Inanna- Mesopotamian GodDeity"Queen of Heaven"

Queen of Heaven

Inanna's cult center was Uruk, where her temple E-anna, the "House of Heaven," stood at the heart of the city's sacred precinct. Archaeological excavation has revealed successive temple structures dating to the late fourth millennium BCE. The walls that Gilgamesh built protected her house, and the goddess's blessing ensured Uruk's prosperity and power.

She was the divine embodiment of the planet Venus, which appears as both the morning star and the evening star. As the evening star, she presided over erotic love and the pleasures of the night; as the morning star, she was the goddess of war, rising with blood-red light to herald battles. The Venus Tablet of Ammisaduqa (ca. 1646 BCE) preserves decades of observations of the planet's movements, linking celestial patterns to earthly events. Her most distinctive symbol, the eight-pointed star of Venus, appears throughout Mesopotamian art on cylinder seals, temple facades, and royal monuments.

The Hymns of Enheduanna

Enheduanna, high priestess of the moon god Nanna at Ur and daughter of Sargon of Akkad (ca. 2300 BCE), composed hymns to Inanna that survive on clay tablets. Their language is fierce and exultant:

"Lady of all the divine powers, resplendent light, righteous woman clothed in radiance, beloved of Heaven and Earth, temple administrator of An, you who wear great ornaments, you who desire the tiara of the high priestess, whose hand has grasped the seven divine powers!"

Enheduanna's hymns claimed for Inanna powers traditionally associated with An, Enlil, and other male deities, exalting her as supreme among the gods. In The Exaltation of Inanna, Enheduanna describes her own political crisis: she has been expelled from her temple by a rival, and she appeals to Inanna to restore her. The priestess declares the goddess supreme, and the goddess vindicates her priestess.

The Descent to the Underworld

Inanna's central myth narrates her descent to the underworld, the realm ruled by her sister Ereshkigal. She dressed in her full divine regalia and instructed her vizier Ninshubur: if she did not return in three days, Ninshubur should petition the great gods for help.

At each of the seven gates to the underworld, the gatekeeper Neti required Inanna to remove one piece of her divine regalia: her shugurra crown, her lapis lazuli necklace, her double strand of beads, her breastplate, her gold ring, her lapis measuring rod, and finally her royal garment. At each gate she protested, "What is this?" and received the same answer: "Be silent, Inanna. The powers of the underworld are perfect. They may not be questioned." By the time she stood before Ereshkigal's throne, the Queen of Heaven was naked and powerless.

Ereshkigal fixed the eye of death upon her sister, and Inanna became a corpse, hung on a hook like a side of meat. For three days and three nights, the Queen of Heaven was dead.

Resurrection and Substitution

When Inanna did not return, faithful Ninshubur went to the great gods for help. Enlil refused. Nanna refused. But Enki fashioned two creatures from the dirt under his fingernails, the kurgarra and the galatur, beings so small and sexless they could slip into the underworld unnoticed. He gave them the food and water of life.

These creatures found Ereshkigal in distress, moaning "Oh my inside!" and "Oh my outside!" They sympathized with her cries, echoing her pain, and the grateful queen offered them gifts. They asked for the corpse on the wall, and Ereshkigal granted their request. They sprinkled the food and water of life on Inanna, and she revived.

But no one leaves the underworld without providing a substitute. The galla demons followed Inanna back to the world of the living, seizing each person they encountered. She refused to give them Ninshubur, who had mourned faithfully. She refused to give them her beautician Shara or her musician Lulal, who had prostrated themselves in grief at her absence. But when she found her husband Dumuzi sitting comfortably on her throne, dressed in fine garments, not mourning at all, her heart turned against him: "Take him! Take Dumuzi away!"

Inanna and Mount Ebih

In the composition Inanna and Ebih, the goddess confronts Mount Ebih, a mountain that refuses to bow before her. She appeals to An for support, but the sky god warns her that the mountain is mighty and advises against attack. Inanna ignores her father's counsel. She arms herself and marches against the mountain alone, her radiance overwhelming, her battle cry shaking the earth's foundations.

She destroys Ebih utterly, covering its flanks with fire, reducing its forests to ash, and scattering its animals. The hymn declares: "Like a dragon you have deposited venom on the foreign lands. When you roar at the earth like thunder, no vegetation can stand up to you."

The Passionate Goddess

In the courtship poems with Dumuzi, Inanna expresses desire without shame: "My vulva, the horn, the Boat of Heaven, is full of eagerness like the young moon. My untilled land lies fallow." In the Epic of Gilgamesh, she proposes marriage to the hero after his victory over Humbaba. When Gilgamesh mocks her by listing the fates of her previous lovers, Dumuzi condemned to weeping, a shepherd turned wolf, Inanna demands the Bull of Heaven from her father Anu to destroy him, threatening to smash open the underworld's gates and let the dead outnumber the living if Anu refuses.

Inanna and the Me

In the myth Inanna and Enki, the young goddess acquired the me, the divine powers that made civilization possible. She traveled to Eridu, where Enki held the me in his keeping. During a feast, the increasingly drunk Enki gave Inanna one me after another: kingship, priesthood, truth, the descent to the underworld, sexual intercourse, music, woodworking, and dozens more. By the feast's end, he had surrendered over a hundred divine powers.

When Enki sobered and tried to retrieve his gifts, Inanna had already loaded them onto her Boat of Heaven. He sent his messenger Isimud with sea monsters to intercept her at six different stopping points. Each attempt failed. Inanna brought all the me to Uruk.

Desire and Transformation

The sacred marriage ritual bound Inanna to Mesopotamian kingship. The Sumerian king ritually married the goddess through a priestess, and their union was believed to channel divine creative energy into the land. Royal hymns describe the consummation: "The king goes with lifted head to the holy lap, goes with lifted head to the holy lap of Inanna." Through this rite, every king became, for one night, Inanna's bridegroom.

Inanna also held power over gender itself, one of the me she acquired from Enki. Her cult included people of transformed or ambiguous gender, known as the gala, kurgaru, and assinnu, who served in her temples and performed ritual roles. The gala sang laments in a distinctive dialect called eme-sal, traditionally associated with women's speech, while the kurgaru and assinnu performed ecstatic dances that blurred the boundaries between male and female.