Greater Mesopotamia Theories

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Greater Mesopotamia is an important location for the rise of civilization since it has the earliest evidence of a state and is taken as a model for patterns throughout all archeological researches about early civilizations. Its development is therefore really important and must be deeply understood with the help of already developed theories. Throughout the Great Mesopotamia history, early cultures such as Hassunan, Samarian and Halafian ones most probably had their ritual centers even though the Sumerians were responsible for the first monumental temples and palaces, for the founding of the first city-states and most likely for the invention of writing. They allowed the recording of religion and the understanding of religious development for both themselves and the Akkadians, whom they coexisted with. This constant increase in the importance accorded to rituals demonstrated specifically with the introduction of temples and the long-lasting existence of the societies that accord more importance to religion is best understand via Roy Rappaport’s theoretical perspective. According to him, religion has to explain, unify and give mean to societies. It makes people busy and the society last longer so it has a homeostatic mechanism. Therefore, Mesopotamians used religion to have ordered and long-lasting societies with well-conducting citizens. The importance of religion increased according to the importance of the group: it became larger with the community it was for: pre-Sumerian groups did not have and did not need to have that much religious influence because of their sizes but when city-states appeared, a higher control and power was required to guarantee the stability and well-functioning of the society. On the other hand, the actual understanding of the religious ideas was brought to use with the recordings. Through these recordings, we learn about
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