Ishtar

For other uses, see Ishtar (disambiguation).

Ishtar is the Assyrian counterpart to the Sumerian Inanna and to the cognate northwest Semitic goddess Astarte. Anunit, Astarte and Atarsamain are alternative names for Ishtar.

Ishtar is a mother goddess, fertility goddess, the goddess of spring, a storm goddess, a warrior goddess and goddess of war, a goddess of the hunt, a goddess of love, goddess of marriage and childbirth, and a goddess of fate.

She was also an underworld deity, her twin sister being Ereshkigal the Goddess of Death. But her dominant aspects are as the mother goddess of compassion and the goddess of love, sex and war.

As the goddess of love, Ishtar was irresistable. Her lovers were legion and she was the matron of courtesans and prostitutes. Ishtar herself was the 'courtesan of the gods' and she was the first to experience the desires which she inspired. Sovereign of the world by virtue of love's omnipotence, Ishtar was the most popular goddess in Assyria and Babylonia.

Detail of the reconstructed Ishtar Gate.

In late Babylonian astrology, the goddess Ishtar was related to the planet Venus and was the divine personification of the planet. As the most prominent female deity in the late Babylonian pantheon, she was equated by the Greeks with either Hera (Latin Juno) or Aphrodite (Latin Venus), hence the current name of the planet. (A continent on Venus is named Ishtar Terra by astronomers today.) The double aspect of the goddess may correspond to the difference between Venus as a morning star and as an evening star. In Sumerian the planet is called "MUL.DILI.PAT" meaning "unique star". The name Inanna (sometimes spelled Inana) means "Great Lady of An", where An is 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 Semitic in origin, and was identified in ancient times with Canaanite `Ashtoreth (e.g. Biblical Hebrew עשתרת). Some who seek to trace Christian practices to pagan origins claim that Eostre, an Anglo-Saxon goddess of spring (whose name later gave rise to modern English "Easter") may be etymologically connected to that of Ishtar, though there is no linguistically-meaningful evidence to support such a link.

One story involving Ishtar, and one of the most famous, is the story of her descent to the underworld. Ishtar, who was already regarded as the queen of the living due to her status as supreme goddess, desired to rule the underworld. She began to journey to the underworld, and offered a false explanation to the underworld's gatekeeper as to why she desires to enter the Land of No Return. The gatekeeper accepted her explanation, but also made sure to tell Ereshkigal, the Queen of the Dead and sister of Ishtar, of Ishtar's visit. Ereshkigal's face grew dark, and although she gave permission for Inanna to enter, she warned that ancient rites would have to be followed. At all seven gates, Inanna, like the souls of the dead, had to remove an article of clothing, at the seventh taking off her beautiful dress. When Inanna arrived at the palace of Ereshkigal, cold and naked, she complained to her sister of her treatment, but Ereshkigal silenced her and told her that when she visited the underworld, she would have to follow underworldly rituals. Ishtar then grabbed Ereshkigal, pulling her off her throne and sitting in her place, but the Annunaki, the seven demon-gods of the underworld, sentenced her to death. Immediately after their judgement was announced, Inanna turned into a green, decaying slab of meat, which Ereshkigal hung on a slab in her bedchamber. However, Ea, the cunning uncle of Ishtar, managed to get Ereshkigal to let Ishtar live again provided she sent a substitute. Ishtar was greeted by minor deities upon her return, who had been wearing only rough sacks and groveling in the dirt for days mourning for Ishtar, and so Ishtar decided that she couldn't send any of them. However, when she reached her palace, she found her lover Tammuz wearing brilliantly colored clothes and sitting upon her throne, and, in her rage, sent him to the underworld in her place. However, she later missed him and sent Tammuz's half-sister for six months every year to take Tammuz's place.

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. Ishtar 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. Inanna was also associated with beer, and was the patroness of tavern keepers, who were usually female in early Mesopotamia.

Ishtar is also a significant figure in the epic of Gilgamesh. She appears also on the Uruk vase, one of the most famous ancient Mesopotamian artifacts. The relief on this vase seems to show Inanna conferring kingship on a supplicant. Various inscriptions and artifacts indicate that kingship was one of the gifts bestowed by Inanna on the ruler of Uruk.

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. Statuettes have been found in large numbers representing her as naked with her arms folded across her breast or holding a child. The lion, bull, serpent and dragon are sacred to Ishtar.

Together with the moon god Nanna or Suen (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.

One of the most famous places named after Ishtar is Tarout Island in the Persian Gulf. The island was called IshTarout, before the name evolved into Tarout.