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INTRODUCTION

For the scholar of antiquity Asia Minor, also cailed Anatolia, is a fascinating

Region, Civilizations have been born and have flourished here since the Neolithic

Age. Their expansion, resulting fron» migrations and the transfer of cultural values,

Has contributed to the Neolitbization of prehistoric Europe and has had an over-

Whelming impact on the formation of Bronze Age culture in Crete, as weil as the

Mycenaean and Greek world which grew out of it, later determining the cultural

Face of Graeco-Roman antiquity. In the first millennium BC, the greatest accom-

Plishments of Babylonian civilization followed the road fron» Mesopotamia to, the

Aegean to reach the Greeks. Asia Minor, which lay on this route, did not just act as

An intermediary in the process of transferring the ideas of the East; it actually

Shaped this process, contributing much of its own. Not the least in the sphere of

Religion.

This presentation of the most ancient Anatolian beliefs needs a Brief introduc-

Tion. The religions of Asia Minor were formed in the realm of the Anderst Near East

Where the personification and anthropomorphization of divinities had been going on

Ever since the Neolithic. Beliefs typical of primitive societies, characterized by ani-

Mism, fetishism, totemism and primitive magic, were transformed as a result of these

Processes into a polytheistic religion. Being one of the important regions of Neolithic

Development, Anatolia played a significant role in this process, the origins of which

Can be perceived in the way Neolithic communities grasped the essence of divinity,

Still far distant from the might of the later gods. Social changes were of intrinsic

Importance for the development of this process, as much as the ever strong belief of

Ancient man, deriving from prehistoric magic, in the uniformity and interrelation of

Everything that exists, The question is, however, why man created gods in his own

Image. Mainly because it was a way of taming the incomprehensible and dangerous

In the world around him. Man sought in the gods a partner to negotiate with, ac-