Persepolis may have been built in the 500s BC as a place to celebrate Nowruz. What is the holiday of Nowruz? Zoroastrianism became much more popular suddenly when the Persian kings [...]
The Mesopotamian goddess Ishtar or Inanna What is polytheism? The earliest people in West Asia were all polytheistic: they all worshipped many gods. From 3000 BC to 539 BC, the Sumerians, the Akkadians, the Assyrians and the Babylonians all [...]
Ardashir II becomes the Persian king, in the center, with Mithra and Ahura Mazda by his side (Taq-e Bostan, Iran, 300s AD) (They're trampling on the Roman Empire Julian.) Who [...]
The Mesopotamian god Ishtar or Inanna Who was Ishtar? Ishtar (also called Inanna) was an important god of West Asia. Beginning at least by 3000 BC the Sumerians, the Akkadians, the [...]
Sumerian clay worshippers from Tell Asmar Why did so many religions start in West Asia? West Asia has been the home of many of the world's most popular religions, and [...]
Apollonius of Tyana (or some other holy man) Closer to the gods There is a long tradition in West Asia (and in India and China) that some men and women, and some [...]
Clay tablets with cuneiform writing of the Enuma Elish Story of Creation By about the time of Hammurabi, about 1700 BC, people in the Babylonian Empire were beginning to write down this story about [...]
Who was Enlil? This is what one of the tablets that was found in the Assyrian king's library looks like. This one tells the story of the Flood. The Sumerian god [...]
Ba'al from Ugarit (Louvre Museum, Paris) He who shall not be named? All along the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea, in what's now Lebanon, Syria, and Israel, and down into [...]
Cybele and Attis standing together, while two much smaller human worshippers pray to them. From the Hellenistic kingdoms, in what is now Turkey, in the 100s BC Who was Cybele? [...]
