Anunnaki

Worship and iconography

The Anunnaki are chiefly mentioned in literary texts^[9] and very little evidence to support the existence of any cult of them has yet been unearthed.^[9][10] This is likely because each member of the Anunnaki had his or her own individual cult, separate from the others.^[11] Similarly, no representations of the Anunnaki as a complete group have yet been discovered,^[11] although a few depictions of two or three individual members together have been identified.^[11] Deities in ancient Mesopotamia were almost exclusively anthropomorphic.^[12] They were thought to possess extraordinary powers^[12] and were often envisioned as being of tremendous physical size.^[12] The deities typically wore melam, an ambiguous substance which "covered them in terrifying splendor".^[13] Melam could also be worn by heroes, kings, giants, and even demons.^[14] The effect that seeing a deity's melam has on a human is described as ni, a word for the physical tingling of the flesh.^[15] Deities were almost always depicted wearing horned caps,^[16][17] consisting of up to seven superimposed pairs of ox-horns.^[18] They were also sometimes depicted wearing clothes with elaborate decorative gold and silver ornaments sewn into them.^[17]


The ancient Mesopotamians believed that their deities lived in Heaven,^[19] after an earlier history of visiting earth in the mythological texts, and that a god's statue was a physical embodiment of the god himself.^[19][20] As such, cult statues were given constant care and attention^[19][21] and a set of priests was assigned to tend to them.^[22] These priests would clothe the statues^[20] and place feasts before them so they could "eat".^[19][21] A deity's temple was believed to be that deity's literal place of residence.^[23] The gods had boats, full-sized barges which were normally stored inside their temples^[24] and were used to transport their cult statues along waterways during various religious festivals.^[24] The gods also had chariots, which were used for transporting their cult statues by land.^[25] Sometimes a deity's cult statue would be transported to the location of a battle so that the deity could watch the battle unfold.^[25] The major deities of the Mesopotamian pantheon, which included the Anunnaki, were believed to participate in the "assembly of the gods",^[16] through which the gods made all of their decisions.^[16] This assembly was seen as a divine counterpart to the semi-democratic legislative system that existed during the Third Dynasty of Ur (c. 2112 BC – c. 2004 BC).^[16]