Nanshe: The Selfless Sumerian Goddess of Social Justice
Nanshe (also known as Nanse, Nazi) is the Sumerian goddess of social justice and divination, whose popularity eventually transcended her original boundaries of southern Mesopotamia toward all points throughout the region in the 3rd millennium BCE. She became one of the most popular deities of the…
A deity whose domain — social justice, divination, and ethical accountability — predates by millennia the moral frameworks we associate with later religions. An early model of religion as a system of social regulation, not just belief.
Original author: Joshua J. Mark