Ishtar

   The Babylonian goddess of fertility. Her cult was first recorded in Erech, but probably started much earlier and spread to the whole of the Middle East, and even to Greece. On the Mediterranean coast she appears a Ashtart, but without alteration of her essential characteristics. She was adopted into the pantheon of many races, and appears as the consort of Marduk, Asshur, Tammuz, and even as Ninlil, consort of Enlil, the storm god. She has also been identified with Damkina, wife of Ea, in which capacity she is the mother of Tammuz. She was sometimes considered to be the daughter of Anu or of Sin, while Frazer equated her with the Esther of the Old Testament. The story of her descent into Aralu, the Babylonian Hades, to bring back Tammuz, is told on a tablet in the British Museum. When she arrived at the gates she found them shut, and threatened to break them down to free the dead and to devour the living. On hearing this Allatu, Queen of the Underworld, gave orders for her admittance. After performing the customary rites, which consisted in the removal of part of her clothing and ornaments at each of the Seven Gates, she arrived naked in the region of those ‘whose bread is dust, whose food is mud, who see not the light, who dwell in darkness, and who are clothed like birds in apparel of feathers’. Allatu mocks her and orders Namtar, the plague demon, to smite her with disease from head to foot. (This is obviously the description of an initiation ceremony in one of the early mysteries.) During her absence from earth, all fertility is suspended for man and beast. Shamash, the sun god, receives the dread news through Papsukal. He consults Ea and Sin, and Ea creates a being called Ashushu-Namir who is sent to Allatu to demand the release of Ishtar in the name of the Great Gods, a demand which Allatu could not refuse, so Namtar was ordered to bring Ishtar forth and to sprinkle her with the Water of Life. She was then conducted back through the Seven Gates and her garments and jewels returned to her. On her coming back to earth, life resumed its normal course. Ishtar occurs several times in the Epic, as befits the importance of her role as chief of the Igigi, or spirits of heaven, and as the enemy of Gilgamesh.

   At some stage she absorbed Anunitum and Nina. She was the morning manifestation of the star Venus.