RELS 212 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Enheduanna, Cylinder Seal, Clifford Geertz
23 Feb 2016
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Two definitions of religion: an institution consisting of culturally patterned interactions with culturally postulated superhuman beings, which symbolize ultimate concerns. No depiction of anu have a king pointing to the deities he worshippers (including. Anu) know it"s a king because headdress. Cylinder seal most people illiterate, at same time have a culture which conducts a great deal of business using contracts, documents which register sales, adoptions, marriages, etc. If elite, going to carry a cylinder seal, carved by expert and done in reverse, so when roll across a wet piece of clay, pictures will impress them on clay properly. Different cylinder seals will have different pieces of art. Status of goddess especially period of mesopotamian religious history: early bronze age, beliefs and mythology especially which circulated between 3000 and 2000 bce. Look at piece of poetry by priestess in praise of inana from end of bronze age, given around 2285-2250 bce.
