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The other great religious center of Uruk, the Eanna temple complex, was where the
Sumerian goddess Inanna (known in Akkadian as Ishtar) was worshipped. Inanna literally
means “Lady of Heaven,” and she is identified with the planet Venus— the morning and
evening star. She was the tutelary (guardian) deity of Uruk and protector of the city’s store-
houses. In fact, the image of a storehouse gate, with its characteristic curled “ring- posts”
made of reed- bundles, became her symbol in Sumerian relief art (Figure 5.1).
Inanna’s role as protector of the city’s storehouses connects her to agriculture and the
harvest. In addition to grains, legumes, and other dried foods, dates were stored in the com-
munal storehouses in Uruk. Thorkild Jacobsen proposed a possible alternative translation
of Inanna’s name as “Lady of the Date Clusters.”^12 Inanna’s association with agricultural
abundance, and with dates in particular, is well- attested in the art and literature of the
period. For example, in a third- millennium hymn, Inanna exclaims, “I am the one who
makes the dates full of abundance.”^13 We will return to Inanna’s close association with dates
later in the chapter.
Inanna’s central importance at Uruk is best exemplified by the famous Warka vase
(Figure 5.2A), which was found in the Eanna temple treasury at level II, dating to the Late
Uruk period, around 3200 bce. From the time of its discovery in the 1930s, the magnificent
3- foot tall alabaster vase was a centerpiece of the Iraqi National Museum.^14 Carved onto
its surface is a rather sophisticated illustration of the different trophic (feeding) levels thatFigure 5.1 Relief of Sumerian storehouse with ringposts on surface of alabaster trough, third
quarter of the fourth millennium bce.
From Strommenger, E. (1964), 5000 Years of the Art of Mesopotamia. H. N. Abrams, figure 23; British Museum,
London.