From the beginning of time both art and religion have played essential roles in human civilization. This is evidence from the ancient Mesopotamia to the Islamic civilization.
             Religion has used art in its many forms to create images of their deities, images which take on a form that the ordinary person can understand. In Egypt, for example, there was a very rigid set of rules imposed by the priests as to how monarchs or deities could be portrayed. These restrictions were often determined the portrayal of people even when there was no religious motif. For many religions these restrictions were intended to protect against the development of images that could be worshipped in their own right. In a very artistic way the Babylonians the Hanging Gardens of Babylon to the Seven
             Greco-Roman civilization is one of the foundations on which art in the Western world has developed. Both of these civilizations placed a great emphasis on art, ranging from painting and poetry to drama and sculpture. Another of their major contributions was their architecture, which has an obvious and enduring influence throughout Europe, the Near East and parts of Africa. The civilizations of Greece and Rome were both polytheistic, they did not have a principal deity. Like the ancient civilizations, their gods had specific purposes like hunting, agriculture, death and life. In polytheistic religions there is often a heirarchy of power among the gods. Many are each others sons and daughters with well defined relationships to each other.
             It is important to note the often wide cultural variation within the art of some religions. The way the same person or object is portrayed can vary enormously. One obvious factor is time period and the dominant art techniques. Another is country and culture. For example Greek Orthodox portrayal of objects tend to be based on Byzantine art, which portrays an object according to its spiritual essence, w
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