The Sacredness of the Mother in Ancient Iraqi Thought

Since the emergence of human beings on this earth، the story of creation and formation has been an obsession for man and a big question mark that he has struggled to explain as much as his reflections on the events of his life have allowed him to make sense of them، and the idea of human creation and the reason for his existence in this world has occupied a wide area of religious thought in ancient societies. It seems that the association of human birth and coming to life with the female made the ancient man believe that she is the main element in the existence and perpetuation of life, and therefore sanctifying her means for him the continuity of life and the lavishness of goodness on society. This belief made him consider the mother as one of the influential and controlling forces in his life, which made him worship and honor her in the person of what is known as the "Mother Goddess". Ancient man embodied his reverence for motherhood in the statues of the mother goddess that depict the woman in the state of pregnancy, which symbolizes their glorification of the idea of production embodied by the female in the state of pregnancy, which in turn is linked to the idea of fertility and growth, and thus the mother received a high position in the religious thought of ancient Iraq. We also find an echo of this importance in the sanctity of the mother in literature and artistic scenes reflected by the ancient Iraqi in the arts of literature and the art of anthropomorphic sculpture. The importance of the research came in shedding light on the general view of the mother in the culture of ancient Iraq، especially the aspect of religious thought on the one hand and the literary and artistic aspect on the other hand, as the mother received special sanctity among the ancient man، although the ancient Iraqi society was a patriarchal society, the sanctity of the mother remained part of the beliefs of the Mesopotamian population during that period. The research problem was as follows: What is the position of the mother goddess in the religious thought of ancient Iraq? Is there a clear presence in the ancient Iraqi thought of the mother goddess in the creation of man? What is the role of the mother in literature and mythology from the world of gods and humans? The study followed the descriptive and analytical method based on the presentation of historical material, classification and then simplification to the historical truth.