Inanna / Ishtar

The goddess Inanna’s Akkadian name was Ishtar.

A Mesopotamian king in the 13th century BC stated that he had rebuilt her temple in her brother’s city of Sippar, on foundations that were 800 years old in his time.

But in her central city, Uruk, tales of her went back to olden times.

Inanna was known as:

She was at all times the Goddess of Warfare and the Goddess of Love, a fierce, beautiful female who, though only a great-granddaughter of Anu, carved for herself, by herself, a major place among the Great Gods of Heaven and Earth.

As a young goddess she was, apparently, assigned a domain in a far land east of Sumer, the Land of Aratta.

It was there that “the lofty one, Inanna, queen of all the land,” had her “house.” But Inanna had greater ambitions.

In the city of Uruk there stood the great temple of Anu, occupied only during his occasional state visits to Earth; and Inanna set her eyes on this seat of power.

Sumerian king lists state that the first nondivine ruler of Uruk was Meshkiaggasher, a son of the god Utu by a human mother. He was followed by his son Enmerkar, a great Sumerian king.

Inanna, then, was the great-aunt of Enmerkar; and she found little difficulty in persuading him that she should really be the goddess of Uruk, rather than of the remote Aratta.

A long and fascinating text named “Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta” describes how Enmerkar sent emissaries to Aratta, using every possible argument in a “war of nerves” to force Aratta to submit because “the lord Enmerkar who is the servant of Inanna made her queen of the House of Anu.”

The epic’s unclear end hints at a happy ending: While Inanna moved to Uruk, she did not “abandon her House in Aratta.”

That she might have become a “commuting goddess” is not so improbable, for Inanna/lshtar was known from other texts as an adventurous traveler.

Her occupation of Anu’s temple in Uruk could not have taken place without his knowledge and consent; and the texts give us strong clues as to how such consent was obtained. Soon Inanna was known as “Anuniturn,” a nickname meaning “beloved of Anu.”

She was referred to in texts as “the holy mistress of Anu”; and it follows that Inanna shared not only Anu’s temple but also his bed-whenever he came to Uruk, or on the reported occasions of her going up to his Heavenly Abode.

Having thus maneuvered herself into the position of goddess of Uruk and mistress of the temple of Anu, Ishtar proceeded to use trickery for enhancing Uruk’s standing and her own powers. Farther down the Euphrates stood the ancient city of Eridu—Enki’s center.

Knowing of his great knowledge of all the arts and sciences of civilization, Inanna resolved to beg, borrow, or steal these secrets.

Obviously intending to use her “personal charms” on Enki (her great-uncle), Inanna arranged to call on him alone. That fact was not unnoticed by Enki, who instructed his housemaster to prepare dinner for two.

Come my housemaster Isimud, hear my instructions; a word I shall say to you, heed my words: The maiden, all alone, has directed her step to the Abzu… Have the maiden enter the Abzu of Eridu, Give her to eat barley cakes with butter, Pour for her cold water that freshens the heart, Give her to drink beer…

Happy and drunk, Enki was ready to do anything for Inanna.

She boldly asked for the divine formulas, which were the basis of a high civilization. Enki granted her some 100 of them, including divine formulas pertaining to supreme lordship, Kingship, priestly functions, weapons, legal procedures, scribeship, woodworking, even the knowledge of musical instruments and of temple prostitution.

By the time Enki awoke and realized what he had done, Inanna was already well on her way to Uruk.

Enki ordered after her his “awesome weapons,” but to no avail, for Inanna had sped to Uruk in her “Boat of Heaven.”

Quite frequently, Ishtar was depicted as a naked goddess; flaunting her beauty, she was sometimes even depicted raising her skirts to reveal the lower parts of her body. (Fig. 52)

Illustration: Ishtar showing her Body

Gilgamesh was a ruler of Uruk around 2900 BC. He was partly divine (having been born to a human father and a goddess).

He reported how Inanna enticed him— even after she already had an official spouse.

Having washed himself after a battle and put on “a fringe cloak, fastened with a sash,” Glorious Ishtar raised an eye at his beauty.

“Come, Gilgamesh, be thou my lover! Come, grant me your fruit. Thou shall be my male mate, I will be thy female.”

But Gilgamesh knew the score. “Which of thy lovers didst thou love forever?” he asked. “Which of thy shepherds pleased thee for all time?” Reciting a long list of her love affairs, he refused.

As time went on—as she assumed higher ranks in the pantheon, and with it the responsibility for affairs of state-Inanna/lshtar began to display more martial qualities, and was often depicted as a Goddess of War, armed to the teeth. (Fig. 53)

Illustration: Ishtar as War Goddess

The inscriptions left by Assyrian kings describe how they went to war for her and upon her command, how she directly advised when to wait and when to attack, how she sometimes marched at the head of the armies, and how, on at least one occasion, she granted a theophany and appeared before all the troops.

In return for their loyalty, she promised the Assyrian kings long life and success.

“From a Golden Chamber in the skies I will watch over thee,” she assured them.

Was she turned into a bitter warrior because she, too, came upon hard times with the rise of Marduk to supremacy? In one of his inscriptions Nabunaid said:

“Inanna of Uruk, the exalted princess who dwelt in a gold cella, who rode upon a chariot to which were harnessed seven lions—the inhabitants of Uruk changed her cult during the rule of king Erba-Marduk, removed her cella and unharnessed her team.”

Inanna, reported Nabunaid, “had therefore left the E-Anna angrily, and stayed hence in an unseemly place” (which he does not name). (Fig. 54)

Seeking, perhaps, to combine love with power, the much-courted Inanna chose as her husband DU.MU.ZI, a younger son of Enki. Many ancient texts deal with the loves and quarrels of the two. Some are love songs of great beauty and vivid sexuality.

Others tell how Ishtar—back from one of her journeys-found Dumuzi celebrating her absence.

She arranged for his capture and disappearance into the Lower World—a domain ruled by her sister E.RESH.KI.GAL and her consort NER.GAL. Some of the most celebrated Sumerian and Akkadian texts deal with the journey of Ishtar to the Lower World in search of her banished beloved.