It may have been partly the need to better manage these natural forces, to maintain power and influence over them, that spurred the Mesopotamians to personalize these gods, to gradually transform them into a pantheon of individual deities, each with a specific sphere of influence—whether earthly, cultural, or cosmic—and each with a specific function in the lives of their worshippers. From there, it was simply a matter of giving each god a personality, a set of human traits, and a distinct form, and the “lofty persons” were born.
