relation to her later epiphanies in order to determine their significance as regards her
origin, character and function.
The earliest epithet, NUN, may be related to NUN, the sign with which the god
Enki and the city Eridu were written. Thus, instead of Inanna ‘the princely’, Inanna-
NUN could be interpreted as Inanna of the city of Eridu. Such an interpretation
would give some support to the genealogy of Inanna as daughter of the god Enki,
or to an early diffusion of the worship of Inanna and her establishment outside Uruk.
It may also relate to her stealing the me-principles from ‘her father’ Enki. The
me-principles are the cultural norms that are the basis of Sumerian civilisation and
comprise all aspects of human life, including the insignia of kingship as well as the
proprieties of sexuality, and are particularly associated with Inanna (Glassner 1992 ).
This epithet NUN also appears in the name of her archaic temple the É.NUN,
possibly to be read agrun, ‘cella’. In general, the name é-agrun-na refers to the cella
of a sanctuary and judging from the occurrences of the word in contexts dealing with
night and resting, it was conceived as the bedchamber.
— Joan Goodnick Westenholz —Figure 23. 1 Green calcite cylinder seal and impression depicting a cultic scene (sacred marriage?),
flanked by the reed gatepost, symbol of the goddess Inanna, Uruk III period, c. 3100 – 2900 BCE
(BLMJ Seal 204 ). David Harris, Courtesy of the Bible Lands Museum Jerusalem.
Figure 23. 2 Drawing of the top two registers of the cultic vase from Uruk depicting scene of
offerings being presented to the goddess Inanna, found in the temple treasury hoard of level III,
c. 3000 BCEor earlier (F. A. M. Wiggermann).