Inanna
Queen of Heaven, Earth and, Underworld Goddess of Love, War, Fertility and Lust
Inanna on the Ishtar Vase French museum Louvre
Abode	Heaven
Symbol	Sky, Clouds, Wars, Birth, Skin
Genealogy
Parents	Sin and Ningal
Siblings	Utu, Ishkur and Ereshkigal
Consort	Dumuzi
Children	Lulal and Shara

Part of a series on
Ancient Mesopotamian religion
Religions of the ancient Near East Anatolia Ancient Egypt Mesopotamia Babylonia Sumer Iranian Semitic Arabia Canaan
Primordial beings Tiamat and Abzu Lahamu and Lahmu Kishar and Anshar Mummu
Seven gods who decree Four primary Anu Enlil Enki Ninhursag Three sky gods Inanna/Ishtar Nanna/Sin Utu/Shamash
Other major deities Adad Dumuzid Enkimdu Enmesharra Ereshkigal Ki Kingu Geshtinanna Lahar Marduk Nergal Ninurta Šulpae
Minor deities Agasaya Anunnaki Asaruludu Ashnan Ashgi Bel Dumuzi-abzu Enbilulu Erra Erragal Gibil Hendursaga Igigi Isimud Išum Kajamanu Lahar Laṣ Lisin Lugala'abba Mami/Nintu Mamitu Maštabba Nabu Namtar Nanshe Nindara Ninmarki Nisaba Ninazu Ningal Ningirida Ningirima Ninkasi Ninkilim Ninlil Ninmug Ninšar Ninsikila Ninšubur Ninsun Nuska Paniĝinĝarra Sarpanit Shul-utula Šubula Šulpae Tišpak Uttu
Demigods and heroes Adapa Enkidu Enmerkar Gilgamesh Lugalbanda Shamhat Siduri Atra-Hasis Ziusudra Apkallu (seven sages)
Spirits and monsters Udug Lamassu/Shedu Asag Edimmu Siris Anzû Ušum/Dragon Kuli-ana/Mermaid Bašmu Mušmaḫḫū Ušumgallu Seven-headed serpent Humbaba Hanbi Kur Lamashtu Lilu Pazuzu Rabisu
Tales Mythology An = Anum Atra-Hasis Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta Enūma Eliš Epic of Gilgamesh
Terms Dingir Sukkal

Inanna (/ɪˈnænə/ or /ɪˈnɑːnə/; Cuneiform: 𒀭𒈹 (Old Babylonian) or (Neo-Assyrian) ^DMUŠ₃; Sumerian: Inanna; Akkadian: Ištar; Unicode: U+12239) is the Sumerian goddess of love, fertility, and warfare, and goddess of the E-Anna temple at the city of Uruk, her main centre.

The Goddess Inanna ruled the people of Sumer, and under Her rule the people and their communities prospered and thrived. The urban culture, though agriculturally dependent, centered upon the reverence of the Goddess -- a cella, or shrine, in her honour was the centerpiece of the cities. Inanna was the queen of seven temples throughout Sumer. Probably the most important Sumerian contribution to civilization was the invention and creation of a standard writing and literature; the Sumerians even had libraries. Their literary works reveal religious beliefs, ethical ideas, and the spiritual aspirations of the Sumerians. Among these works are the hymns and stories of Inanna -- important here because they were recorded at a time when the patriarchy was beginning to take hold, and the position of the Goddess, although strong, was changing.

Inanna can be considered the most prominent female deity in ancient Mesopotamia.^[1] As early as the Uruk period (ca. 4000–3100 BC), Inanna was associated with the city of Uruk. The famous Uruk Vase (found in a deposit of cult objects of the Uruk III period) depicts a row of naked men carrying various objects, bowls, vessels, and baskets of farm produce, and bringing sheep and goats, to a female figure facing the ruler. This figure was ornately dressed for a divine marriage, and attended by a servant. The female figure holds the symbol of the two twisted reeds of the doorpost, signifying Inanna behind her, while the male figure holds a box and stack of bowls, the later cuneiform sign signifying En, or high priest of the temple. Especially in the Uruk period, the symbol of a ring-headed doorpost is associated with Inanna.^[1]

Seal impressions from the Jemdet Nasr period (ca. 3100–2900 BC) show a fixed sequence of city symbols including those of Ur, Larsa, Zabalam, Urum, Arina, and probably Kesh. It is likely that this list reflects the report of contributions to Inanna at Uruk from cities supporting her cult. A large number of similar sealings were found from the slightly later Early Dynastic I phase at Ur, in a slightly different order, combined with the rosette symbol of Inanna, that were definitely used for this purpose. They had been used to lock storerooms to preserve materials set aside for her cult.^[2] Inanna's primary temple of worship was the Eanna, located in Uruk (c.f. Worship).

Inanna's name derives from Lady of Heaven (Sumerian: nin-an-ak). The cuneiform sign of Inanna (𒈹); however, is not a ligature of the signs lady (Sumerian: nin; Cuneiform: 𒊩𒌆 SAL.TUG₂) and sky (Sumerian: an; Cuneiform: 𒀭 AN).^[3] These difficulties have led some early Assyriologists to suggest that originally Inanna may have been a Proto-Euphratean goddess, possibly related to the Hurrian mother goddess Hannahannah, accepted only latterly into the Sumerian pantheon, an idea supported by her youthfulness, and that, unlike the other Sumerian divinities, at first she had no sphere of responsibilities^[4] The view that there was a Proto-Euphratean substrate language in Southern Iraq before Sumerian is not widely accepted by modern Assyriologists.^[5]

Along the Tigris and Euphrates rivers were many shrines and temples dedicated to Inanna. The House of Heaven (Sumerian: e₂-anna; Cuneiform: 𒂍𒀭 E₂.AN) temple^[6] in Uruk^[7] was the greatest of these, where sacred prostitution was a common practice.^[8] The deity of this fourth-millennium city was probably originally An. After its dedication to Inanna the temple seems to have housed priestesses 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. According to Samuel Noah Kramer in The Sacred Marriage Rite, in late Sumerian history (end of the third millennium) kings established their legitimacy by taking the place of Dumuzi in the temple for one night on the tenth day of the New Year festival.^[9] A Sacred Marriage to Inanna may have conferred legitimacy on a number of rulers of Uruk. Gilgamesh is reputed to have refused marriage to Inanna, on the grounds of her misalliance with such kings as Lugalbanda and Damuzi.

Inanna's symbol is an eight-pointed star or a rosette.^[10] She was associated with lions – even then a symbol of power – and was frequently depicted standing on the backs of two lionesses. Her cuneiform ideogram was a hook-shaped twisted knot of reeds, representing the doorpost of the storehouse (and thus fertility and plenty).^[11]

Inanna was associated with the planet Venus, which at that time was regarded as two stars, the "morning star" and the "evening star." There are hymns to Inanna as her astral manifestation. It also is believed that in many myths about Inanna, including Inanna's Descent to the Underworld and Inanna and Shukaletuda, her movements correspond with the movements of Venus in the sky. Also, because of its positioning so close to Earth, Venus is not visible across the dome of the sky as most celestial bodies are; because its proximity to the sun renders it invisible during the day. Instead, Venus is visible only when it rises in the East before sunrise, or when it sets in the West after sunset.^[12]

Because the movements of Venus appear to be discontinuous (it disappears due to its proximity to the sun, for many days at a time, and then reappears on the other horizon), some cultures did not recognize Venus as single entity, but rather regarded the planet as two separate stars on each horizon as the morning and evening star. The Mesopotamians, however, most likely understood that the planet was one entity. A cylinder seal from the Jemdet Nasr period expresses the knowledge that both morning and evening stars were the same celestial entity.^[13] The discontinuous movements of Venus relate to both mythology as well as Inanna's dual nature.^[13] Inanna is related like Venus to the principle of connectedness, but this has a dual nature and could seem unpredictable. Yet as both the goddess of love and war, with both masculine and feminine qualities, Inanna is poised to respond, and occasionally to respond with outbursts of temper. Mesopotamian literature takes this one step further, explaining Inanna's physical movements in mythology as corresponding to the astronomical movements of Venus in the sky.

Inanna's Descent to the Underworld explains how Inanna is able to, unlike any other deity, descend into the netherworld and return to the heavens. The planet Venus appears to make a similar descent, setting in the West and then rising again in the East.

In Inanna and Shukaletuda, in search of her attacker, Inanna makes several movements throughout the myth that correspond with the movements of Venus in the sky. An introductory hymn explains Inanna leaving the heavens and heading for Kur, what could be presumed to be, the mountains, replicating the rising and setting of Inanna to the West. Shukaletuda also is described as scanning the heavens in search of Inanna, possibly to the eastern and western horizons.^[13]

Inanna was associated with the eastern fish of the last of the zodiacal constellations, Pisces. Her consort Dumuzi was associated with the contiguous first constellation, Aries.^[14]

Inanna is the Queen of Heaven, Earth and, Underworld and the Goddess of Love and War. She is also Goddess of Grain, War, Fertility, Sexual Love, and perhaps best of all, Lady of Myriad Offices. As noted in Archetypes, Inanna was known in Mythology as HEALER, lifegiver, and composer of songs; the keeper of emotions -- ranging from loving, jealous, grieving, joyful, timid, and exhibitionistic, to thieving, passionate, ambitious, and generous. Inanna was eternally youthful, dynamic, fierce, sensuous, the harlot-virgin, never settled nor domesticated, magnetic, yet independent. She was into fertility, order, war, love, heavens, healing, emotions, and song; always wandering, searching for her home, her power. Ultimately, she was the embodied, playful, passionately erotic, feminine; the powerful, independent, self-willed, feminine; the ambitious, regal, many-sided feminine.

The hymns to Inanna are beautiful, poetic, and a testament both to Her power and to Her humanity. She outwitted Enki, the God of Wisdom and her grandfather, and she endowed the people of Sumer with the seven me - wisdoms and gifts that inspired and insured their growth sensuous lover in The Courtship of Inanna and Damuzi. Indeed, Inanna is herself the Goddess of Love, and it is this aspect and power -- creativity, procreativity, raw sexual energy and passion -- that generates the energy of the universe. In the Courtship, Inanna is both the shy virgin and the sensuous mistress. Her coupling with Damuzi is one of the mo st erotic and passionate passages in literature. The marriage is one of body and spirit, and Inanna's passion and expectations link her to women all over the world. After their lovemaking, when Damuzi asks for his freedom, Inanna's poignant lament is "How sweet was your allure..." The Descent of Inanna plays a key role in the Sumerian literature.

The Goddess Inanna descended twice: first from Heaven to Earth to rule her people; second, to the realm of the underworld, the domain of her sister Ereshkigal. It is the second descent of Inanna that is the focus here. Inanna was Queen of Heaven and Earth, but she knew nothing of the underworld. Her quest for clarity and knowledge, as well as her sense of duty as Queen and Goddess, led her to the Earthly realm in the first place. She was a powerful ruler, and yet she felt a strong desire to challenge herself further. "My daughter craved the great below," was the response of her father upon learning of her descent and death in the other realm. In her naivete, she wrapped herself in the me, transformed into garments and jewels, and began her descent. Her sister Ereshkigal, upon hearing Inanna at the gates of the underworld, demands that Inanna must give up all of her earthly trappings before she can complete her journey. There are seven stations through which Inanna must pass before she meets Ereshkigal, her sister and rival. At the seventh and last, she meets Ereshkigal, who seizes Inanna and hangs her on a peg to die.

What Inanna discovers about herself and about life itself as she makes her descent is not implicit in the texts. However, by the time she relinquishes her final garment, she is no longer the commanding Queen. She is open, exposed, vulnerable. This knowledge, and acceptance of her vulnerability, as well as her first-hand discovery of the necessity of sacrifice and death for the cycles of life to continue, increased her power, her understanding, her beauty. Her sister learns a lesson as well: she has her heart opened to compassion. When Enki sent two creatures, galla, below to rescue Inanna, Ereshkigal was struggling to five birth, even though she was barren. The creatures moaned in sympathy with her -- for the first time in her life, Ereshkigal felt a connection to another. As a reward for their compassion, the galla were permitted to take the corpse of the Goddess Inanna away with them, and revive her. But Inanna was not free to leave unless she insured that there would be someone to take her place. When she returned to earth, she found that her husband Damuzi did not mourn her; in fact, he had taken on even more power in her absence. Inanna allowed the galla to take Damuzi to rule in her place in the underworld. For love of her brother, Damuzi's sister Geshtinanna volunteered to take that place half of each year so he could return to his Queen. This six-month cycle insured that the lands would maintain their abundance and fertility, and also served to humble the imprudent King.

Inanna Today

In the Inanna cycle, she is maiden, mother and crone. Her encounter with Ereshkigal can be seen as a meeting of the creator and the destroyer - the light and dark aspects of the Goddess. For modern women, Inanna is a powerful role model. She indeed has it all: she is Goddess, protectress, sensuous, a politician par excellence, intelligent, beautiful, powerful. She is aware of Her position in the world, of Her great responsibility.

This article was transcribed from SageWoman Magazine, Issue #17, Samhain 1991 (or Autumn 1991).

Inanna's Akkadian counterpart is Ishtar. In different traditions Inanna is the daughter of Anu or she is the daughter of the moon god Sin. In various traditions, her siblings include the sun god Utu, the rain god Ishkur, and Ereshkigal, Queen of the Underworld. Her personal assistant is Ninshubur.Inanna also is regarded in astral traditions as the morning and evening star.^[15] The cult of Inanna may also have influenced the deities Ainina and Danina of the Caucasian Iberians mentioned by the medieval Georgian Chronicles.^[16]

Since Inanna embodies the traits of independence, self-determination, and strength in an otherwise patriarchal Sumerian pantheon, she has become the subject of feminist theory.^[17] Indeed, in one analysis of "Inanna and the huluppu tree", the author points out how she was implicitly "tamed and controlled", even "demoted", implying her prior importance as a female role model.^[18] Another modern work explores the idea that Inanna was once regarded in parts of Sumer as the mother of all humanity.^[19]

On January 2012 the Israeli feminist artist, Liliana Kleiner, presented in Jerusalem an exhibition of paintings of Inana, inspired by the above.^[20]

The so-called myths of Inanna were created sometime between 1900 BC and 3500 BC, although they may have been created even earlier. In their original inception they were pre-patriarchal myths. At the same time, Inanna’s myths also show the incursions of the patriarchy, her gradual dispossession and loss of status. In spite of her power as goddess of most everything, Inanna becomes a wanderer; she takes a powder. Most of the powers once held by her were being slowly eroded. The fact she was pictured as a beautiful woman (i.e. attractive to males, as opposed to the earth fertility goddesses of pre-history), suggests that she was under attack early on.

Inanna, nevertheless, provides a many-faceted symbolic image, a wholeness pattern, of the feminine beyond the merely maternal. She combined earth and sky, matter and spirit, vessel and light, earthly bounty and heavenly guidance. She was Queen of Heaven, goddess of gentle rains and terrible floods, goddess of the morning and evening star, queen of the land and its fertility, bestowing kingship on chosen mortals. She was the goddess of war (more powerful than Athena and Artemis combined), and equally passionately, the goddess of sexual love. More extroverted than Aphrodite, Her receptivity was active. Eventually, she was known by many names (Ishtar, Isis, Neith, Metis, Astarte, Cybele, Brigit, etc.), although those in later times were often described as having much less power or less all-encompassing.

• A major leitmotif in Rufi Thorpe's 2014 novel The Girls of Corona del Mar concerns the narrator's translation of epic poetry concerning Inanna and the narrator's identification with the goddess.
• The goddess Inanna was a major character in John Myers Myers 1981 fantasy novel, The Moon's Fire-Eating Daughter
• The black metal band Beherit wrote a song called, "The Gate of Inanna", featured in their 1994 album H418ov21.C
• Tori Amos' song Caught a Lite Sneeze features backing vocals during the chorus of her singing Inanna's name.
• Rock band The Tea Party feature a song called "Inanna" on their 1995 album The Edges of Twilight
• Alice Notley's feminist poetry epic, The Descent of Alette (1996), takes inspiration from the myth of Inanna's descent into the underworld
• Inanna: An Opera of Ancient Sumer (2003) is a three-act classical opera by American composer John Craton
• The Self Laudatory Hymn of Inanna and Her Omnipotence by Michael Nyman, performed by James Bowman and Fretwork on Time Will Pronounce (1993), the text of which comes from Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament ^[21]
• Inanna is glancingly mentioned in The Queen of the Damned by Anne Rice (1988). "And this was Akasha...a worshipper of the great goddess Inanna...." p. 286
• In researching Inanna and Enki, the characters of Juanita and Hiro discover the underlying plot of Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson (1992).

• Anat
• Hannahannah
• Ishtar
• Astarte
• Aphrodite
• Venus
• Isis
• Madonna
• Anann
• Lillith
• Enheduanna

• Enheduanna. “The Exaltation of Inanna (Inanna B): Translation”. The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature. University of Oxford Library. 2 December 2004.
• Frymer-Kensky, Tikva. In the Wake of the Goddesses. New York: MacMillan, 1992.
• Fulco, William J., S.J. "Inanna." In Eliade, Mircea, ed., The Encyclopedia of Religion. New York: Macmillan Group, 1987. Vol. 7, 145–146.
• George, Andrew, translator (1999) The Epic of Gilgamesh (Penguin Books) ISBN 0-14-044919-1
• Inana's descent to the nether world: translation. The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature. University of Oxford Library.
• Jacobsen, Thorkild. The treasures of darkness: a history of Mesopotamian religion. Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 1976.
• Kramer, Samuel Noah (1988)History Begins at Sumer: Thirty-Nine Firsts in Recorded History (University of Pennsylvania Press; 3rd edition) ISBN 978-0-8122-1276-1
• Leick, Gwendolyn (1994) Sex & Eroticism in Mesopotamian Literature. New York, NY: Routledge.
• Mitchell, Stephen. Gilgamesh:A New English Translation. New York: Free Press (Div. Simon & Schuster), 2004.
• Stuckey, Johanna (2001) "Inanna and the Huluppu Tree, An Ancient Mesopotamian Narrative of Goddes Demotion" in ""Feminist Poetics of the Sacred", ed. Devlin-Glass, Frances and McCredden, Lyn, American Academy of Religion. ISBN 978-0-19-514468-0
• White, Gavin (2013) "The Queen of Heaven. A New Interpretatation of the Goddess in Ancient Near Eastern Art" (Solaria Publications) ISBN 978-0955903717
• Wolkstein, Diana & Kramer, Samuel Noah (1983) Inanna: Queen of Heaven and Earth (Harper Perennial) ISBN 0-06-090854-8
• Santo, Suzanne Banay (15 January 2014). From the Deep: Queen Inanna Dies and Comes Back to Life Again. Toronto, Ontario, Canada: Red Butterfly Publications. p. 32. ISBN 9780988091412.

• Jeremy Black, Graham Cunningham, Eleanor Robson, and Gábor Zólyomi (2004) The Literature of Ancient Sumer (Oxford University Press) ISBN 0-19-926311-6
• The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature
• Halloran, John A. Sumerian Lexicon Version 3.0
• Voorbij de Zerken: a Dutch book which "contains" both Ereshkigal and Inanna.
• Pereira, Sylvia Brunton, Descent to the Goddess (Inner City Books, 1981). A Jungian interpretation of the process of psychological 'descent and return', using the story of Inanna as translated by Wolkstein and Kramer. ISBN 978-0-919123-05-2

• Ancient Mesopotamian Gods and Goddesses: Inana/Ištar (goddess)
• Clickable map of Mesopotamia