Way-oh to all you Collectors of Goddess Names out there. Here’s a sobering factoid for ya: “In 1914, Anton Deimel, the compiler of the first Sumerian dictionary, listed 3,300 names of Mesopotamian divinities, and the number known has grown with each passing decade” (Westenholz, Joan, “Goddesses of the Ancient Near East,” in Goodison and Morris, Ancient Goddesses: The Myths and the Evidence, 1998, p. 67).
And this is just in Mesopotamia 'round about 3000-1000 BC! You know, that little spit of land between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers in Iraq?
As I’m sure most of you know, the problem is, every town, village and city in the ancient world was the proud possessor of its own tidy little pantheon of goddesses and gods. And of course without cell phones or the internet, who knew who had which or what, and so who could trade or compare?
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thnx to doctian for the foto
