Ishtar (Inanna): Her Story, Attributes and Lovers | Middle East And North Africa

INANNA AND ISHTAR

Ishtar, Queen of the Night

Inanna was the Sumerian goddess of love, beauty, desire, sex, fertility, war, combat, justice, and political power. She was later worshipped by the Akkadians, Babylonians, and Assyrians under the name Ishtar. Known as the "Queen of Heaven", she was the patron goddess of the Eanna temple at the city of Uruk, which was her main cult center. She was associated with the planet Venus and her most prominent symbols included the lion and the eight-pointed star.Her husband was the god Dumuzid the Shepherd (later known as Tammuz) and her sukkal, or personal attendant, was the goddess Ninshubur (who later became the male deity Papsukkal). [Source: Wikipedia]

Ishtar was great mother-goddess, worshipped in a threefold capacity as the goddess of fertility and vegetation, as the goddess of war, and as the goddess of love. In many respects she is the most interesting figure in the BabyIonian-Assyrian pantheon.She was believed to have the power to provide her worshipers with children and lambs and is a good example of how Mesopotamia gods were also linked to and had similarities with Gods in other cultures. Ishtar evolved into Diana and Artemis in Asia Minor and Aphrodite in Greece. Her lover Tammuz was associated with crops. In the lean months of summer people fasted until Tammuz rose from dead and made the world green again. The myth is similar to the Greek myth of Demeter and Persephone. In the Bible the prophet Ezekiel was disgusted by women in Jerusalem who were “weeping for Tammuz.”

Inana possessed the gifts of Me, the powers of music, wisdom and art. Enki was originally in charge of these gifts. The gifts were stored in his "worship center" at Eridu. Inanna complained that she, the female principle, did not receive enough power. She used the old wineskin trick and got Enki drunk and got him to give her the powers. She took them to her worship center at Erech. When Enki sobered up he tried to recover them but did not succeed.

Ishtar was an independent deity, owing no allegiance to a husband, and standing on a footing of equality with the gods. But this was because she had once been one of the chief objects of Sumerian worship, the spirit of the evening star. In the Sumerian language there was no gender, nothing that could distinguish the goddess or the woman from the god or man, and the “spirits,” therefore, were indifferently of both sexes. Moreover, the woman occupied an important place in the Sumerian family; where the Semitic translation speaks of “man and woman” the Sumerian original makes it “woman and man.” To the Sumerian mind, accordingly, the female “spirit” was as powerful as the male, acting independently and possessing the same attributes. [Source: “Babylonians And Assyrians: Life And Customs”, Rev. A. H. Sayce, Professor of Assyriology at Oxford, 1900]

Websites on Mesopotamia: Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Mesopotamia sourcebooks.fordham.edu ; International Association for Assyriology iaassyriology.com ; Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures, University of Chicago isac.uchicago.edu ; University of Chicago Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations nelc.uchicago.edu ; University of Pennsylvania Near Eastern Languages & Civilizations (NELC) nelc.sas.upenn.edu; Penn Museum Near East Section penn.museum; Ancient History Encyclopedia ancient.eu.com/Mesopotamia ; British Museum britishmuseum.org ; Louvre louvre.fr/en/explore ; Metropolitan Museum of Art metmuseum.org/toah ; Ancient Near Eastern Art Metropolitan Museum of Art metmuseum.org; Iraq Museum theiraqmuseum ABZU etana.org/abzubib; Archaeology Websites Archaeology News Report archaeologynewsreport.blogspot.com ; Anthropology.net anthropology.net : archaeologica.org archaeologica.org ; Archaeology in Europe archeurope.com ; Archaeology magazine archaeology.org ; HeritageDaily heritagedaily.com; Live Science livescience.com/

Evolution of Ishtar

Morris Jastrow said: “The goddess Ishtar of Uruk, though traced back to an early period and undergoing various transformations, was not... peculiar to that place. A similar deity, symbolising the earth as the source of vegetation—a womb wherein seed is laid,—must have been worshipped in other centres, where the sun-cult prevailed. So, as has already been intimated, the consort of the old solar deity Ninib represents this great female principle. Their union finds a striking expression in a myth which represents the pair, Ninib and Gula (or Bau), celebrating a formal marriage ceremony on the New Year’s day (coincident with the vernal equinox), receiving wedding presents, and ushered into the bridal chamber with all the formalities incident to the marriage rite, as observed to this day in the modern Orient. When, therefore, the Psalmist describes the sun as “Coming like a bridegroom from his bridal chamber” he is using a metaphor derived from the old myth of the marriage of the sun with the earth in the happy springtime of nature’s awakening.” [Source: Morris Jastrow, Lectures more than ten years after publishing his book “Aspects of Religious Belief and Practice in Babylonia and Assyria” 1911 ]

“The name, Ishtar, becomes, in fact, the generic designation of “goddess,” from which a plural ishtardti is formed to convey the idea of “goddesses,” or consorts of male deities, independent of the specific character of the latter. In the astrological system developed in Babylonia, Ishtar is identified with the planet Venus, and as such becomes known as the “queen of heaven,” furnishing guidance for mankind through the omens connected with her double character of evening and morning star. It is due to this more purely speculative phase of the conceptions connected with Ishtar that she is represented in the Gilgamesh epic as the daughter of Anu, and not, as we might have expected, his consort. The epic reflects herein, as in other particulars, the results of the theological and astrological elaboration of popular beliefs, which, as we have seen, led to Anu becoming the personification of the heavens as a whole. All the planets, including Ishtar, become therefore Anu’s children, just as from another aspect of astrological speculation Ishtar is viewed as the daughter of the moon-god Sin. Sin is the head of the hosts of heaven, and in the astrological system, as we have seen, takes precedence of the sun, thereby assuming the highest position as “the father of the gods,” and forming the basis of all divination-lore derived from the observance of heavenly phenomena.”

Ishtar and the Gilgamesh Story

Ishtar plays a major role in the great epic Gilgamesh. Morris Jastrow said: “In various parts of this epic, the goddess, Ishtar is brought forward, accompanied by her maidens, who, symbolising various phases of the feminine principle, compose a court of love and passion. Ishtar woos Gilgamesh, the hero of the epic, here portrayed as a solar deity; but the hero rejects the advances of the goddess and reminds her of the sad fate incurred by her lovers, who after a brief union are driven forth from her embrace, and encounter various misfortunes, that involve a loss of vitality. [Source: Morris Jastrow, Lectures more than ten years after publishing his book “Aspects of Religious Belief and Practice in Babylonia and Assyria” 1911 ]

“The tale is clearly a form of the general nature-myth of the union of sun and earth, which, after a short time, results in the decline of the sun’s force. Tammuz, an ancient personification of the sun of the springtime, is named as the first of Ishtar’s lovers; he becomes her consort and is then slain by the goddess, and consigned to the nether world, the abode of the dead. The promise made by Ishtar to Gilgamesh to present him with a chariot of lapis-lazuli, and to shelter him in a palace of plenty, unmistakably points to the triumph of the sun when vegetation is at its height. Tammuz and Ishtar, like Gilgamesh and Ishtar, thus represent the combination of the two principles which bring about life; and upon their separation follow decay and death.

“Thus, parallel with the dual principle of sun and storm (variously personified as Anu and Enlil, Ninib and Enlil, Shamash and Adad, representing the two chief Powers controlling the welfare of the country), we have another and more philosophical duality, representing the male and female principles; and this, likewise, is variously personified. Under its influence the consorts of the chief gods become forms of the great mother-goddess. Sarpanit, the consort of Marduk, becomes an Ishtar and is frequently so designated. In the north, Ishtar becomes the consort of Ashur, and is then still further differentiated as the Ishtar of Nineveh, the Ishtar of Arbela, and the “Queen of Kidmurru.” Though we are no longer able to follow the process in detail which led to the disassociation of Ishtar from the local limitations that must originally have hemmed her in, there can be no question that the title, Ishtar, became, in time, the general designation of the supreme goddess herself, who, in association with some personification of the supreme male principle, becomes virtually the only distinctive female figure in the pantheon.

Ishtar as a Mother Goddess

Innana Temple ruins

Morris Jastrow said: “This conception of a great mother-goddess was not limited to the Euphrates Valley. It is found where-ever Semites settled and, apparently through their influence, spread to other nations. The Ashtart of the Phoenicians (Greek Astarte) and the Ashtoreth— an intentional corruption of Ashtart—of the Canaanites, all represent the same goddess and the same idea of the combination of the two principles, male and female, designated by the Phoenicians and Canaanites as Baal. On Hittite monuments representations of the mother-goddess are found, and classical writers record the tradition that the worship of Aphrodite among the Greeks originated in Cyprus, where traces of the Ashtart cult have been discovered. Ishtar is, therefore, distinctively a Semitic idealisation, as the name is certainly-Semitic.' Both the conception and name must therefore have been carried to the Euphrates by the earliest. Semitic settlers.

“As the one great goddess and as .the consort of the chief god of the pantheon/ Ishtar, in addition to her specific character, naturally takes the traits of her consort. A close association of:two deities, as .we have seen, always brings about a: certain interchange of attributes, Just as two persons living together are very apt to acquire each other’s peculiarities, and even come to look alike. Enlil'becomes like Ninib, and Ninib like Enlil, and so the association of Ishtar— under whatsoever name—with the sun-god leads to her being described in "terms which might with equal propriety be addressed to Ninib, Nergal, Marduk, or Shamash. “She is called ““the light of heaven and earth,”“the shining torch of heaven,” “light of all dwellings.” Her sheen is compared to a fire that illumines the land. In part, no doubt, such,descriptions arise from the astrological identification of the goddess with the planet Venus, but they occur also in compositions which are free from any allusions to the planetary orb; and when we find her also apostrophised as the one who “directs mankind,” “judging the cause of-man with justice and righteousness,” and “as punishing the bad and the wicked,” there can be no doubt that such traits, which, we have seen, form the special prerogatives of the sun-god, are the reflections of her association with that deity. Again, the association with Enlil, the storm-god, whose consort Ninlil, as has been pointed out, becomes an Ishtar, must be regarded as the factor which leads to Ishtar’s being described as “a controller of the clouds,” “a raging storm devastating heaven and earth,” whose voice “thunders over all:partsof the universe.” The association with the water-god Ea is to be seen again in the figure of the'goddess presiding over streams and canals.

Ishtar, the War Goddess

Morris Jastrow said: “More significant still is the development of the mother goddess-into the Ishtar of battles, pictured as armed with bow and quiver, and encouraging the army to the fray. This transformation is evidently due to the reflection of the warlike attributes of her consort—the patron deity of a great centre or the chief god of the entire pantheon, who naturally becomes the protector of the ruler and of his army, either for defence or offence. A storm-god like Enlil was especially adapted to become a god of war,—but so, also, was a deity like Nergal, personified as the destructive power of the fierce rays of the sun of midsummer. [Source: Morris Jastrow, Lectures more than ten years after publishing his book “Aspects of Religious Belief and Practice in Babylonia and Assyria” 1911 ]

“We have seen how Ninib, the sun-god of the spring, also takes on the traits of the warrior Enlil, his father. Shamash, likewise, is not merely the “judge of heaven and earth” but also the “warrior,” and is very frequently so termed; and when Marduk, as the head of the later pantheon, receives the qualities of all the great gods, he too becomes a god of battles and passes on those qualities to his consort Sarpanit, identified with Ishtar. In an ancient hymn, attached to a song of praise in honour of Hammurabi (probably an adaptation of a composition much earlier than the time of the great conqueror), Ishtar is described as the deity who furnishes aid “in war and battle.” In many of the religious compositions prepared for her cult, both of the earlier and of the later periods, the goddess is called “the warlike Ishtar,” “the powerful one among the goddesses,” the martial “lady of victory,” “girded for the fray,” and invoked to secure the stability of the throne and of the kingdom.

“More particularly in Assyria, in association with the war-lord Ashur—reflecting the martial genius of king and people,—is she celebrated in high-sounding terms as the lady of war and battles. In an impressive passage in one of Ashurbanapal’s inscriptions the king describes how, on the eve of an encounter with the Elamites, Ishtar with the quiver on her shoulder, armed with bow and sword, appears to him in a vision of the night and proclaims,

““I walk before Ashurbanapal, the King, created by my hands.” “It is Ishtar who on another occasion appears clothed in flames of fire and rains destruction on the Arabian host. Ashurbanapal appears to have been particularly devoted to the cult of Ishtar, though he merely followed, therein, the example of his father Esarhaddon, who restored her temple at Uruk. When he takes Susa, the capital of Elam, his first step is to restore to its resting-place, in the temple E-Anna at Uruk, the statue of the goddess which 1635 years before (i.e., 2300 B.C.) had been captured by the Elamites. He almost invariably associates the name of Ishtar with Ashur. At the command of these two deities he enters on his campaigns. Ashur and Ishtar, representing once more the combination of sun and earth—the male and female principles,— send the king encouraging signs, and stand by him in the thick of the fight.

Ishtar, the Symbol of Creation

Ishtar vase

Morris Jastrow said: “The contrast to this conception of the warlike Ishtar is the goddess who, as the symbol of creation, becomes the goddess of human love. Ishtar as the mother-goddess is not only the protector of flocks, and filled with love for the animal world, but the merciful progenitor of mankind; and when a destructive deluge sweeps away her offspring, she is the first among the gods to manifest her grief. In the Babylonian account of the deluge—incorporated in the Gilgamesh epic—she is described as weeping for her offspring, which she complains “fill the sea like so many fish,” and her sorrow arouses the sympathy of the other gods, who pity the sad fate of mankind, brought about at the instigation of Enlil and his divine consort. [Source: Morris Jastrow, Lectures more than ten years after publishing his book “Aspects of Religious Belief and Practice in Babylonia and Assyria” 1911 ]

“In a more real sense than is true of such gods as Enlil, Anu, Marduk, Ashur, or even Ea, she is the creator of mankind, “directing all births,” as it is said of her. She is described as the mother-goddess (in a text] which sets forth the way in which the gods are represented by images,) “with exposed breasts, carrying a child on her left arm, sucking her breast.” Votive figurines have been found in Babylonia answering to this description, and it is a plausible conjecture that they were deposited in the temple or shrines of Ishtar by women who wished to secure the aid of the goddess in the hour of childbirth. A bymn, embodying addresses of the god Nebo to Ashurbanapal, reminds the king of the protection that was granted him when he “lay in the lap of the queen of Nineveh,” i.e., Ishtar, and was suckled by her breasts. The picture is evidently suggested by figurines portraying Ishtar as the nurse of mankind.

“This phase of the goddess 'is emphasised in the incident in the Gilgamesh epic, on which we have already touched, when she becomes enamoured of the hero Gilgamesh. Despite the veiled language of mythological metaphor, one recognises that there is another and perfectly natural side to this goddess of love. She is the goddess of the human instinct, or passion which accompanies human love. Gilgamesh, it will be recalled, reproaches her with abandoning the objects of her passion after a brief period of union. This is brought out even more strikingly in another part of the epic where Uruk is described as the dwelling of Anu and Ishtar, and as the city where public maidens accept temporary partners, assigned to them by Ishtar. The enticements of these maidens, who win men by their charms, are described in so frank and naif a manner as to shock the sensibilities of the modern mind. In such descriptions, found elsewhere in Babylonian-Assyrian literature, we must recognise the reverse of the medallion.Ishtar, as the mother of mankind, is also she who awakens passion. She is attended by maidens who appear to be her priestesses; these may well be the prototypes of the Houris with whom Mohammed peopled the paradise reserved for true believers. Ishtar, herself, is called by a term, kadishtu , that acquires the sense of “sacred prostitute”; and while the famous passage in Herodotus, wherein is described the “shameful custom” of the enforced yet willing defilement of every woman in Babylon in the temple, before being eligible for marriage, rests in part on an exaggeration, in part on a misunderstanding of a religious rite, yet it has a basis of truth in the aforesaid religious custom in connection with the worship of Ishtar, which became an outward expression of the spiritual idea of the goddess as the mother of parturition, and as an instigator of the passion underlying the sexual mystery.

Ishtar Cult

There were devotees of Ishtar, but the Ishtar they worshipped was a wholly different goddess from the Ishtar of the official cult. She was a goddess of witchcraft and darkness, of whom it was said that she “seized” on her victim “at night,” and was “the slayer of youths.” She it was who was dreaded by the people like the witches and “street-walkers,” who ministered before her, and against whom exorcisms of all kinds were employed. To guard against her and her agents, small images of Lugalgira and Allamu, the teraphim of the Babylonians, were made and placed to the right and the left of the door that they might “tear out the hearts of the wicked” and “slay the witch.” [Source: “Babylonians And Assyrians: Life And Customs”, Rev. A. H. Sayce, Professor of Assyriology at Oxford, 1900]

The Fire-god, moreover, was invoked that he might destroy the ministers of wickedness, and figures of the witch or wizard were moulded in wax and melted in the fire. As the wax dissolved, so, it was prayed, might “the wizard and witch run, melt, and dissolve.” The exorcisms had to be repeated by the victims of witchcraft. This is clear from the words which come at the end of each of them: “I, So-andso, the son of So-and-so, whose god is So-and-so and goddess So-and- so, I turn to thee, I seek for thee, I kiss thy hands, I bow myself under thee. Consume the wizard and the witch; annihilate the lives of the sorcerer and the sorceress who have bewitched me. Then shall I live and gladden thy heart.”

The oracles of Ishtar at Arbela were worked by inspired prophetesses. When Esar-haddon inquired of the will of heaven, it was from the prophetesses of Ishtar that he received encouragement and a promise of victory. Like Samas, the Sun-god, Ishtar was also served by women, who, however, do not seem to have led the same reputable lives. They were divided into two classes, one of which was called the “Wailers,” from the lamentations with which each year they mourned the death of the god Tammuz, the stricken favorite of Ishtar. The Chaldean Epic of Gilgames speaks of the “troops” of them that were gathered together in the city of Erech. Here Ishtar had her temple along with her father, Anu, the Sky-god, and here accordingly her devotees were assembled. Like the goddess they served, it would appear that they were never married in lawful wedlock. [Source: “Babylonians And Assyrians: Life And Customs”, Rev. A. H. Sayce, Professor of Assyriology at Oxford, 1900]

Ishtar-Like Rites in the Bible and Ancient Greece and Rome

Ishtar's descent to the Underworld

Morris Jastrow said: “The pages of the Old Testament illumine the character of some of these rites connected with the worship of the divine mother, whose priestesses in various guises represented symbolically the marriage union. The Hebrew prophets, to whom all these rites were obscene, tell us something of the customs which the Hebrews themselves, in common with the nations around, at one time practised. Their language is generally veiled, for they abhorred even any allusion to the practices which they condemned so uncompromisingly; but when these stern moralists, in denouncing the people for falling away from the true worship of Jahweh, make frequent use of the metaphor of a faithless wife, berating Israel and Judah for having polluted the land with their wickedness, “playing the harlot,” as they term it, “on every high mountain and under every green tree” (Jeremiah iii., 6), they refer to some of those rites which were intended, both in Babylonia and in Canaan as elsewhere, as a sacred homage to the great goddess of love and of passion. The metaphor, we may be certain, was not chosen at random, but suggested by actual practices that formed part of the cult of Ashtart.

“The Deuteronomic code finds it necessary to insert an express clause that there shall be no kedesha, i.e., no sacred defilement, among the daughters of Israel, and that the “harlot’s gift”—clearly again some religious rite—shall not be brought into the house of Jahweh. Are we to see in such rites among the Semites the evidence of foreign influence? It is not impossible, especially since Dr. W. Hayes Ward has recently, shown] that the portrayal on seal cylinders of the naked goddess with-what is distinctively-female, emphasised, is due to the Hittites, who as we now know, early came into contact with the Semites both in the Euphrates Valley and in Canaan and elsewhere. On the other hand, the transition from the conception of the mother-goddess to that of the goddess of human love is so easy and natural, that it is not surprising to find that after the thought had once been suggested through extraneous channels, expressive rites should have made their way into the cult. As often‘happens when a period of degeneracy gets in; it is these rites lending themselves to a mystic symbolism that retain their hold and survive other phases of the Ishtar cult.

“Be.this as it may, the two orders of ideas, the one represented by the duality of sun-gods and storm-gods, the other by the combination of the sun with the earthy were harmoniously blended in the speculative system devised in the schools of the priests. We find, by the side of the supreme triad Anu, Enlil, and Ea, the tendency to form other groups of three, whereof Ishtar was invariably one, such as Shamash, Adad, and Ishtar, or, under the influence of the astrological system, Sin, Shamash, and Ishtar, or even combinations of four Powers; Sin, Shamash, Adad, and Ishtar, introduced to symbolise and sum up the chief forces of nature determining the prosperity of the land and the welfare of its inhabitants. It is significant that of the Powers involved in such combinations, Ishtar alone passed beyond the confines of’Semite settlements and continued to exercise a profound influence sifter all memory of the other gods had been lost. '

“There is surely something impressive in the persistence of the cult of the mother-goddess; for when faith in the gods of Greece and Rome began to wane, people turned to the East and, giving to this cult a mystic interpretation, found their lost faith in the homage to the Mater magna of Asia Minor, who, was merely a slightly disguised Semitic Ishtar. Several centuries after almost all traces of the Babylonian-Assyrian religion had vanished, the Romans brought to Rome from distant Phrygia the sacred statue of Kybele—as the mother-goddess was there called,— in the hope that she might save the empire from impending disaster. During the most critical period of the struggle between Rome and Carthage, the Mater magna , or Mater dea, made her formal entry into the capital, a temple was built in her honour, and a festival instituted. It was the ancient Semitic goddess Ishtar, merely in a different garb, who thus celebrated a new triumph and an apotheosis—Ishtar of Babylonia with an admixture of Hittite influences, transformed to meet changed conditions, but showing all the essential traits of the original Semitic Ishtar, the great female principle in nature in its various phases as mother-earth, as the source of all fertility, presiding over vegetation and the animal world, at once the loving mother of mankind and of the gods.

Ishtar and the Moon

Morris Jastrow said: “The goddess Ishtar is often spoken of as the daughter of the moon, but this is due to the identification of Ishtar in the astrological system with Venus; it is natural that Venus should be regarded as the offspring of the luminary of night, just as the other planets, and the stars in general, would be so regarded. This did not hinder Ishtar from being viewed also as the daughter of Anu. The most common sign with which the name of the moon is written is the number “thirty” —taken evidently from the average period of her course. [Source: Morris Jastrow, Lectures more than ten years after publishing his book “Aspects of Religious Belief and Practice in Babylonia and Assyria” 1911 ]

“Ishtar, as the daughter of the moon, is, therefore, written with the number fifteen, while the sun appears as twenty. So at every turn we encounter, as regards the moon, some association with astrology or with the calendar, which was naturally regulated among the Babylonians, as among all other nations, by the course and phases of the moon. There was no possibility of rivalry between the moon and the sun. Each had its function; and the harmonious division of the direction of the heavens between the two was the form in which the relationship between them was viewed by both Babylonians and Assyrians. The moon, to be sure, was popularly viewed as having been captured when at the end of the month it disappeared for three days, but its discomfiture was not supposed to be due to any conflict between the moon and the sun. Hostile powers of the night had temporarily gained the supremacy in the heavens, and the same explanation was offered in the case of an eclipse, whether of the moon or of the sun.

“As a consequence of this harmonious relationship, it was not felt to be an inconsistency that, on the one hand, Sin should be the “father” of the gods, while on the other hand, Anu as the first member of the “theological” triad should be also thus regarded and that, therefore, Ishtar should be at once the daughter of Sin and of Anu. As a solar deity Anu directs the heavens by day; and the local sun-god of Uruk becoming in the pantheon devised by the priests the god of the heavens viewed as a whole, it was natural that under the added influence of the astrological system which placed the seats of all the gods in heaven, Anu should become the progenitor of the entire pantheon. A further outcome of this double current of theological speculation is that we obtain by the side of the triad Anu, Enlil, and Ea (representing, it will be recalled, the three great divisions of the universe) a second triad of a more restricted character, betraying the influence of the astrological system, which assigns to Sin the first place, followed by Shamash, with Ishtar, as the planet Venus, as the third member. From another point of view these three deities summed up again the chief manifestations of divine Power in the universe: Sin as the leader of the hosts of the mighty heavens, Shamash, the beneficent power of the sun, and Ishtar, by virtue of her original attribute, as the goddess of the earth, the mother of life and the source of fertility.

Ishtar in Mesopotamian Art

Ishtar appears frequently on seals, relief carving, and in descriptions as a mighty warrior who protects the king by defeating his enemies. The great Assyrian king Ashurbanipal (reigned 669-631 B.C.) was even described as crying before the goddess like a child asking his mother for help. Her strength as a warrior is stressed here, as she is shown with weapons rising from her shoulders. [Source: piney.com]

Both Ishtar and Inanna are depicted with symbols of fertility, such as the date palm, and of aggression, such as the lion. The iconography survived relatively unchanged for over a thousand years. Ishtar's astral quality is also emphasized: above her crown with a representation of the planet Venus. The goddesses could be worshipped as both male and female Ishtar, reflecting her dual role of sex and war as well as the evening and morning aspects of the planet.

Images of the Goddess Ishtar include: 1) Ishtar as the goddess of war:. Stele of Anu-banini, King of Lulubu representing himself in front of the goddess Inninna (or Ishtar) and erected in commemoration of his victories in the mountain of Batir (Zagros range). It is carved on a rock in the district of Zohab between Hassanabad and Ser-i-Pul. 2) Ishtar, the Mother-goddess: Terra-cotta figurine found at Telloh and now in the Louvre, representing the naked goddess with a child in her arms. A similar figure was found at Babylon. 3) Ishtar, the Goddess of Love: Naked figure with accentuation of the female parts. Terracotta figurine. Exact provenance in Mesopotamia unknown. Now in the Louvre. The naked goddess appears frequently on seal cylinders.

Inanna is depicted as Queen of Heaven and Earth in a cylinder seal from the Akkad period (c. 2334-2154 B.C).. In it, the Goddess wears the horned and tiered crown, image of the sacred mound, which is worn by all the major Sumerian deities, and the tiered dress worn by Sumerian goddesses. An eight-rayed star is near her, the image of the planet Venus. She carries a staff of intertwined serpents and stands on rests her foot upon lions. Shoots ending in buds spring from her right shoulder, indicating her nature as a Goddess of War and Fertility. Sometimes these buds and maces alternate with formalized images of the serpent that come from the Snake Goddesses of Neolithic times.

Myths About Inanna (Ishtar)

Inanna was the popular granddaughter of Enki, city goddess or Uruk and one of the most complex figures in the Mesopotamian pantheon. She seems to combine features of a goddess of stores, a rain-goddess, and a goddess of the morning and evening star. Myths picture her as a young unmarried girl of the aristocracy, proud, willful, jealous, and power-hungry.

Aaron Skaist wrote in the Encyclopaedia Judaica: 1) In one of the myths about Inanna, "Inanna and the Powers of Office," she is pitted against her wily grandfather Enki. Arriving on a visit to him in Eridu, she is properly feasted and Enki, drinking deep, confers in his expansive mood one important office after another upon her. When he wakes up sober next morning he rues his prodigality, but Inanna is gone. He still tries to stop her boat and get the offices back but in vain, and Inanna triumphantly brings them into Uruk. [Source: Aaron Skaist, Encyclopaedia Judaica, 2005, Encyclopedia.com]

2) The myth of "Inanna and Ebeh" tells of the victory of Inanna over the mountain Ebeh (modern Jabel Hamrin) and consists mainly of a series of speeches glorifying her prowess in one form or another. 3) Another myth, "Inanna and Bilulu," tells how Inanna hears about the killing of her young husband, Dumuzi, composes a paean in his honor, and then sets about avenging him on his killers Bilulu and her son Girgire.

4) The longest of the myths about Inanna is the one called "Inanna's Descent." It tells how Inanna took it into her heart to descend to the Netherworld to wrest control of it from her elder sister Ereshkigal. The venture ended in disaster and Inanna was killed and changed into a cut of meat gone bad. Her loyal handmaid, Ninshubur, seeking help for her, finally obtained it from Enki, who fashioned two beings who were to win Ereshkigal's favor by expressing compassion for her. They did so, and when in return she granted them a wish, they asked for the meat that was Inanna and brought her back to life with food and water of life that Enki had given them.

Descent of Ishtar into the Netherworld

One of the most famous of Babylonian poems was that which told of the descent of Ishtar through the seven gates of the underground world, and which was chanted at the annual commemoration of his death. At each gate, it is said, the goddess left behind her some one of her adornments, until at last she arrived stripped and naked before the throne of the goddess of the infernal world. The poem was composed at a time when astronomical conceptions had laid hold of the old mythology, and the poet has interwoven the story of the waning and waxing of the moon into the ancient tale. The world was generally believed to have originated out of a watery chaos, and to float, as it were, upon the deep. This belief was derived from Eridu, where it was also taught that the deep surrounded the earth like the coils of a serpent. [Source: “Babylonians And Assyrians: Life And Customs”, Rev. A. H. Sayce, Professor of Assyriology at Oxford, 1900]

In “Descent of Ishtar into the Netherworld”, Ishtar decides to visit her sister Ereshkigal, goddess of death and sterility, in her home in the Netherworld (Underworld). As she forces her way through the gates of the nether world, her robes and garments are ripped off. M. Eliade wrote: “ Naked and helpless, she finally reaches Ereshkigal, who instantly has her put to death. Without Ishtar, there is no fertility on earth, and the gods soon realize their loss. Ea creates the beautiful eunuch Asushunamir, who tricks Ereshkigal into reviving Ishtar with the water of life and releasing her.-

The ending of the myth is obscure; perhaps Ishtar's lover, Tammuz, was released along with her. Like the Gilgamesh Epic the myth of the descent of Ishtar to the nether world has its Sumerian counterpart (see S. N. Kramer, 'Inanna's Descent to the Nether World,' ANET, pp. 52-7)- Yet the Akkadian version differs substantially from its Sumerian prototype and is by no means a slavish translation of the former. The Sumerian version of the myth dates from the first half of the second millennium B.C.; the Semitic versions do not antedate the end of the second millennium B.C.” [Source: Eliade Page webSite]

part of an Ishtar temple in Uruk

Tammuz, Ishtar’s Main Lover

Tammuz (Dumuzid) is a sun god perhaps best known as Ishtar’s lover. Originally known as Dumuzid the Shepherd, he was a fertility god closely was associated with crops and the worship of Ishtar. In the lean months of summer, when Tammuz resided in the Underworld, people fasted until Tammuz rose from dead and made the world green again.The myth explaining why he resides in the Underworld is similar to the Greek story of Demeter and Persephone. In Old Testament times, some people, including Jews, worshiped Tammuz. In the Bible the prophet Ezekiel was disgusted by women in Jerusalem who were “weeping for Tammuz.”

Morris Jastrow said: “Tammuz, an ancient personification of the sun of the springtime, is named as the first of Ishtar’s lovers; he becomes her consort and is then slain by the goddess, and consigned to the nether world, the abode of the dead. The promise made by Ishtar to Gilgamesh to present him with a chariot of lapis-lazuli, and to shelter him in a palace of plenty, unmistakably points to the triumph of the sun when vegetation is at its height. Tammuz and Ishtar, like Gilgamesh and Ishtar, thus represent the combination of the two principles which bring about life; and upon their separation follow decay and death. [Source: Morris Jastrow, Lectures more than ten years after publishing his book “Aspects of Religious Belief and Practice in Babylonia and Assyria” 1911 ]

“Ishtar and Tammuz are closely related figures; both symbolise vegetation—one as the personification of the sun, the other as the personification of mother earth. The combination of Tammuz and Ishtar, as husband and wife, is merely the usual artificial attempt to combine two figures that represent the same idea—induced in this instance by the analogy of the male and female principles. There are, in fact, indications that Tammuz was, at certain places, or at an early period, regarded as a goddess and not as a god.

Erotic Mythology Involving of Ishtar

Part of The Courtship of Inanna and Dumuzi (Ishtar and Tammuz) goes: "Brother, after you've brought my bridal sheet to me,
Who will go to bed with me?
Utu, who will go to bed with me?
"Sister, your bridegroom will go to bed with you.
He who was born from a fertile womb,
He who was conceived on the scared marriage throne,
Dumuzi, the shepherd! He will go to bed with you."

Inanna spoke:
"No, brother
The farmer! He is the man of my heart!
He gathers the grain into great heaps.
He brings the grain regularly into my storehouses."
Utu spoke:
"Sister, marry the shepherd.
Why are you unwilling?
His cream is good; his milk is good.

Whatever he touches shines brightly.
Inanna, marry Dumuzi.
You who adorn yourself with the agate necklace of fertility,
Why are you unwilling?
Dumuzi will share his rich cream with you.
You who are meant to be the kings protector,
Why are you unwilling?"
Inanna spoke:
"The shepherd? I will not marry the shepherd!
His clothes are course; his wool is rough.
I will marry the farmer.
The farmer grows flax for my clothes,
The farmer grows barley for my table."

Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons

Text Sources: Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Mesopotamia sourcebooks.fordham.edu , National Geographic, Smithsonian magazine, especially Merle Severy, National Geographic, May 1991 and Marion Steinmann, Smithsonian, December 1988, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Discover magazine, Times of London, Natural History magazine, Archaeology magazine, The New Yorker, BBC, Encyclopædia Britannica, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Time, Newsweek, Wikipedia, Reuters, Associated Press, The Guardian, AFP, Lonely Planet Guides, “World Religions” edited by Geoffrey Parrinder (Facts on File Publications, New York); “History of Warfare” by John Keegan (Vintage Books); “History of Art” by H.W. Janson Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, N.J.), Compton’s Encyclopedia and various books and other publications.

Last updated June 2024