E-muc-kalama

In the highly acclaimed (no, not really) mythological tale, “Inanna’s Descent to the Nether World”, one of the temples Inanna abandons is the E-muc-kalama in Bad-Tibira. Although she deserted the temple of Bad-Tibira, she wasn’t the city’s patron deity. That honor fell to the god Lulal.

Lulal is a bit of an enigma in himself. It is uncertain if he is the same god of Assyria, La-tarak, or if they are different gods who are closely related. Later in the second millennium BC, both of these deities were treated as a pair. Figurines of Lulal and La-tarak would be buried at doorways, telling us that they were magically protective deities. In magical texts, they are listed as deities who protect against witchcraft.

In times past, Mesopotamians worshipped in open-air sanctuaries, private chapels located in domestic homes, or small and separate chapels in the residential quarters of a town. The main vein of all religious life, however, was the temple.

In Sumeria, as in most Mesopotamian cultures, the temple (e in Sumeria and bitu “house” in Akkadian) was no less than the earthly home of the gods. Each perspective deity lived in his or her abode in the form of a cult statue. This statue was not the actual god, but was imbued with the divine presence.

There were different classes of priests and priestesses at the temples. These classes ranged from “high priest/priestess”, all the way down to courtyard sweepers. There seem to have been two main types; the administrative priest and the religious specialists who dealt with particular areas of the temple. While it is unclear if there were fixed distinctions between the sacerdotal clergy and the administrative clergy, there is a group called the “anointed” and others called “enterers of the temple”. This seems to suggest that certain areas of the shrines had restricted access. Generally, priestesses were in service of female deities, with the notable exception of the en, a chaste high priestess of some of the Sumerian gods.