102 i Flora Unveiled
(presumably husband and wife) are drinking from goblets, which they hold in their right
hands. In her left hand, the woman appears hold a female date cluster (right arrow), while
the man grasps in his left hand the whisk- like rachis of the male date palm (left arrow). If
this interpretation is correct, it shows that the Sumerians correctly identified, at least meta-
phorically, the fruit- bearing tree as female and the pollen- bearing tree as male. In the same
Temple of Inanna there is an inscription to Ninmu, goddess of plants (each temple was in
fact a complex with shrines devoted to various deities). The association of the plaque with
two vegetation deities, Inanna and Ninmu, turns this banquet scene into a celebration of
agricultural abundance and prosperity.
The Goddess Ninmu may be the woman depicted on a relief vessel from Lagash, dat-
ing to around 2400 bce (Figure 5.8A). Her horned crown indicates that she is a deity,
and the lotus bud- like objects sprouting from her shoulders show she is a goddess of
vegetation. In her right hand she holds a cluster of dates, the Mesopotamian symbol of
fruitfulness. Similarly, in the Akkadian cylinder seal in Figure 5.8B, a winged Inanna/
Ishtar is shown standing on a mountain next to a small tree, holding a bunch of dates.
Images such as these clearly indicate that date fruits were closely associated with female
deities. To her right, life- giving water gushes from the shoulders of the water god, Ea
or Enki.
Other Vegetation Goddesses of Sumer and AkkadInanna and Ninmu figure prominently in the myths of Sumer- Akkad, along with a host
of other agricultural deities, most of which are female. We will return to the myths involv-
ing Inanna, but first we will introduce a few of the other vegetation goddesses of southern
Mesopotamia.
Ninhursag and Uttu. Earlier, we noted that the goddess Nammu was the primordial deity
representing subterranean waters. Enki, in one Sumerian text referred to as Nammu’s son,
is known as the “Lord of the Earth” as well as “king of the abzu” or “king of sweet water.”
Enki was thus also the god of the marshlands so widespread in southern Mesopotamia. As
the god of sweet water, Enki was viewed as the ultimate source of all life, including plants,
a function that the earlier goddess Nammu once held. Perhaps the transition from the god-
dess Nammu to the god Enki as the source of life reflects the transition from Neolithic
“hoe- agriculture” to Bronze Age “plow- agriculture,” when agriculture became increas-
ingly male- dominated. Whatever the reason for the replacement of Nammu by Enki, some
vestige of the primordial vegetation goddess remains in the Sumerian myth of Enki and
Ninhursag.
The story begins in the land of Dilmun, the Sumerian paradise, where everything is clean
and bright, but there is no life because there is only brackish water. In this pure, but lifeless
place the god Enki lives with his wife, the goddess Ninsikil. One day, Ninsikil tells Enki
that she wants sweet water for use in irrigation, which Enki promptly provides with the help
of the sun god Utu. Sweet water bubbles up from the ground, the rivers are filled, and the
earth produces crops of grain and dates. Enki’s wife, Ninsikil, is functioning as a vegetation
goddess in the first episode of the story.
Having provided the earth with water, which makes the grain and the dates grow, Enki
next fathers a daughter and engages in a series of incestuous relationships. In this second
episode, however, Enki has a different wife, the mother goddess, Ninhursag (“Lady of