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| Gods & Goddesses
Inanna/Ishtar
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Image Copyright (C) Sabrina - used with permission. |
Inanna/IshtarQueen of the SkyPantheon: Sumerian Element: Air Sphere of Influence: Love and Fertility Preferred colors: Gold, Blue Associated symbol: Eight Point Star, Reed Bundle Best day to work with: Friday Suitable offerings: Lapus Lazuli Associated Planet: Venus |
Inanna (also known as Istar, and Ninanna) is the goddess of love, fertility, and war. She is frequently shown with bow and arrow, naked or simply clad in long robes with a crown on her head and an eight-rayed star as her symbol. She travels to the realm of the dead and claimed dominian over it, however, her sister Ereshkigal, the ruler of the realm of the dead, sentenced her to death. As Inanna died, nature died with her and nothing would grow anymore. Enki intervened and decreed that she could be reborn if another person took her place. She chose her consort Dumuzi, who from then on ruled the underworld for six months of the year. The similarities between Inannas descent into the realm of the dead and the Goddess Persephones journey into Hades is striking, and it would be useful for anyone wishing to honor Inanna to also study Persephone. | |
Additional Information on Inanna from WikipediaInformation is unedited and uncheckedIshtar is the Akkadian counterpart to the Sumerian mythology|Sumerian Inanna and to the cognate northwest Semitic goddess `Ashtart. Anunit, Astarte and Atarsamain are alternate names for Ishtar. The goddess represents the planet Venus (planet)|Venus. The double aspect of the goddess may correspond to the strikingly different phases of Venus in the summer and winter seasons. In Sumerian the planet itself is called "MUL.DILI.PAT," meaning "unique star." The meaning of Inanna (sometimes spelled Inana) is "Great Lady of An (mythology)|An" ( An being the god of heaven). The meaning of Ishtar is not known, though it is possible that the underlying stem is the same as that of Assur, which would thus make her the "leading one" or "chief." In any event, it is now generally recognized that the name is Semite|Semitic in origin. The Sumerian Inanna was first worshiped at Uruk (Erech in the Bible, Unug in Sumerian) in the earliest period of Mesopotamia|Mesopotamian history. In incantations, hymns, myths, epics, votive inscriptions, and historical annals, Inanna/ Ishtar was celebrated and invoked as the force of life. But there were two aspects to this goddess of life. The goddess of fertility and sexuality could also destroy the fields and make the earths creatures infertile. She was invoked as a goddess of war, battles, and the chase, particularly among the warlike Assyrians. Before the battle Ishtar would appear to the Assyrian army, clad in battle array and armed with bow and arrow. (She was probably the precursor to the Greek Athena.) One of the most striking Sumerian myths describes Inanna passing through seven gates of hell into the underworld. At each gate some of her clothing and her ornaments are removed until at the last gate she is entirely naked. The queen of the underworld kills her and hangs her corpse on a hook on the wall. When Inanna returns from the underworld by intercession of the clever god, her father Enki, according to the rules she must find someone to take her place. On her way home she encounters her friends prostrated with grief at her loss, but in Kulaba, her cult city, she finds her lover Dumuzid Tammuz seated in splendour on a throne, so she has him seized and dragged below. Later, missing him, she arranges for his sister to substitute for him during six months of the year. (This is probably the origin of the Greek story of Persephone which renders the females in the story helpless and transfers Inannas power to the god of the underworld.) In all the great centres Inanna and then Ishtar had her temples: E-anna, "house of An," in Uruk; E-makh, "great house," in Babylon; E-mash-mash, "house of offerings," in Nineveh. Inanna was the guardian of prostitutes, and probably had priestess-prostitutes to serve her. She was served by priests as well as by priestesses. The (later) votaries of Ishtar were virgins who, as long as they remained in her service, were not permitted to marry. On monuments and seal-cylinders Inanna/ Ishtar appears frequently with bow and arrow, though also simply clad in long robes with a crown on her head and an eight-rayed star as her symbol. This star, joined with the crescent moon, became a symbol of the Ottoman Empire and later of Islam. Statuettes have been found in large numbers representing her as naked with her arms folded across her breast or holding a child. Together with the moon god Nanna or Suen (Sin (mythology)|Sin in Akkadian), and the sun god Utu (Shamash in Akkadian), Inanna/ Ishtar is the third figure in a triad deifying and personalizing the moon, the sun, and the earth: Moon (wisdom), Sun (justice) and Earth (life force). This triad overlies another: An, heaven; Enlil, earth; and Enki (Ea in Akkadian), the watery deep. Ishtar is also an omnipresent figure in the epic of Gilgamesh. This was originally based on an article from the 1911 Encyclopędia Britannica. ===External link=== *http://www-etcsl.orient.ox.ac.uk/ Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature ---- Ishtar Terra is a continent on the planet Venus. Ishtar (movie) | Ishtar is also the title of a 1987 comedy movie starring Warren Beatty and Dustin Hoffman. This text is made available under the GNU Free Documentation License Agreement. The full text of this article is available for download here. (Inanna) | |