A system of monarchy is shown through the statue of the emperor Claudius. Also because the statue depicts him as god of land and sea it gives him the power of the divinity. This may have been a method of Claudius getting his citizens to follow under his rule. During the same time period, all of the ancient civilizations had some system of a monarchy at one point of time. Many of these monarchy also used their position of power to influence the religious beliefs of the people or a religion to give the ruler more power, similarly to Claudius. An example of this is the Zhou dynasty, in which the Zhou king was able to defeat the Shang dynasty because he was able to convince the people he was given the mandate of Heaven and Heaven was a god of a new religion of the time. The Mandate of Heaven helped the Zhou maintain power and they were able to influence this new religious system through the monarchy system. In contrast, the ruins also show evidence of both a republic and democracy. The council house was a place for the people to come together, and make decisions for their society. A strict monarch would not have an large area with the purpose of the public’s thoughts. The council house can be compared the Roman senate, which was a council that advised the monarch. The Romans incorporated democracy into their republic …show more content…
The sculpture that depicts the emperor Claudius as the god of the land and sea shows that they connected religion to their rulers. Another polytheist god is Ishtar, the goddess of fertility. There is evidence on the site of The Temple of Aphrodite that there is a 7C BCE wooden temple to this goddess. This temple demonstrates the site’s only connection to Mesopotamia. Demonstrated in “Inana’s Descent to the Nether World”, the Mesopotamians believe that Ishtar ascended down to the underworld and her time there represented winter. For those who worshiped Ishtar it demonstrates their value focusing on this life and its worth. They also adapted some of the Greek mythology which is shown in the Temple of Aphrodite. Aphrodite is the Greek’s goddess of love and beauty. Later on in civilization’s history there is evidence of both Christianity and Judaism. In the fifth century BC paintings on the wall there is an image of Jesus and his mother Mary. Because both religions believed that Jesus existed, the image cannot determine to which religion it is referring to. However, the Basilica Church makes it more likely that the image was produced by Christians. The Church demonstrates the Roman’s influence on the Turkish’s religion. The Basilica is a large important church that originated in Roman. To further support that these Turkish adapted Christianity there is a Bishops