Religion in the Ancient World

What is considered "ancient" is a matter of conjecture when it comes to religious thoughts and ideas? In some ways in religious thinking everything old is new again. The key questions that humans seek to resolve have never become redundant. What is the cause and reason for all of creation? What is the purpose of life, the universe and everything? What is the proper relationship between humans and the rest of the natural world? How should one treat one's tribe or family and those who are not of our group? While these questions have never left the human stage and are central to the existence of religious faith, there is a sense in which the answers proposed have have emerged as part of the evolution of the humankind. Also there is evidence that ancient answers continue to inspire and be adapted by believers in later times. 

Historians can speak of pre-history of religion existing in early homo sapiens, but the cultures that emerge in the late neolithic, bronze and iron ages have stronger examples of the aspects of religion that can be recognised in today's religious world.
Origins

The prehistory of religion relates to a study of religious beliefs that existed prior to the advent of written records. Prehistory refers to archaeological explanations of what happened in human societies according to the traces left by intentional human activity. The history of religion refers to the written record of human religious experiences and ideas. This period of religious history begins with the invention of writing about 5,000 years ago (3000 BCE) in the Near East. Essentially, it is what happened in the world before the invention of writing in Sumer, China and Meso-America. 

Palaeolithic & Mesolithic

The earliest evidence of religious ideas dates back several hundred thousand years to the Middle and Lower Palaeolithic periods. Archaeologists refer to apparent intentional burials of early homo sapiens from as early as 300,000 years ago as evidence of religious ideas.

Other evidence of religious ideas include symbolic artefacts from Middle Stone Age sites in Africa. However, the interpretation of early Palaeolithic artefacts, with regard to how they relate to religious ideas, remains controversial. Archaeological evidence from more recent periods is less controversial. A number of artefacts from the Upper Palaeolithic or Mesolothic Period (50,000-13,000) are generally interpreted by scientists as representing religious ideas.

Examples of Upper Palaeolithic or Mesolithic remains associated with religious beliefs include the lion man, the Venus figurines, cave paintings from Chauvet Cave and the elaborate ritual burial from Sungir.




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Chauvet Cave

For your GLOSSARY

Archaeologist

Palaeolithic

Mesolithic

Neolithic

Neolithic religions


Through the bulk of human evolution, humans lived in small nomadic bands practicing a hunter gatherer lifestyle. The emergence of complex and organized religions can be traced to the period when humans abandoned their nomadic hunter gatherer lifestyles in order to begin farming during the Neolithic period. The transition from foraging bands to states and empires resulted in more specialized and developed forms of religion that were reflections of the new social and political environments. While bands and small tribes possess supernatural beliefs, these beliefs were adapted to smaller populations and needed adaptation to deal with larger social systems.

The religions of the Neolithic peoples provide evidence of some of the earliest known forms of organized religions.

The Neolithic settlement of Çatalhöyük, in what is now Turkey, was home to about 8,000 people and remains the largest known settlement from the Neolithic period. James Mellaart, who excavated the site, believed that Çatalhöyük was the spiritual center of central Anatolia. A striking feature of Çatalhöyük are its female figurines. Mellaart, the original excavator, argued that these well-formed, carefully made figurines, carved and molded from marble, blue and brown limestone, schist, calcite, basalt, alabaster, and clay, represented a female deity of the Great Goddess type. Although a male deity existed as well, “…statues of a female deity far outnumber those of the male deity, who moreover, does not appear to be represented at all after Level VI”.
For Your GLOSSARY

figurines

deity

empire




GEOGRAPHY

Near East
Turkey (Anatolia)
Egypt
Mesopotamia (Sumer)

Nature of Religion in the Ancient Civilisations


Organized religion emerged as a means of providing social and economic stability to large populations.

Organized religion served to justify the central authority, which in turn possessed the right to collect taxes in return for providing social and security services to the state. The empires of Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia (Sumer, Babylon, Persia) and Caanan (including early Judaism) were theocracies, with chiefs, kings and emperors playing dual roles of political and spiritual leaders. Virtually all state societies and chiefdoms around the world have similar political structures where political authority is justified by divine sanction.

The pyramid texts from ancient Egypt are one of the oldest known religious texts in the world dating to between 2400-2300 BCE. Writing played a major role in sustaining organized religion by standardizing religious ideas regardless of time or location.

Organized religion emerged as means of maintaining peace between unrelated individuals and groups. Bands and tribes consist of small number of related individuals. However, civilisations were composed of many groups and perhaps thousands or even millions of individuals.

In the eastern end of the European continent and in the Near East, Persian, Greek and later Roman conquests of vast areas in massive strategic military assaults also used religious mythology and practices to underpin their attitudes to life and death and to the relationships between humans and their gods. The cross fertilisation and adaptation of religious ideas from one civilisation to the next is a feature of the development of human religious thought.

Similarly in the Americas beginning as early as 7000 BCE, the domestication of many crops as well as the turkey and dog, caused a transition from paleo-Indian hunter-gatherer tribal grouping to the organization of sedentary agricultural villages.  Known as Meso-America, in the subsequent formative period, agriculture and cultural traits such as a complex mythological and religious tradition, a numeric system, a complex calendar system, a tradition of ball playing, and a distinct architectural style, were diffused through the area. Meso-America is one of the regions of the world where writing is known to have independently developed (the others being Sumer, Egypt and China).

​For your GLOSSARY

theocracies

enmity

monotheism

polytheism

atheism

agnosticism

dualism

platonism


GEOGRAPHY

Babylon
Egypt
Canaan
Rome
Greece
Persia

Meso-America

From the Axial Age to Modern Times

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Axial age

The period from 900 to 200 BCE has been described by historians as the axial age, a term coined by German philosopher Karl Jaspers. According to Jaspers, this is the era of history when "the spiritual foundations of humanity were laid simultaneously and independently... And these are the foundations upon which humanity still subsists today". Intellectual historian Peter Watson has summarized this period as the foundation of many of humanity's most influential philosophical traditions, including monotheism in Persia and Canaan, Platonism in Greece, Buddhism, Jainism and Hinduism in India, and Confucianism and Taoism in China. These ideas would become institutionalized in time, for example Ashoka's role in the spread of Buddhism, or the role of platonic philosophy in Christianity at its foundation.
Middle Ages

Newer present-day world religions established themselves throughout Eurasia during the Middle Ages by: Christianisation of the Western world; Buddhist missions to East Asia; the decline of Buddhism in the Indian subcontinent; and the spread of Islam throughout the Middle East, Central Asia, North Africa and parts of Europe and India.

During the Middle Ages, Muslims were in conflict with Zoroastrians during the Islamic conquest of Persia; Christians were in conflict with Muslims during the Byzantine-Arab Wars, Christians were in conflict with Muslims during the Crusades, Reconquista and Inquisition; Shamans were in conflict with Buddhists, Taoists, Muslims and Christians during the Mongol invasions; and Muslims were in conflict with Hindus and Sikhs during Muslim conquest in the Indian subcontinent.

Many medieval religious movements emphasized mysticism, such as the Cathars movement in Christianity, the Kabbalah movement among the Jews of Northern Spain, the Bhakti movement in Hinduism in India and Sufism in Islam.

​Monotheism reached definite forms in medieval Christology and in Islamic Tawhid. Hindu monotheist notions of Brahman likewise reached their classical form with the teaching of Adi Shankaracharya
Modern Period

European colonisation during the 15th to 19th centuries resulted in the spread of Christianity to Sub-Saharan Africa, the Americas, Australia and the Philippines. The invention of the printing press in the 15th century played a major role in the rapid spread of the Protestant Reformation under leaders such as Martin Luther and John Calvin. Wars of religion followed, culminating in the Thirty Years War which ravaged central Europe, 1618-1648. Both Protestant and Catholic churches competed in a global endeavor to Christianize the world.

The 18th century saw the beginning of secularisation in Europe, gaining momentum after the French Revolution. By the late 20th century religion had declined to only a weak force in most of Europe.

In the 20th century, the regimes of Communist Eastern Europe and Communist China were explicitly anti-religious. A great variety of new religious movements originated in the 20th century, many proposing syncretism of elements of established religions. However, adherence to such new movements is limited. 

Today scholars estimate that there are around 4200 active religions in the world. Adherents of the classical world religions account for more than 75% of the world's population.

Atheism is the absence of religious belief, and it’s a growing trend in many countries, particularly in Europe. Religious experts are estimating that there are somewhere between 500 to 750 million atheists in the world. 
 As of 2019, an estimated 16% of the world's population identifies as unaffiliated .
 Click here for the Story of Monotheism
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