Come my housemaster Isimud, hear my instructions; a word I shall say to you, heed my words: The maiden, all alone, has directed her step to the Abzu . . .
Have the maiden enter the Abzu of Eridu, Give her to eat barley cakes with butter, Pour for her cold water that freshens the heart, Give her to drink beer. ...
Happy and drunk, Enki was ready to do anything for Inanna. She boldly asked for the divine formulas, which were the basis of a high civilization. Enki granted her some one hundred of them, including divine formulas pertaining to supreme lordship, Kingship, priestly functions, weapons, legal procedures, scribeship, woodworking, even the knowledge of musical instruments and of temple prostitution. By the time Enki awoke and realized what he had done, Inanna was already well on her way to Uruk. Enki ordered after her his "awesome weapons," but to no avail, for Inanna had sped to Uruk in her "Boat of Heaven." Quite frequently, Ishtar was depicted as a naked goddess; flaunting her beauty, she was sometimes even depicted raising her skirts to reveal the lower parts of her body.
Gilgamesh, a ruler of Uruk circa 2900 B.C. who was also partly divine (having been born to a human father and a goddess), reported how Inanna enticed him - even after she already had an official spouse. Having washed himself after a battle and put on "a fringe cloak, fastened with a sash,"
Glorious Ishtar raised an eye at his beauty.
"Come, Gilgamesh, be thou my lover!
Come, grant me your fruit.
Thou shall be my male mate, I will be thy female."
But Gilgamesh knew the score. "Which of thy lovers didst thou love forever?" he asked. "Which of thy shepherds pleased thee for all time?" Reciting a long list of her love affairs, he refused.
As time went on - as she assumed higher ranks in the pantheon, and with it the responsibility for affairs of state - Inanna/Ishtar began to display more martial qualities, and was often depicted as a Goddess of War, armed to the teeth. The inscriptions left by Assyrian kings describe how they went to war for her and upon her command, how she directly advised when to wait and when to attack, how she sometimes marched at the head of the armies, and how, on at least one occasion, she granted a theophany and appeared before all the troops. In return for their loyalty, she promised the Assyrian kings long life and success. "From a Golden Chamber in the skies I will watch over thee," she assured them.
Was she turned into a bitter warrior because she, too, came upon hard times with the rise of Marduk to supremacy? In one of his inscriptions Nabunaid said: "Inanna of Uruk, the exalted princess who dwelt in a gold cella, who rode upon a chariot to which were harnessed seven lions - the inhabitants of Uruk changed her cult during the rule of king Erba-Marduk, removed her cella and unharnessed her team." Inanna, reported Nabunaid, "had therefore left the E-Anna angrily, and stayed hence in an unseemly place" (which he does not name). (Fig 54)
Seeking, perhaps, to combine love with power, the much-courted Inanna chose as her husband DU.MU.ZI, a younger son of Enki. Many ancient texts deal with the loves and quarrels of the two. Some are love songs of great beauty and vivid sexuality. Others tell how Ishtar - back from one of her journeys - found Dumuzi celebrating her absence. She arranged for his capture and disappearance into the Lower World - a domain ruled by her sister E.RESH.KI.GAL and her consort NER.GAL. Some of the most celebrated Sumerian and Akkadian texts deal with the journey of Ishtar to the Lower World in search of her banished beloved.
Of the six known sons of Enki, three have been featured in Sumerian tales: the firstborn Marduk, who eventually usurped the supremacy; Nergal, who became ruler of the Lower World; and Dumuzi, who married Inanna/Ishtar.
Enlil, too, had three sons who played key roles in both divine and human affairs: Ninurta, who, having been born to Enlil by his sister Ninhursag, was the legal successor; Nanna/Sin, firstborn by Enlil's official spouse Ninlil; and a younger son by Ninlil named ISH.KUR ("mountainous," "far mountain land"), who was more frequently called Adad ("beloved"). As brother of Sin and uncle of Utu and Inanna, Adad appears to have felt more at home with them than at his own house. The Sumerian texts constantly grouped the four together. The ceremonies connected with the visit of Anu to Uruk also spoke of the four as a group. One text, describing the entrance to the court of Anu, states that the throne room was reached through "the gate of Sin, Shamash, Adad, and Ishtar." Another text, first published by V. K. Shileiko (Russian Academy of the History of Material Cultures) poetically described the four as retiring for the night together.
The greatest affinity seems to have existed between Adad and Ishtar, and the two were even depicted next to each other, as on this relief showing an Assyrian ruler being blessed by Adad (holding the ring and lightning) and by Ishtar, holding her bow. (The third deity is too nutilated to be identified.)
Was there more to this "affinity" than a platonic relationship, especially in view of Ishtar's "record"? It is noteworthy that in the
biblical Song of Songs, the playful girl calls her lover dod - a word that means both "lover" and "uncle." Now, was Ishkur called
Adad - a derivative from the Sumerian DA.DA - because he was the uncle who was the lover?
But Ishkur was not only a playboy; he was a mighty god, endowed by his father Enlil with the powers and
prerogatives of a storm god. As such he was revered as the Hurrian/Hittite Teshub and the Urartian Teshubu ("wind blower"),
the Amorite Ramanu ("thunderer"), the Canaanite Ragimu ("caster of hailstones"), the Indo-European Buriash ("light maker"),
the Semitic Meir ("he who lights up" the skies).
A god list kept at the British Museum, as shown by Hans Schlobies (Der Akkadwche Wettergott in Mesopotamen), clarifies that Ishkur was indeed the divine lord in lands far from Sumer and Akkad. As Sumerian texts reveal, this was no accident. Enlil, it seems, willfully dispatched his young son to become the "Resident Deity" in the mountain lands north and west of Mesopotamia. Why did Enlil dispatch his youngest and beloved son away from Nippur?
Several Sumerian epic tales have been found about the arguments and even bloody struggles among the younger gods. Many cylinder seals depict scenes of god battling god; it would seem that the original rivalry between Enki and Enlil was carried on and intensified between their sons, with brother sometimes turning against brother - a divine tale of Cain and Abel. Some of these battles were against a deity identified as Kur - in all probability, Ishkur/Adad. This may well explain why Enlil deemed it advisable to grant his younger son a far-off domain, to keep him out of the dangerous battles for the succession. The position of the sons of Anu, Enlil, and Enki, and of their offspring, in the dynastic lineage emerges clearly through a unique Sumerian device: the allocation of numerical rank to certain gods. The discovery of this system also brings out the membership in the Great Circle of Gods of Heaven and Earth when Sumerian civilization blossomed. We shall find that this Supreme Pantheon was made up of twelve deities.
The first hint that a cryptographic number system was applied to the Great Gods came with the discovery that the names of the gods Sin, Shamash, and Ishtar were sometimes substituted in the texts by the numbers 30, 20, and 15, respectively. The highest unit of the Sumerian sexagesimal system - 60 - was assigned to Anu; Enlil "was" 50; Enki, 40; and Adad, 10. The number 10 and its six multiples within the prime number 60 were thus assigned to male deities, and it would appear plausible that the numbers ending with 5 were assigned to the female deities. From this, the following cryptographic table emerges: Male 60 - Anu 50 - Enlil 40 - Ea/Enki 30 - Nanna/Sin