Additional testimony comes from a myth with the modern title Enmerkar and the
Lord of Aratta(Cohen, S. 1973 ; Berlin 1981 ).This tale about the rivalry between
Enmerkar and Ensuhkesˇdanna, the rulers of Uruk and Aratta, is set in early third
millennium Sumer, at a time when the Sumerian writing system did not as yet
represent speech. The story therefore either derives from an early oral tradition or was
composed long after the events. The plot hinges on Ensuhkesˇdanna’s refusal to
acknowledge the sovereignty of Uruk, expressed in the claim that he himself has wooed
and married Inanna. The story concludes with Ensuhkesˇdanna conceding that only
Enmerkar is Inanna’s beloved.
Investigations of the Sacred Marriage have centered on several questions raised
by this corpus. Was the Sacred Marriage a literary topos or a performed rite? The
occasional scholar has been inclined to dismiss the Sacred Marriage as fiction, either
because literal ritual intercourse seems implausible or because the evidence is literary
(Kraus 1974 : 249 ; Pongratz-Leisten 2008 : 49 ). However, most would agree that the
impression provided by different genres is not easily set aside. The inscriptional
evidence is considerable, if lacking in specifics, and the Inanna-Dumuzi corpus is
annotated with liturgical annotations that are out of place in songs of popular char-
acter. The specialized notation situates the Inanna-Dumuzi songs in the performative
milieu of temple musicians, prompting several translators to identify these songs as
actual liturgies sung on the occasion of the Sacred Marriage (Kramer 1963 : 489 ; Sefati
1998 : 25 – 26 ).
More attention has focused on how a ritual marriage between ruler and goddess
might have been staged. The most baffling aspect is that texts describe the goddess
herself as being present, leading most reviewers to conclude that the ritual must have
required a human stand-in. The conundrum as to the identity of Inanna’s repre-
sentative has generated much commentary (see summaries by Cooper 1993 ; Sefati 1998 :
19 – 21 ; Lapinkivi 2004 ; Pongratz-Leisten 2008 ). Various priestesses have been sug-
gested, most often the office of the high priestess. Although the role should have
conferred great honor, no woman is ever mentioned as impersonating the goddess,
and actual intercourse would have presented difficulties. The high priestess was often
the king’s own daughter. Further complicating matters, some monarchs (for example
Sˇulgi) came to the throne as children; others are likely to have been biologically female
(McCaffrey 2008 ). In view of such considerations, some have postulated a symbolic
ceremony (Steinkeller 1999 : 133 – 134 ; Lapinkivi 2008 : 23 – 24 ).
IMAGES AND ARTIFACTS
Although possible illustrations of the Sacred Marriage have been proposed over the
years, most notably the reliefs on the Uruk Vase, many scholars have regarded the
material evidence as speculative because no artifact is inscribed or securely related to
contemporary textual testimony (Collins 1994 : 110 ; Leick 2002 : 132 ; Lapinkivi 2008 :
11 – 12 ). Uninscribed artifacts pose an obvious problem due to the lack of a recognized
procedure for identifying the Sacred Marriage. Toward this end, we might contemplate
the intuitive strategy employed to scrutinize texts and artifacts. Texts are scanned for
mention of a marriage that involves at least one deity. With artifacts, the same approach
founders on the problem of identification. Images of amorous couples lack identifying
insignia; couples of more certain identity might be merely adjacent.–– The Sumerian sacred marriage ––