In this period, the character of the goddess shifts from Inanna, the Sumerian
troublesome young woman, to Ishtar, the queen of heaven as well as the queen of
the people. Underlying her queenly image is her command of the mes (also termed
garzain Sumerian and translated as pars.uin Akkadian) and her control of all the
negative and positive aspects of human society.
Among the meand garzawhich Inanna/Ishtar controls are those of sexuality –
sexual attraction and intercourse, and its outcome, conception and even childbirth.
We learn about the concerns of the people in these areas of life from love spells and
potency charms, prayers and petitions for help, many invoking the love of Inanna
and Dumuzi.
Inanna/Ishtar becomes the manifestation of sex and eroticism – patron of brides,
married women and prostitutes. Concomitant with her shift to queen is her shift to
prostitute. One hymn puts these words into the mouth of Inanna:
When I sit in the alehouse, I am a woman, and I am an exuberant young man.
When I am present at a place of quarrelling, I am a woman, a perfect figure.
When I sit by the gate of the tavern, I am a prostitute familiar with the penis;
the friend of a man, the girlfriend of a woman.
(Inanna Hymn I 16 – 22 , ETCSL No. 4. 07. 9 )In a Sumerian love incantation, the prostitute is named the daughter of Inanna
(Falkenstein 1964 : 114 line 2 ).
The cult of Inanna/Ishtar focuses on sexual identity and gender roles. From this
period come two royal rituals, one encased in a Sumerian hymn and the other in an
Akkadian prescriptive ritual text. The first describes a ‘sacred marriage’ ritual between
the King of Isin and the goddess Inanna. It takes place at the New Year, beginning
at sunset with the rising of the evening star, climaxing in a dawn ceremony and
concluding with a joyous morning celebration. The hymn opens with an invocation
to the goddess as the evening star followed by a description of a carnival-like procession.
Not only do the people parade playing musical instruments but also costumed asexual
or hermaphrodite personnel, transvestites, wearing male attire on their right side and
female on their left and kurgarras wielding swords in ecstatic frenzy and shedding
blood, to the resounding beat of the drums. As night falls, the focus shifts to Inanna
who is pictured as looking down from the heavens on all the creatures of the earth
and passing judgement on the sleepers. At the dawning of the new day, the celebration
of the ‘sacred marriage’, with Inanna as the bride and the king as the bridegroom,
begins. The preparations for the wedding ceremony are described, the setting up of
the wedding bed, the bride’s pre-nuptial bath, the consummation of the marriage,
and the magnificent wedding banquet. The diurnal celebrations conclude with a
public holiday for the people.
The second royal ritual is another description of a ‘sacred marriage’ between the
king (probably Samsi-Addu of Upper Mesopotamia) and the goddess Ishtar which
takes place inside the temple of Ishtar in the city of Mari. The participants include
the king, the goddess Inanna, other deities, various types of priests, courtiers, singers,
ecstatics and even craftsmen. Games and sports are performed by various entertainers,
the ‘eaters’, jugglers, wrestlers and acrobats.
— Inanna and Ishtar in the Babylonian world —