Ancient Near Eastern cosmology

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The cosmology of the ancient Near East denotes the beliefs concerning the universe's origin, evolution, and structure that prevailed in the ancient Near East, an area equivalent to the modern Middle East and encompassing Mesopotamia, Egypt, Persia, the Levant, Anatolia, and the Arabian Peninsula. Premodern cosmology in this region featured a flat earth, a solid firmament above the sky, a cosmic ocean above that, a divine realm above the ocean, and a netherworld at the bottom. Creation myths explained where the universe came from, including which gods created it (and how), as well as how humanity was created. These beliefs are attested as early as the fourth millennium BC and dominated until the modern era, with the only major competing system being the Hellenistic cosmology that developed in Ancient Greece in the mid-1st millennium BC. Geographically, these views are known from the Mesopotamian cosmologies from Babylonia, Sumer, and Akkad; the Levantine or West Semitic cosmologies from...

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