Ishtar

This goddess, called Inanna at Sumériens, Ishtar at Akkadiens and Babylonians, Astarté later, owes her fame with her cultural activity and mythological ever equalized by another goddess of the the Middle East. With its apogee, it was goddess of the physical love and of the war, governed the life and death. It has an aspect Hermaphrodite ( Ishtar barbata ), like much of goddesses of this type.

Version sumérienne

Inanna is regarded sometimes as the girl of the god-Moon Nanna, sometimes of Ishkur (in akkadien Adad ), god of the rain.

It belongs to the triad of the planetary gods. It is the goddess of the Venus star and the love, and is the guardian goddess D' Uruk (in the bible, Erech). The sanctuary of Inanna with Uruk is called the Eanna.

Myths

Inanna and Dumuzi

Inanna is the guardian goddess of Uruk, wife of the shepherd Dumuzi who will become sovereign city. Several accounts sumériens tell the marriage of these two divinities. The texts testify to a great love, but it reigns there also a presentiment of a misfortune to come. In some of these texts, the death of Dumuzi is due to the simple fact that it was linked with a goddess.

Inanna or “the beloved of Anou” was the binocular of Shamash.

There exists a version enough “hardware” of this episode, and another where Dumuzi the shepherd is put in competition with a farmer, symbolizing the fight between the two classes.

descent of Inanna to the Hells

This myth sumérien is the most famous account putting in Inanna scene.

Inanna, sovereign on the “Large Kingdom of In Top”, decides to go down to the hells to supplant his/her older sister Ereshkigal, sovereign of the Lower World. She enters the palate of Ereshkigal, crosses the Seven Doors and arrives naked, stripped of any capacity, in front of her sister and the Seven Judges of the Hells ( Anunnaki ), which kill it. The gods are informed, but challenge it for its act. Enki works and sends however 2 asexual messengers in hell, who revive Inanna with the “beverage of life” and the “food of life”.

Obeying the law which says that whoever penetrates in Hell cannot return on Earth, Anunnaki do not let it leave. Inanna must provide a substitute. It returns on ground accompanied by demons and seeks a substitute.

After various research comfortably, it finds Dumuzi installed on the throne of the city and indicates it, by anger. “Human” explanation well which hides a mystery of the ritual death of the king to ensure the universal fertility.

In the version akkadienne, Ishtar and Tammuz are the characters of the myth. It seems there that Ishtar goes in hell, after the death of Tammuz, to bring back this one. The absence of Ishtar stops any reproduction, which panics the gods and push them to release it.

Rite of the Marriage crowned

Each year at the new year, the sovereign was held “to marry” one of the priestesses of Inanna, in order to ensure the fertility of the grounds and the fruitfulness of the females. It was surely first of all a rite suitable for Uruk, which then spread towards the end of the 3rd millenium.

The King replaces the Dumuzi god of the myth, and the union with the priestess, representing of the Goddess, takes place in Eanna. The festivities were very merry and proceeded in joy.

These anthems of crowned marriage could influence the Cantique of the canticles , which presents many similar features.

See too

Door of Ishtar

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