d from their mortal cousins in their greater power, position in the universe, and their immortality. The Mesopotamians believed that their duty was to serve the gods and provide them with offerings of food, clothing, and art. The gods were fed meals, sung songs, and honored with devotion and ritual.The Mesopotamians had a gloomy picture of the afterlife. They believed that the winged spirits of the dead were confined to a dark netherworld, doomed to perpetual hunger and thirst unless someone offered them food and drink. They believed that some spirits escaped to haunt live human beings. The most interesting thing about their vision of the afterlife is that in it, all humans suffered equally -- there was no special treatment for those who had some well and good in life or for those who had been poor or bad. There were burial rituals, and people were usually buried with pottery and other trinkets. There were not, however, tombstones or inscriptions to identify the dead. The explanation offered by Historians is that the Mesopotamians were mainly concerned with the problems of the mortal world and leading a good life before dying.The Egyptians Egyptian religious beliefs shared some similarities with Mesopotamian beliefs, but differenced in many important ways. Egyptians had numerous explanations for the formation of the universe, which varied from city to city. In Heliopolis, it was the sun god Re who emerged from a dark, vast sea to a primeval mound, containing within himself the life force of all the other gods, which he created. In Memphis, it was the god Ptah who created the other gods by simply speaking their names. Each city had a different explanation. Their image of the gods was also different that that of the Mesopotamians. Like them, the Egyptians saw the gods as human in form and emotion, except that most Egyptian gods had human bodies and animal heads. All except for the sun god, Aten, who is usually represented...
