page_title: Inanna
section_title: Family
hierarchical_section_title: Inanna / Family
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: Inanna's twin brother was Utu, the god of the sun and justice (who was later known as Shamash in East Semitic languages). In Sumerian texts, Inanna and Utu are shown as extremely close; in fact, their relationship frequently borders on incestuous. Inanna's sukkal is the goddess Ninshubur, whose relationship with Inanna is one of mutual devotion. In the myth of her descent into the Underworld, Inanna addresses Ereshkigal, the queen of the underworld, as her "older sister", but the two goddesses almost never appear together in Sumerian literature. In Uruk, Inanna was usually regarded as the daughter of the sky god An, but, in the Isin tradition, she is usually described as the daughter of the moon god Nanna (who was later known as Sin). In literary texts, she is sometimes described as the daughter of Enlil or the daughter of Enki. In some later stories, Inanna/Ishtar is the sister of Ishkur (Hadad), the god of storms, and, in Hittite mythology, Ishtar is the sister of Teshub, the Hittite storm god.
  Dumuzid (later known as Tammuz), the god of shepherds, is usually described as Inanna's husband, but Inanna's loyalty to him is questionable; in the myth of her descent into the Underworld, she abandons Dumuzid and permits the galla demons to drag him down into the Underworld as her replacement, but in the later myth of The Return of Dumuzid Inanna paradoxically mourns over Dumuzid's death and ultimately decrees that he will be allowed to return to Heaven to be with her for one half of the year. Inanna is not usually described as having any offspring, but, in the myth of Lugalbanda and in a single building inscription from the Third Dynasty of Ur (c. 2112 – c. 2004 BC), the warrior god Shara is described as her son. She was also sometimes considered the mother of Lulal, who is described in other texts as the son of Ninsun.
caption: An ancient Sumerian depiction of the marriage of Inanna and Dumuzid[93]
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