oh, I see what you are referring to now. The wording is a little awakwward for the point I wanted to make. For the most part greek mythology is not taken from sumerian mythology, but there are a few stories from sumeria that had been adapted to feature greek gods, and there are a few gods that have too strong a similarity to be denied.

--Alan D