Both Mesopotamia and Egypt Believed in Numerous Gods.

The people of both Mesopotamia and Egypt believed in numerous Gods. They both had powerful rulers who provided over the land, and in artwork these rulers were portrayed as deities or the representative to deities. For example,in Egyptian paintings, the Pharoah was much larger than everyone else while other paintings were created where king Hamurabi of Babylon would stand, seeing eye to eye with a god. In the paintings the god would be passing a septor, which represented power, to Hamurabi. Only a king could speak to a god, which represented the passage and connection between heaven and earth.

In these ways, both in Egyptian and Mesopotamian cultures the leaders used artwork to portray themselves as godlike beings. This manipulation used people's religious beliefs to help cement the status of the leaders as far above, and closer to the heavens, than the people they ruled over.

e. Paintings were created where Hamurabi would stand, seeing eye to eye with a god. In the paintings the god would be passing a septor, which represented power, to Hamurabi. Only a king could speak to a god, and in the paintings, Hamurabi would be standing on a Ziggurat, which represented the passage and connection between heaven and earth. In these ways, both in Egyptian and Mesopotamian cultures the leaders used artwork to portray themselves as godlike beings. This manipulation used people's religious beliefs to help cement the status of the leaders as far above, and closer to the heavens, than the people they ruled over.

While there were similarities in the ways the leaders represented themselves, the stories they told showed that both Mesopotamia and Egypt had vastly different views of the world and the afterlife. In Mesopotamia, the epic of Gilgamesh featured Enkidu, a being created by the gods to compete with the great King Gilgamesh. And yet when Enkidu angered the gods one day, they decided that it was cause for him to die. Gilgamesh and Enkidu had become friends by this point and so Gilgamesh set out on a quest to find immortality, not only to save Enkidu, but also to learn if he could one day be saved, himself. Gilgamesh was not successful in his quest, and learned by the end that he could not spend his life thinking about his death, and that he needed to be the best leader he could be during the time he was given. This story represented a more final belief in death than could be found in the Egyptian culture, where mummification and an afterlife were strong religious beliefs.

Egyptians told a very different story of the afterlife and possibility of it taking place. In their story of Isis and Osiris, also gods, Osiris was cut into many pieces by his brother, Seth. The pieces were scattered all over Egypt. Isis then went around collecting the pieces, similar to Gilgamesh on his quest to revive Enkidu. Only the result was very different. Unlike Gilgamesh, Isis was successful and able to put the pieces together and bring Osiris back to life. This story represented rebirth and the strong Egyptian belief that an afterlife was attainable.

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