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Inanna or '''Inana''', the original "Holy Virgin" (as the Nammu or Namma. Inanna's permanent status as "maiden" was irrespective of her behaviour. The goddess of love and war, if she wasn't strapping on her battle sandals,"She stirs confusion and chaos against those who are disobedient to her, speeding carnage and inciting the devastating flood, clothed in terrifying radiance. It is her game to speed conflict and battle, untiring, strapping on her sandals." ETCSL translation: t.4.07.3. See link to ETCSL was swaggering around the streets of her home town, dragging young men out of the taverns to have sex with her."When the servants let the flocks loose, and when cattle and sheep are returned to cow-pen and sheepfold, then, my lady, like the nameless poor, you wear only a single garment. The pearls of a prostitute are placed around your neck, and you are likely to snatch a man from the tavern. As you hasten to the embrace of your spouse Dumuzid, Inana, then the seven paranymphs share the bedchamber with you." ETCSL translation: t.4.07.4 In Sumerian art she was associated with lions — even then a symbol of power — and was frequently shown standing on the backs of two lionesses. This gives her iconographic similarity with the Anatolian Cybele . Her Cuneiform Ideogram was a hook-shaped twisted knot of reeds, symbol of divine authority, ancestor of the Crozier later carried by Catholic bishops. Along the Tigris and Euphrates rivers were many shrines and temples dedicated to Inanna. The temple of Eanna, meaning "house of heaven" or "house of An"é-an-na = sanctuary ('house' + 'Heaven' + genitive) [John Halloran's Sumerian Lexicon v. 3.0 -- see link below in Uruk modern-day Warka , Biblical Erech was the greatest of these. The god of this fourth-millennium city was probably originally An. After its dedication to Inanna the temple seems to have housed priestess-prostitutes of the goddess. The high priestess would choose for her bed a young man who represented the shepherd Dumuzid , consort of Inanna, in a Hieros Gamos or sacred marriage, celebrated during the annual Akitu (New Year) ceremony, at the Spring Equinox . In late Sumerian history (end of the third millennium) kings established their legitimacy by taking the place of Dumuzid in the temple for one night on the occasion of the New Year festival. According to one story Inanna stole some of her powers from the culture god Father Enki who was worshipped in the city of Eridu. Inanna is supposed to have traveled to Enki's city Eridu and removed the one hundred cultural symbols from Enki during a drinking bout. These symbols or Me s ( Truth and Justice , as well as practical skills such as Weaving and Pottery -making) she took to her city of Uruk. Enki , recovering his wits, sent mighty Abgallu ( Sea Monsters from Ab = sea or abyss, Gal = Great, Lu = Man) to stop her boat as it sailed the Euphrates to retrieve his gifts, but she gave him the slip. This story may represent the historic transfer of power from Eridu to Uruk. Most curious is perhaps the story of Inanna's descent to the in the Bible). Dumuzid's sister Geštinannameaning "wine or grapevine of heaven/An" (giš, 'tree', + tin, 'life; wine' Sumerian Dict. ), out of pity for her brother, took his place six months of the year. Inanna's three-day disappearance in hell may point to her origin as a moon goddess, since the moon is dark for three days before the first crescent of the new moon-month appears. In a later tradition her death and resurrection were perhaps subsumed into that of Dumuzid, who probably came to represent the death of vegetation after the drought of summer and its renewal during winter rains. In Babylonian Mesopotamia Dumuzid's Akkadian name Tammuz was absorbed by the Jewish religion during the Babylonian Exile of the Jews. In both the Babylonian and the Jewish Calendar Tammuz is the fourth month, that of the summer solstice, when, in Mesopotamia, the force of the sun would kill the vegetation and the harvest could begin. It was also the period when the sun began its slow movement along the horizon toward the southern hemisphere. Thus the time of the sun's greatest power is also that of its decline. The period from July to the end of December was that of Geštianna's life and Dumuzid's death; the period from January to the end of June was that of Dumuzid's life and Geštianna's death. Each winter solstice staged the birth of a new or renewed sun. The Inanna and Dumuzid story prefigures those of Cybele and Attis , of Aphrodite and Adonis , of Osiris and Isis , of Christ and Mary — all of them tales of a young god who dies, and a goddess who mourns him. Inanna is the Great Goddess of Sumeria. She is the mightiest deity of the Sumerian pantheon, surpassing An the Sky God. She was called "Queen of Heaven and Earth", a title later given to various goddesses, including Mary. She was the all-powerful Goddess of Love, War, Sex, Beauty, Fertility, the Earth, and of Life. NOTES REFERENCES Wolkstein, Diana & Kramer, Samuel Noah (1983) ''Inanna: Queen of Heaven and Earth'' (Harper Perennial) ISBN 0060908548 George, Andrew, translator (1999) ''The Epic of Gilgamesh'' (Penguin Books) ISBN 0140449191 FURTHER READING Clickable map of Mesopotamia http://oi.uchicago.edu/OI/IS/SANDERS/PHOTOS/meso_map.html The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature http://www-etcsl.orient.ox.ac.uk/ John Halloran's Sumerian Lexicon Version 3.0 http://www.sumerian.org/sumerlex.htm |
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