Inanna/Ishtar/Aphrodite/Isis

Sorry for the delay - I always seem to have to much on my plate. Its funny I happened to stumble on the above cited article today in the library and hunted around for this thread thinking it would make a nice surprise addition, only to find out I had promised to review it months ago. Unfortunately this article does not provide too much insight on how it went Inanna>Ishtar> Aphrodite etc. but it does give us some good insight into the character of the goddess for now. Anyway, here we go..



This article is written by Rivkah Harris who does an excellent treatment of the phenomena of Inanna-Ishtar - the very multi-faceted goddess. To begin with the author sums the opinions and findings of the prominent scholars on Inanna:

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Jacobsen: stated Inanna has "become truly all women of infinite variety."
Kramer: notes "the contrasting strands in Inanna's multi-faceted character."
Oppenheim: believed that Ishtar possessed "divine qualities which are extremely difficult to characterize."
Wilcke: thought that although many epithets are attributed to Inanna, there is little within the scope of human life that falls in here domain.
Alster: suggests that Inanna "represents the irrational notions within Sumerian society."

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A stimulating article the author is fond of is by H.I.J. Vanstiphout, where he stresses the goddess's "variety of features, her constant movement, her unabating struggle for domination..He concludes that the Mesopotamians so to speak eliminated strife as an abstract principal by incorporating it into the psychology of Inanna."

- See H.I.J. Vanstiphout, "Inanna/Ishtar as a Figure of Controversy," Struggles of the Gods: Papers of the Groningen Work Group for the Study of the History of Religions.

- For a historical reconstruction of the fusing of Inanna and Ishtar, we are referred to W. Heimpel 's study "A Catalog of Near Eastern Venus Deities," in Syro-Mesopotamian Studies 4 (1982): 9-22



Harris's own view/




Harris proceeds to discuss various mythological pieces which present the paradox of Inana, as in the Gilgamesh epics when she is said to mourn over the destruction the flood has cause, and yet in a different section dealing with her proposal to Gilgamesh, she is destructive and greedy. In one of the Hymns to Inanna, the author points out the contradictory nature is made explicit:

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[

"You have thrown into confusion those threads which have been ordered..
You organize those threads which bring confusion...
Inanna, you have destroyed what should not have been destroyed,
You have made what should not have been made."

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Another interesting segment of this article occurs when Susan Stewart's definition of Inanna is discussed: Stewart sees Inanna as a definitively ambiguous character who "belongs to more than one domain at a time and will not fix [her] identity in any one member of this set of domains. [She] is both this and that." Here we are reminded somewhat of Lapinkivi's description of Inanna as a mediator between the domains, Heaven, the mundane world and the netherworld. (See Madness's post about Lapinkivi on the
Vampire thread, post #17.)



Order and Disorder/


The me in Sumerian literature provide scholars with valuable insight into the Sumerian concept of civilization. Of course as we've encountered in the myths, the me include not only those aspects of civilization which contribute to order, but to disorder as well. For example, there are, among the me that Inanna steals from Enki, "the art of lovemaking... the art of treachery..the art of kindness..the kindling of strife.." etc. Harris remarks here "Central then to the Mesopotamian perspective is the existence of antithesis and contradictions, the delicate balancing of order and disorder."


Psychological Androgyny/

Harris then quotes the observation of G. Zeitlin about Inanna-Ishtar : "[In her own person she] attests to the coincidentia oppositorum that challenge the hierarchies and rules of the public masculine world, reintroducing into it confusions, conflicts, tensions, and ambiguities, insisting always on the more complex nature of life than masculine aspirations would allow."

The author makes a case for Inanna's psychological androgyny: "Inanna-Ishtar is both male and female. Over and over the texts juxtapose the masculine and feminine traits and behavior of the goddess. She can be bother compassionate, supportive, and nurturing and assertive, aggressive and strong-willed. In short, she breaks the boundaries between the sexes by embodying both femaleness and maleness." Some supporting lines the author gives some lines from texts, one reads "Though I am a woman I am a noble young man" another "When I take my stand at the rear of battle, verily I am the woman who comes and draws near. Which I sit in the ale-house, I am a woman (but) verily I am an exuberant man..." (from M.E. Cohen, JAOS 95, no. 4)

The author states that the androgyny of Inanna also manifests itself in the transvestitism of her cult personnel and adds "Mesopotamians believed that the transforming of men into women and women into men through the frightening power of the goddess was done "in order to teach the people religious fear."
Concluding on androgyny its summed "Inanna-Ishtar combines male aggressiveness with the force of a superabundance of female sexuality."


Confusion between Classes/

A brief examination on the contradiction between Inanna's affairs with Kings and at the same time her status as prostitute ensues here. For her affairs with Kings, we can refer to the
Bal.bal.e thread, Heading : Bridal Songs. In other genres she is described as a Harlot, or as "harimtu" the harlot of Heaven. The contradiction here is in the classes she has relations with (kings in one, low classes in another.)

Boundaries between species/ (This observation is sufficiently interesting to quote in full in my opinion)

Harris: " Inanna-Ishtar shatters the boundaries that differentiate the species, those between divine and human, divine and animal, human and animal. But for this is harder to come by then her confusion of the sexual categories. An episode in the Gilgamesh Epic is perhaps the most telling. She becomes enamored with the hero and proposes marriage to him- thereby assuming the masculine role. Gilgamesh, in a long, devastatingly critical speech, rejects her proposal. (She will subsequently retaliate in typically male fashion.) He enumerates her past sordid affairs, her previous lovers and their fates. They were Dumuzi, a bird, a lion, a war-horse, a shepherd, and a gardener. All came to grief. The shepherd she turned into a wolf. Ishtar thus confused the boundaries in her choice of lovers between divine and human, divine and animal (and bird); and in the transformation of a human into a wolf, the boundary between human and animal, the divisions then between the species.
Lions especially are associated with Ishtar. She is the only goddess to have the epithet of lionness (labbatu), and with her fierceness and raging power it is indeed a fitting epithet, even more befitting the maleness of the goddess.
Relevant here is the new interpretation by Thorkild Jacobsen of the well-known Burney Relief. [referring to Jacobsen "Pictures and Pictorial Language (The Burney Relief) from Figurative Language of the Ancient Near East 1987]. The winged goddess of the plaque with bird's claws, flanked by owls and standing on two lions couchant, he believes, is Inanna as "Lady Owl" who, when named Kilili, "denotes the harlot who like the owl comes out at dusk.: He suggests that the Burney Relief may have "served as a cult-relief at the house alter of an ancient bordello." If so, and Jacobsen makes a convincing case, then the very depiction of the goddess breaks down the boundary between species, between the divine and ornithic."



A concluding comment the author makes is a quote from C. Greertz who was reflective about Inanna-Ishtar's popularity:

"The Strange opacity of certain empirical events, the dumb senselessness of intense or inexorable pain, and the enigmatic unaccountability of gross iniquity all raise the uncomfortable suspicion that perhaps the world, and hence man's life in the world, has no genuine order at all - no empirical regularity, no form, no moral coherence. And the religious response is the same: the formulation, by means of symbols, of an image of such a genuine order which will account for and even celebrate the perceived ambiguities, puzzles and paradoxes in human experience."

I like the dark overtones. Very good.

I see Ishtar to be rather dark myself.

I don't know anything specifically dealing with Ishtar in greek sources. Though Aphrodite was also equated with Hathor, who has many traits in common with Ishtar, alongside associations with lions.

Inanna and Kilili



I have recently wrote to a friend discussing some aspects of Inanna as demon and as Kilili. As with many discussions of Mesopotamian mythology, more questions have opened up with the presentation of additional information and so my musing below is not about answers unfortunately. Still I feel there are interesting questions and another aspect of Inanna mentioned on the Inanna thread. For background, new readers should consider our Burney Relief thread first - and additionally some of the below mentioning Lapinkivi borrows Madness's input on another thread. On with the musing!

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The owl itself and its troublesome presence is a matter I've looked at briefly before but might be worth revisiting. What I often hear, is a connection between Inanna and the owls and even the owl demon Kilili. Commentary of this sort seems to focus itself when orbiting the subject of the Burney Relief - opinion is divided of course, on who the winged deity is supposed to represent, Lilitu or Kilili in the form of Inanna, or Inanna in the form of Lilitu or Kilili (or else Ereshkigal etc). W. Fauth writing in 1985 recognized that Ishtar was originally stated to have demonic properties, and G. Leick follows this in her "Sex and Erotica in Sumerian Literature":

[In referring to the late Mandiac texts from Syria] "In these texts the old West Semitic love-goddess Astarte seems to have fused with the Mesopotamian Lilû to personify the predatory, aggressive female sexuality (Fauth 1985). We have seen Ishtar too has affinities with demons: she is sometimes described as Kilili, or even Lamashtu. In these there late texts the independent, female and erotic deities are dangerous, unpredictable and able to promote, as well as harm, human sexuality and fertility."

As for Mesopotamian context, CAD K p. 377 has an entry for kilili which has meanings either 1. owl (as an ominous bird) or 2. (as female demon). With the latter meaning, a few textual instances are given. One text describes the demon "The kilili-demon, the queen of windows, kilili who leans into windows." And an incantation states that "he (the sick person) recites three times the conjuration "you, kilili-demon" another "you, kilili-demon, who leans into (The house) through the windows." (There are possibly parallels here with Ardat-lili as one incantation concerning that demon reads "Ardat-Lili wafts through a mans window.") Additionally, according Wiggermann 1992, the position a figurine is described in the Bīt Mēsuri ritual text: "In the window of the house shrewd Ishtar has taken seat." Wiggermann adds "this "Ishtar of the window" is perhaps identical with Kilili."



The Akk. owl demon Kilili is equated to Sumerian Nin-ninna in lexical texts - while the former is assiociated by contemporary scholarship with Inanna/Ishtar, we may wonder if the later should be as well. The owl as creature of the night is associated with the netherworld, as in Woods explanation, the night sky and netherworld are equated in the ancient mind. It may therefore be supposed to be a bringer of unfavorable portent and death. There are two instances of (d)Nin-ninna at ETCSL which I'll mention here; one from Dumuzi's dream, where he first dreams about an occurance of an owl ((d)nin-ninna) and then that dream is explained to him by his sister:


Dumuzid's dream: t.1.4.3
dnin-ninna2mušen-ta-e ĝa2 udu-ka sila4 šu ba-ni-ib-ti

He dreams:

"An owl (?) took a lamb from the sheep house, a falcon caught a sparrow on the reed fence ....."

Geshtinanna explains:

"The owl (?) taking a lamb from the sheep house {is the evil man who will hit you on the cheek} {(1 ms. has instead:) is the evil man who will destroy the sheep house}"



And a a hymn to Nungal (Nungal A): t.4.28.1, which concerns the goddess in charge of prisons and treating prisoners, reads:


"Its inmates, like small birds escaped from the claws of an owl, look to its opening as to the rising of the sun"

50. lu2-be2-e-ne buru5mušen dnin-ninna2mušen-ta šu-ta šub-ba-gin7
51. ĝal2 da13-da13-bi-še3 dutu e3-a-gin7 igi-bi im-ši-ĝal2





The first text we may find curious, when we consider the way in which Inanna was called and described by a certain epithet in the balag lamentations of Mesopotamia - the epithet of (d)Lil2-la2-an-na or variously, d)Lil2-la2-en-na. In those lamentations when called by this name, Inanna is referred in the following ways:

61: "May Lillaenna, Gashangunisurra, utter a prayer for you!"
elsewhere:
"I, Lillaenna, the lady of the cattle pen and sheepfold,"
elsewhere:
"Lillaenna, lady of the cattle pen and sheepfold!"
elsewhere:
"Lillaenna, the lady of the cattle pen and sheepfold, the mother of the house"



While (d)nin-ninna is a portent of the demons coming to attack his sheepfold in Dumuzi's dream, Lil2-la2-en-na (a demon form name?), is somehow the mother of the sheepfold? I wonder if this could be an ironic name, showing her at once to be the mother and the destoryer of the sheepfold? Inanna is surely responcible for the demons coming to Dumuzi's sheepfold, we know.


In the second text, we read "Its inmates, like small birds escaped from the claws of an owl, look to its opening as to the rising of the sun." This is fascinating on different levels. Prisons in Mesopotamia of course were brutal and may consist of nothing more than a hole in the ground with a reed fence thrown over top - the analogy is often to the netherworld and here we see inmates looking to an opening, to the light of day, as an escape from the darkness of the netherworld - an opening is the rising of the sun, and transition from one realm to another. A small bird, almost as a lil2 perhaps, traveling from below to above, escaping the grasp of the (d)nin-ninna.


Oddly, We seem to have aspects of Inanna/Ishtar which at once pertain to life and death, she is the Lil2-la-en-na the mother of the sheepfold, and the nin-ninna, the owl which give a portance the coming destruction of the same; in the second text we have perhaps a symbolic referrence to the soul escaping and again the clutch of the netherworld bird - here the comment of P. Lapinkivi SAAS 15, the student of Parpola, seems appropriate (while it seems odd in isolation):



"In other words, the female of the Burney Relief is demonic in the lower part of her body whereas the upper part is divine. This two-layered representation fits well with Ištar, whose upper, divine part of the body is used as a reference to life, whereas the demonic, lower part of the body is used as a reference to death, both of which are found among her aspects. As a goddess of love, she is life, as a goddess of war, she is death. The wings, on one hand, refer to Kilili, an owl (kililu/kilili), but on the other hand, they may imply that the figure is a representation of a soul, or more precisely, a winged soul, as described in the Etana Epic. The fact that Inanna/Ištar can stand for a soul, as in the Descent, can explain why the female of the Burney Relief is depicted with wings. The zaqiqu/ziqiqu “soul, ghost” was also depicted as a bird-like emanation. As a matter of fact, in the more easily interpreted iconography of Inanna/Ištar, she is often depicted with wings. Equally, the demonic and divine features find their explanation in the "soul" aspect of the goddess: the soul in both its sinful and purified states. Note also that Lilitu's position in the tree in the story of Gilgameš and the Huluppu-Tree is in the middle in the trunk, which connects her with Inanna/Ištar, the mediator between gods and men, and with her position in the Mesopotamian Tree of Life."

V.V.Emelianov in the work about Me and spring festivals refers K.V. Zand's materials (ud-gal-nun early dynastic texts) in which Inanna is called mistress of all Mes and all lands and gives a conclusion that she was restrained in her rights only since the Isin-Larsa period. But he doesn't consider a question in detail.
Probably, Inanna s discontent with infringement of her rights reflects reaction on decrease of her role in comparison with the early period.
Inanna s marital relations are interesting also. In text "Inanna and An" (http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/cgi-bin/etcsl.cgi?text=t.1.3.5#) she is obviously a spouse of An and Dumuzi in the same time. That, probably, reflects poliandry customs (like mentioned in Urukagina code). I didn't meet any scholarly works where the text "Inanna and An" would be considered. Perhaps somebody saw?

Quite true! I can't stop loving her though she has left me However, I'm also fallen in love with her, who will never leave me whether I love her or not, the Queen of All Peoples - another paradoxical love beyond my understanding. The more I prostrate myself before her the little my wish to stand up anymore

If Inanna help me in finding sponsors I will make a serial about all her adventures - I feel it's my best way to praise her today on a grand scale

And yes, it's a pity indeed that the Sumerian culture was so distorted by their successors. Yet it was not because the gods betrayed their land to the invaders but rather because the technical competence was at the expense of the magical competence. It's the magical view which perceives everything in its complexity simultaneously - while the religious view worships one aspect and demonizes another, and the scientific view reduces everything to its elements in order to know it, but thus it also mortifies it.

Seems that the possession of some MEs is at the expense of other MEs. Humanity developed a super technocratic civilization but the human emotionality remained the same as it was during the Bronze Age. In addition, suppressed and plagued.

Getting on the subject of Inanna I am confused about two things.

-Her parentage. Some sources label Nanna & Ninhursag. (The ladder I would like some real information on.) The other labels her parents as An and Ki. This one is the most confusing part. As Inanna's name connects to Nanna's, but she is the Queen of Heaven.

-Although the majority mention her consort as being Dumuzi, I come across sparse references that her consort is An. Is there any truth to this? What is considered canonical?

I am assuming from the texts I read that her being the daughter of Enki or Enlil was metaphorical more than literal. Whereas An and Nanna parentage seemed to be more literal.

That didn't really explain her as the consort of An so much. But I will say that I read someone's post years ago that Inanna and An were merging. I would like to see more on this.



I disagree with this. Inanna has many facets to herself and one scholar called her "she of a 1000 faces". I see her more as a empowering symbol to women than a spoiled brat. I don't know why a woman who takes control of her own life and does what she wants, with disregard to traditional gender roles, would be considered a spoiled brat. In the story of Inanna and Eibh(sp?) the mountain she goes and does it even though An refuses to help her after the mountain refuses to honor her. She also went looking for her rapist until she got revenge, she thought what could be done because of her genitals. I find these to be positive attributes, she refuses to be a victim or to take shit from anyone.

There's a lot of other texts that suggest there is a lot more to Inanna than a "spoiled brat". In fact I could make the call that all the gods are spoiled brats, I mean they're gods. I find the term over simplistic and not describing Inanna, who is quite complex, but rather a perception one sees because she bothers An. As indicated:

"Goddess of the fearsome divine powers, clad in terror, riding on the great divine powers, Inana, made complete by the strength of the holy ankar weapon, drenched in blood, rushing around in great battles, with shield resting on the ground (?), covered in storm and flood, great lady Inana, knowing well how to plan conflicts, you destroy mighty lands with arrow and strength and overpower lands.

In heaven and on earth you roar like a lion and devastate the people. Like a huge wild bull you triumph over lands which are hostile. Like a fearsome lion you pacify the insubordinate and unsubmissive with your gall." - Inana and Ebih: translation 1-9

and

"Then the woman was considering what should be destroyed because of her genitals; Inana was considering what should be done because of her genitals. She filled the wells of the Land with blood, so it was blood that the irrigated orchards of the Land yielded, it was blood that the slave who went to collect firewood drank, it was blood that the slavegirl who went out to draw water drew, and it was blood that the black-headed people drank. No one knew when this would end. She said: "I will search everywhere for the man who had intercourse with me". But nowhere in all the lands could she find the man who had had intercourse with her. - Now, what did one say to another? What further did one add to the other in detail?" - Inana and Shu-kale-tuda: translation 129-138

None of which Inanna is submissive or a spoiled brat but rather a goddess who demands respect.

I won't even go into aspects like killi.

So it was the priests who tied her to An. Perhaps its a metaphor given that An can symbolize heaven itself and Inanna is the Queen of Heaven.

I'm afraid you girls tend to make of Inanna a militant monster - what about her erotic aspects? Isn't she also a goddess of love and sex as well? Or, those who are interested in her eroticism are only male chauvinists and sexists who are to be castrated?

Just because she is of complex nature she could afford to be whatever she wants to be.

I'm the least who would ignore her warrior aspect. The deities are of paradoxical nature - they could manifest simultaneously things of opposing natures like goodevil, lovehate, feardesire, sexdeath, weeplaughter etc. but rarely the one thing only as humans would prefer - especially Inanna - and that's why they are deities after all. That's why we speak of divine madness - an ecstasy so difficult for humans to understand. Even when angry and furious Inanna never loses her feminine charm. I've tried to express it via my artwork "Inanna's storm" - see somewhere in the gallery thread. It was made by a special inspiration from her.