Inanna Ishtar -- A Goddess Not To Be Reckoned With

Here's a link to a summary and interpretation of this week's Inanna Ishtar myth.


The story is a bit... odd. It left me wondering what was so special about Dumuzi that we would presume Inanna had gone down into the underworld to retrieve him. Or if he was so very expendable as to ultimately sacrifice for her own return to the land of the living, what other reason would have compelled her to embark on such a deadly journey in the first place?


The first train of thought led me to this... and this.


Huh. We have been talking in class recently about ancient fertility rituals involving a king and marriage/intercourse (and the frequent ritual sacrifice of said king). Well, here it is again. Inanna and Dumuzi may well have been the center deities of a similar tradition.


I find it very interesting that even though sex can be easily viewed as an act of male dominance, in this case it is not. Rather Inanna, The Goddess, remains the source of power throughout, allowing Dumuzi to come to her chamber where, as Stuckey says, "Afterwards, pleased by and with her lover, Inanna decreed long life and sovereignty for him and fertility and prosperity for the land."


Strangely enough, Inanna's decidedly female figure (let's face it: her chest is enormous in every image!) does not seem to be paired with an especially female attitude. At least not stereotypically so. She's not just the goddess of fertility, but also of war. She may be super curvaceous, but she also has claw feet and seems to call the shots when it comes to her marriage bed. She is a bit difficult to categorize. Definitely a conundrum.


One last thing, albeit unrelated: It might be noted that Inanna enters the underworld of her own volition, is stripped of all of her powers one by one, is sent before the ruler, sentenced to death, killed, and rises again. I think there's something a little familiar there, if you look hard enough...