page_title: Inanna
section_title: Modern relevance
hierarchical_section_title: Inanna / Later influence / Modern relevance
caption_attribution_description: English: Identifier: mythslegendsofba00spenuoft (find matches) Title: Myths and legends of Babylonia &amp; Assyria Year: 1916 (1910s) Authors: Spence, Lewis, 1874-1955 Subjects: Assyro-Babylonian religion Mythology, Assyro-Babylonian Legends Cults Publisher: London&#160;: Harrap Contributing Library: Kelly - University of Toronto Digitizing Sponsor: MSN View Book Page: Book Viewer About This Book: Catalog Entry View All Images: All Images From Book Click here to view book online to see this illustration in context in a browseable online version of this book. Text Appearing Before Image: riants above enumeratedserve each to cast light on the other, and from acomparison of these we may succeed in arriving ata satisfactory conclusion. To begin with, however,it must be remembered that when the cult of anydeity has reached a fairly advanced stage it is impos-sible to assign to him any one department of nature,to say that he is a sun-god, a rain-god, a corn-god,for he may possess the attributes of all of these. Ingiving any god a departmental designation we arestriving to express his primitive or predominantcharacteristics merely. An Allegorical Interpfctation of the Myth A truly allegorical elucidation of the myth ofIshtars descent into Hades would depict Ishtar,as the goddess of fertility, seeking in the underworldfor her husband, the sun-god, slain by the icy breathof winter. During her sojourn in the nether regionsall fertility ceases on the earth, to be resumed onlywhen she returns as the joyful bride of the spring-tide sun. The surrender of her clothing and jewels136 Text Appearing After Image: The Mother-goddess Ishtar Evelyn Paul 136 AN ALLEGORICAL INTERPRETATION at the seven gates of Aralu represents the gradualdecay of vegetation on the earth, and the resumptionof her garments the growing beauty and verdurewhich mark her return. Another hypothesis identifiesIshtar with Dawkina, goddess of the earth, wife ofEa and therefore mother as well as consort of Tammuz.According to this view Ishtar represents not thefertiHty of the earth, but the earth itself, deprivedof its adornments of flowers and leafage by theapproach of winter, or variously, by the burningheat of summer. The waters of life, with whichshe sprinkles and restores her husband,^ are therevivifying rains which give to the sun-god hisyouthful vigour and glory. Against this view it hasbeen urged (e.g. by Sir James Frazer) that thereis nothiiig in the suns annual course within thetemperate and tropical zones to suggest that he isdead for half or a third of the year, and alive forthe other half or two-thirds. Alternati Note About Images Please note that these images are extracted from scanned page images that may have been digitally enhanced for readability - coloration and appearance of these illustrations may not perfectly resemble the original work.
context_page_description: Inanna is an ancient Mesopotamian goddess associated with love, beauty, sex, war, justice, and political power. She was originally worshiped in Sumer and was later worshipped by the Akkadians, Babylonians, and Assyrians under the name Ishtar. She was known as the "Queen of Heaven" and was the patron goddess of the Eanna temple at the city of Uruk, which was her main cult center. She was associated with the planet Venus and her most prominent symbols included the lion and the eight-pointed star. Her husband was the god Dumuzid and her sukkal, or personal attendant, was the goddess Ninshubur.
  Inanna was worshiped in Sumer at least as early as the Uruk period, but she had little cult prior to the conquest of Sargon of Akkad. During the post-Sargonic era, she became one of the most widely venerated deities in the Sumerian pantheon, with temples across Mesopotamia. The cult of Inanna/Ishtar, which may have been associated with a variety of sexual rites, was continued by the East Semitic-speaking people who succeeded and absorbed the Sumerians in the region.
context_section_description: In his 1853 pamphlet The Two Babylons, as part of his argument that Roman Catholicism is actually Babylonian paganism in disguise, Alexander Hislop, a Protestant minister in the Free Church of Scotland, incorrectly argued that the modern English word Easter must be derived from Ishtar due to the phonetic similarity of the two words. Modern scholars have unanimously rejected Hislop's arguments as erroneous and based on a flawed understanding of Babylonian religion. Nonetheless, Hislop's book is still popular among some groups of evangelical Protestants and the ideas promoted in it have become widely circulated, especially through the Internet, due to a number of popular Internet memes.
  Ishtar's first major appearance in modern literature was in Ishtar and Izdubar, a book-length poem written in 1884 by Leonidas Le Cenci Hamilton, an American lawyer and businessman, loosely based on the recently-translated Epic of Gilgamesh. Ishtar and Izdubar expanded the original roughly 3,000 lines of the Epic of Gilgamesh to roughly 6,000 lines of rhyming couplets grouped into forty-eight cantos. Hamilton significantly altered most of the characters and introduced entirely new episodes not found in the original epic. Significantly influenced by Edward FitzGerald's Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam and Edwin Arnold's The Light of Asia, Hamilton's characters dress more like nineteenth-century Turks than ancient Babylonians. In the poem, Izdubar (the earlier misreading for the name "Gilgamesh") falls in love with Ishtar, but, then, "with hot and balmy breath, and trembling form aglow," she attempts to seduce him, leading Izdubar to reject her advances. Several "columns" of the book are devoted to an account of Ishtar's descent into the Underworld. At the conclusion of the book, Izdubar, now a god, is reconciled with Ishtar in Heaven. In 1887, the composer Vincent d'Indy wrote Symphony Ishtar, variations symphonique, Op. 42, a symphony inspired by the Assyrian monuments in the British Museum.
  Inanna has become an important figure in modern feminist theory because she appears in the male-dominated Sumerian pantheon, but is equally as powerful, if not more powerful than, the male deities she appears alongside. Simone de Beauvoir, in her book The Second Sex (1949), argues that Inanna, along with other powerful female deities from antiquity, have been marginalized by modern culture in favor of male deities. Tikva Frymer-Kensky has argued that Inanna was a "marginal figure" in Sumerian religion who embodies the "socially unacceptable" archetype of the "undomesticated, unattached woman". Johanna Stuckey has argued against this idea, pointing out Inanna's centrality in Sumerian religion and her broad diversity of powers, neither of which seem to fit the idea that she was in any way regarded as "marginal".
  While classical deities such as Apollo and Aphrodite frequently appear in modern popular culture, Mesopotamian deities have, by contrast, fallen into almost complete obscurity. Inanna/Ishtar has somewhat resisted this tendency, but has not been immune to it. She usually only appears in works with strong mythological input, and most modern portrayals of Inanna/Ishtar have virtually nothing in common with the ancient goddess except for her name. The 1963 splatter film Blood Feast concerns a serial killer who sacrifices his victims to Ishtar, who is incorrectly identified as an "Egyptian goddess". Ishtar also gave her name to the 1987 box office bomb Ishtar, in which the character Shirra was loosely modeled on her. According to Louise Pryke, the character Buffy Summers in Buffy the Vampire Slayer bears remarkably strong similarities to Ishtar, but these may be coincidental. Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, following the portrayal in Blood Feast, portrays Ishtar as a soul-eating Egyptian mummy. One of the two highlands of the planet Venus is named "Ishtar Terra". John Craton composed a full-length opera about Ishtar and she has also been referenced in numerous rock and death metal songs.
  The Argentinian-born Jewish feminist artist Liliana Kleiner created an 
caption: A modern illustration depicting Inanna-Ishtar's descent into the Underworld taken from Lewis Spence's Myths and Legends of Babylonia and Assyria (1916)
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