The Babylonian World - Historia Antigua

— Inanna and Ishtar in the Babylonian world —
language, and Ishtar-of-Babylon playing the role of the seductive woman flaunting
her sexual attraction. Leick (1994: 246) has suggested that these rites might be
understood as travesties of the traditional haddasˇutu-marriage rituals celebrating the
harmonious conjugal love of Marduk and Zarpanitum.
While Ishtar of the Eturkalamma (her primary temple in Babylon) was the Ladyof-Babylon,
there were several other temples dedicated to various Ishtar figures in
the city of Babylon. Of these temples, only the Emashdari, dedicated by the Neo-
Babylonian king Nabonidus to the third-millennium goddess Ishtar of Akkade, has
been excavated:
To Ishtar, the supreme, beloved of the gods, the valiant,
Innin, goddess of battle, maker of melee,
Radiant, lady of creation, exalted among the Igigi,
Great among the Anunnakki, bearing awe,
Lady whose aura covers the heavens,
Whose rays overwhelm the wide earth,
Ishtar of Akkade, lady of battle, she who incites fighting,
She who dwells in the Emashdari
Which is in the midst of Babylon, my Lady;
(Ehelolf 1926: i 1–15)
The worship of Ishtar-of-Uruk waxed and waned in popularity during the first
millennium in her city Uruk. First, the image of Ishtar-of-Uruk was twice abducted
from the Eanna temple and, during her absence, alterations of her cult took place.
In the eighth century, a representation of an ‘inappropriate goddess’ was installed in
the Eanna temple and in seventh-century texts the name Beltiya occurs in place of
Ishtar-of-Uruk pointing to the theological agenda which aimed at assimilating Ishtarof-Uruk
to Zarpanitu, and consequently to Ishtar-of-Babylon as well and suggests
that the ‘inappropriate goddess’ may have been her Babylonian counterpart. With
the return of the ‘original’ Ishtar-of-Uruk to Uruk under Nebuchadnezzar II, further
theological reform was undertaken (Beaulieu 2003: 129–138). Finally, local theologians
again reorganised the pantheon of Uruk during the Achaemenid and Seleucid periods
reinstating Anu and Antu as sole patron gods of the city and demoting Ishtar to a
secondary position (see Beaulieu 1992). However, rather than a ménage-à-trois of
Anu-Antu-Ishtar in late Uruk, a syncretism was created between Antu and Ishtar,
with Antu absorbing the attributes of Ishtar (Beaulieu 1995). Nevertheless, not only
do we have many copies of the poem The Exaltation of Ishtar from Hellenistic Uruk,
but also a description of one celebration in her honour – a procession in which Ishtar
promenades together with a retinue of goddesses and her costumed cult personnel,
the kurgarru and assinnu, from her temple to the akitu-temple on the outskirts of the
city. The importance of this ritual is its royal character – the participation of the
king and the Sceptre of Kingship in the procession and the action of the king who
takes the hand of Ishtar and leads her into her sanctuary and seats her on her throne
(Lackenbacher 1977). This royal ritual echoes that of earlier millennia in which the
king was legitimised only through his relationship with the tutelary goddess of
Uruk, Inanna.
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