Mesopotamian deity

Mesopotamian mythic corpus contains narratives in which deities are primary actors in the ordering of the world and in creation. Scholarly summaries note myths where gods fashion items and humans out of clay, and myth cycles also recount sexual and social interactions among gods (for example, the Enlil–Ninlil and the Enki–Ninhursag narratives are cited in the literature as exemplars of divine sexual relations that have cosmological consequences). These motifs present deities as artisans and progenitors whose acts bring aspects of the human world into being and establish social and cosmic order (see Duke abstract on deities crafting items from clay; bibliotecapleyades summaries of Enlil/Ninlil and Enki/Ninhursag episodes).

Sources emphasize that Mesopotamian deities were almost exclusively anthropomorphic and often envisioned as large in stature. Common iconographic markers include horned caps composed of up to seven superimposed pairs of ox-horns and the wearing of melam, an ambiguous substance that 'covered them in terrifying splendor.' Deities are also depicted in clothes with elaborate gold and silver ornaments sewn into them. Material representations include cult statues or idols, cylinder seals, stelae, and relief panels; some individual panels are subject to scholarly debate in identification (e.g., whether a female figure represents Inanna, Ereshkigal, or other figures).

As a class, deities possess extraordinary powers and take part in creative/cosmogenic actions such as crafting objects and humans from clay. Their presence produces intense physiological and emotional effects on humans — described with terms such as ni ('the physical creeping of the flesh') and puluhtu ('fear') — because of the melam that surrounds them. Deities hold domains or roles in the cosmos in specific cases (for example, Ningishzida is associated with vegetation and the underworld; Ereshkigal rules the underworld), and divine identities could be syncretized or equated across linguistic and cultural boundaries (as in Kassite–Mesopotamian lexical lists), reflecting fluidity in functions and status.