which was attained through the divine consecration manifested in the rite of ‘sacred
marriage’ that sanctioned the authority of the ruler. The concomitant royal sobriquet
‘spouse of Inanna’ and the love songs replete with amatory attributes of the divine
bride are the hallmark of Sumerian kingship.
Perceiving Inanna/Ishtar through the pattern of the devotional literature, one descries
a compassionate goddess of celestial judgement or an angry goddess who inflicts
sufferings on humankind. The righteous sufferer who falls ill and is given up for lost
is certain that his travails are due to the goddess’ withdrawal of favour.
Observing Inanna/Ishtar through the pattern of ritual observance, one notes the
variant celebrations of the goddess involving transgendered and transvestite cultic
personnel. The carnivalesque festivals of the goddess were occasions when reversals
in age, species, status, and sex all came into play, when social rules were in abeyance,
and were possibly times of institutionalised license (Harris 1991 : 273 ).
Viewing Inanna/Ishtar from a pattern of sexual orientation, one focuses on her sexual
identity. She could be viewed as a beautiful goddess of love who rules the day and
as a bearded god(dess) of war who rules the night.^3 This apparent androgyny of Inanna/
Ishtar provided a powerful symbol of the ambiguities of pure sexuality, which is said
to be reflected in her cult and in the transvestism of her cultic personnel (Groneberg
1986 ).
HISTORICAL OUTLINEInanna/Ishtar is the one and only deity whose worship is known from the dawn of
Babylonian civilisation. Over the millennia, her identity underwent a continual process
of reinterpretation and syncretism, mutation and fossilisation, fusion and fission which
generated a goddess who was a complex multi-layered conglomerate.
Fourth millenniumInanna first appears in the late fourth millennium as the patron deity of Uruk, the
first urban centre on the Mesopotamian alluvium (Szarzyn ́ ska 2000 ). The sign with
which her name was written goes back to an archaic pictograph representing a gatepost
with a volute finial. This decorative post, which originally stood outside the gate to
her temple or shrine, developed into her earliest cult symbol (see Figure 23. 1 ). Next
to the volute-like symbol of Inanna appears also a rosette/star, the icon that became
the major symbol of Inanna/Ishtar throughout ancient Mesopotamian history down
to the Neo-Babylonian period. From this period, we have not only images of her cult
symbols, but also representations of the goddess. A one metre-high vase reveals the
goddess receiving a procession headed by the en, priest-ruler of the city of Uruk, as
he leads a procession bearing the produce of the land, perhaps on the occasion of the
New Year (Figure 23. 2 ). This vase is said to illustrate Inanna’s relationship with
vegetable and animal fertility (Selz 2000 : 40 note 12 ) and to render the ‘sacred
marriage’ of Inanna and the king (ibid. 30 – 32 ).
In the written sources, Inanna appears in various manifestations, each of which, in
different measure, seems to possess a separate cult, temples with cultic functionaries,
and the right to receive offerings. The manifestations are: NUN ‘prince’, húd‘morning’,
sig‘evening’ and kur‘mountain’. It is important to review these manifestations in
— Inanna and Ishtar in the Babylonian world —