Ishtar And Izdubar

Ishtar And Izdubar

by Leonidas Le Cenci Hamilton


Ishtar is the Assyrian and Babylonian counterpart to the Sumerian Inanna and to the cognate north-west Semitic goddess Astarte. Ishtar is a goddess of fertility, love, war, and sex. In the Babylonian pantheon, she "was the divine personification of the planet Venus". Ishtar was above all associated with sexuality: her cult involved sacred prostitution; her holy city Uruk was called the "town of the sacred courtesans"; and she herself was the "courtesan of the gods". Ishtar was the daughter of Sin or Anu. She was particularly worshiped at Nineveh and Arbela (Erbil).