Inanna: The Goddess Who Stole the Powers of Civilization
Goddess of love, war, and the planet Venus, who stole the powers of civilization and sailed them home in the Boat of Heaven.
Inanna, called Ishtar in Akkadian, was the most widely worshipped goddess of Mesopotamia, ruling love, war and political power, and identified with the planet Venus.
Inanna, known in Akkadian as Ishtar, was the most widely worshipped goddess of Mesopotamia. She ruled love, sex, war, and political power, and she was the planet Venus, the morning and evening star. Her main city was Uruk, and she is often shown with weapons rising from her shoulders or standing on a lion.
She was also the most restless of the gods. In Inana and Enki, she visits Enki at Eridu, drinks with him, and receives more than a hundred me, the divine powers behind kingship, priesthood, crafts, and music. She loads them onto the Boat of Heaven and escapes to Uruk while Enki's monsters try six times to stop her.
In Inana's Descent to the Nether World, she goes down to the realm of her sister Ereshkigal, is stripped of an item of power at each of seven gates, and is struck dead by the Anunnaki judges. Enki rescues her with two beings made from dirt under his fingernails, but she must send her husband Dumuzi below as her substitute.
Some of the oldest poetry with a known author was written to her by Enheduanna, daughter of Sargon of Akkad, around 2300 BCE. Modern readers see in the Boat of Heaven a vehicle; the texts treat it as her sacred barge. Her cult outlasted Sumer itself: Ishtar was still worshipped in Assyria and Babylon more than two thousand years later, and her star remained the brightest point in the evening sky.
To revive Inanna in the underworld, Enki creates two small beings from the dirt under his fingernails and sends them past the seven gates with the food and water of life.
Scholars read the Boat of Heaven as a cultic barge and the me as abstract divine offices, not physical devices; the story explains Uruk's prestige over Eridu.
