Inanna, Sumerian Queen of Heaven and Earth

The worship of Inanna dates back to 3500 BCE in Sumer in the part of Iraq that lies between the Tigris
and the Euphrates, or Ancient Mesopotamia. She was a powerful and assertive goddess whose areas of
control and influence included love and sexuality, prosperity and fertility, and warfare. Inanna was the
Granddaughter of Nammu, the great Sumerian creator goddess. Inanna’s mother was Ningal, the
Goddess of the Moon. As the daughter of the moon Inanna’s symbols were the crescent moon and the
evening star, Venus, which is symbolized by the eight petalled star. The eight petalled rosette is also a
symbol of Inanna. She was the maiden goddess and her roles were that of daughter, sweetheart, nubile
bride, and grief-stricken young widow. She was presented as a young woman in her late adolescents
poised on the edge of womanhood, not yet tied down by wifehood. Sometime she was presented as a
female who behaved like a male, almost as an androgyne. Some ancient Sumerian hymns and poems
presented her exulting in battle and seeking sexual experiences. She represented of the sensual, sexual,
fertile, assertive non-domesticated woman. (Stuckey 2004)

Much of what we know about Inanna is due to the creativity and inspiration of Enheduanna, a high
priestess of Inanna and the first poet on record. Enheduanna was the first woman in a line of High
Priestesses who led Sumerian religious life for 500 years. Her father was Sargon, an Akkadian, from
Northern Sumer. As an Akkadian he was a devotee of Ishtar, Inanna’s counterpart in northern
Mesopotamia. Today Inanna and Ishtar are sometimes referred to interchangeably, or as Inanna-Ishtar.
Sargon was the first king to unite northern and southern Mesopotamia around 2300 BCE. (Meador
2000:49) Sargon’s armies went on to conquer most of the known world. Enheduanna, as high priestess,
was spouse of the moon god Nanna, who was the supreme deity of the city of Ur, the center of
Sumerian civilization. (Meador 2000:6) A clay disk dedicated to Inanna was found in the Nanna temple
complex in Ur with the inscription on the back which names Enheduanna as “wife of Nanna, daughter of
Sargon. Her poems and hymns spread her beliefs (Meador 2000:50), re-defined the hierarchy of the
gods and helped Sargon by unifying Inanna with Ishtar.

Inanna’s sacred animal was the lion and Inanna is frequently depicted either seated on a throne of lions
or with her foot resting on lions. Inanna-Ishtar also has a close association with birds, like the
thunderbird and the owl and she was sometimes depicted with wings (reminiscent of Isis). Inanna was
frequently depicted with shoots of buds springing from her shoulders, and in more recent versions with
maces springing from her shoulder.

There are several layers to Sumerian mythology due to the fusion of four different cultures that
inhabited ancient Sumer. The original indigenous Neolithic culture which worshiped the Great Mother
Goddess dates back to the sixth millennium BCE and quite possibly much earlier. The Neolithic people
were agrarian and peaceful, there was equality between the genders, and women were honored,
respected and independent. The second group, the Sumerians, arrived around the second half of the
fourth millennium. They were followed by the Akkadians, Sargon’s people, a Semitic speaking people
who settled in Northern Sumer. Finally the Indo Europeans arrived around the third millennium B.C.E.
The Indo Europeans were patriarchal, worshipped male sky gods, and were warlike and hierarchical.
Under the Akkadians and the Indo-Europeans the role of women began to decline and their
independence was severely curtailed. The earlier indigenous and Sumerian goddess tradition that
descended from the Neolithic era was continually overlaid and re-interpreted by the tradition of male
gods brought by the later Akkadians and Indo Europeans. The mythology of Sumer has survived in two
layers: the older one was primarily goddess oriented, and in the newer layer the male gods begins to
dominate. Some of Inanna's traits link her to Snake and Bird Goddess of the much older Mother-
Goddess religion. The wings are indicative of this link. Some of the older representations of Inanna
show her with stalks of wheat fanning out from her shoulders. The newer patriarchal representations
replace the wheat stalks with maces, which link her to the more aggressive and warlike indo-Europeans.

Paradoxical Goddess: Some scholars interpret Inanna as a paradoxical deity. This is because she
reflects the full spectrum of both nature and human nature - from disaster, tragedy, anguish and death
as well as all goodness and abundance. Contrary to our Western concept of God she portrays dualities:
she was both love and hate, order and chaos, and compassion and indifference. It seems that Inanna
required her devotees to surrender to life, with the ability to bend and flex with the ebb and flow of the
cycles of life and nature. This is in sharp contrast to the more masculine constructs which seeks to
dominate and control and assigns value and judgment.

Holder of the Me: In her beneficent aspect Inanna was the Holder of Me. The Me was the Sumerian
tables of the Law and the keys of civilization. In one Sumerian myth Inanna brings the Me, to Uruk, her
sacred city. The Me originally belonged to the God of Wisdom, Enki, the son of Nammu, the great
creator goddess. One day when Enki was partying and quite inebriated, Inanna was able to charm him
into giving the Me to her. When he sobered up he regretted this act and he tried to forcibly retrieve the
Me. Inanna escaped, however, and returned safely to Uruk with the Me, bringing the laws and
civilization with her. The Me included the knowledge of weaving, pottery, sowing and harvesting of
grain, justice, truth and understanding, and the laws that guided people in right action, eldership and
sexual rituals. How do we as women continue to uphold civilization?

Goddess of the Rain and the Storm: Inanna was the Rain Goddess that insured the harvest and filled
the storehouses. She is sometimes depicted holding rain showers in her hands. Inanna was as
connected to death as she was with life, and was also identified with the unpredictable destructive
powers of nature. The Sumerians feared the power of the storms. Flooding could erase their crops,
their mud dwellings and human life. One of Inanna’s darkest aspects was the thunderstorm. The roar of
thunder was said to come from the terrifying lion-headed thunder bird, Imdugud. There are images on
cylinders of Inanna with, or even as Imdugud, or as the goddess with thunderbolts. How do we as
women both create and destroy?

Goddess of War: The patriarchal and warlike Indo-Europeans bought with them a new attitude towards
death. Inanna, as the Goddess of Life and Death whose worship honored all the cycles of nature,
acquired the mask of the Goddess of War. The growth and expansion of Sumer increased population
pressures and need for land and resources resulting in conflicts between the city states of Sumer. The
Indo European invaders brought war and conflict from without. These events led to significant changes
in the architectural structure as ancient Sumerian cities began to construct huge thick walls around their
cities for protection. War became a way of life for the kings and heroes of the later Bronze Age, and the
Goddess Inanna was invoked as a patroness of war. This role of the Goddess of War was transmitted to
later Goddesses, such as Athena was the Greek Goddess of War.

Warrior Goddess: With the rise of patriarchy Inanna assumed a new identity and became the “Queen
ever poised for battle.” Enheduanna describes Inanna as the “ever ready warrior who delights in
battle.” She is described as having a “nothing stands in my way” attitude,” and as not hesitating to
challenge any obstacle. Some of Enheduanna’s poems describe Inanna as singing as she soaks her mace
in blood and gore.
The image of Inanna as a warrior is a precursor to the later Hindu Goddess, Durga Kali, who was
ferocious in her battle against evil. In what way do women become ferocious and are willing to do
battle?

Goddess of Love: True to her paradoxical nature Inanna is also the Goddess of Love. The love poetry
that has survived is the most exquisite of Sumerian poetry. The poems of Inanna’s love for Dumuzi are
sensuous and express a touching vulnerability.
Bridegroom, dear to my heart,
Goodly is your beauty, honeysweet,
You have captivated me; let me stand tremblingly before you,
Bridegroom, I would be taken by you to the bedchamber,
Bridegroom let me caress you,
My precious caress is more savory than honey,
In the bedchamber, honey filled,
Let us enjoy your goodly beauty,

The poetry is also delightfully erotic

He shaped my loins with his fair hands,
The shepherd Dumuzi filled my lap with cream and milk,
He stroked my pubic hair,
He watered my womb.
He laid his hands on my holy vulva,
He smoothed my black boat with cream,
He quickened my narrow boat with milk,
He caressed me on the bed.

Hierodule of Heaven: As the Goddess of sexuality, love and fertility, Inanna was also the great
Hierodule of Heaven. Hierodule is defined as a slave in service to a deity and is used to refer to ritual or
sacred prostitution. The sacred temple priestesses of Inanna were not harlots or prostitutes. That
cheapens and fails to convey the sacredness of the service they provided. These priestesses served as
vehicles of Inanna’s procreative powers in the sexual acts they performed with the men who
participated in the sacred rites. Inanna was the constant state of fertile creativity; she was potentiality,
the power of procreation, in all aspects –the plants and animals, humans, art, and abundance of all
sorts. The Sumerians believed that the fertility of all life depended on the sacred re-enactment of the
sexual act. They believed it was magical, that it generated and sustained the procreative life force
energies of the Goddess and manifested them on earth. The ecstasy of the sexual act performed in the
temple was the divine gift from the goddess that directly infused abundance and fertility into the land
and her people. What would the role of women be like today if sex was still regarded as sacred and a
gift from the Goddess?

Sacred Marriage Rite: Due to the importance of the sacred sexual act a public sacred marriage rite
occurred in the spring, after the return of Dumuzi from the underworld. It was an ancient yearly mating
ritual that dates back to the 3rd millennium BCE. There are carvings of copulating couples representing
ritual intercourse found in Neolithic sites in ancient Mesopotamia c. 9000 to 5000 BCE which suggests
that the Sumerian sacred marriage ritual was a very ancient tradition. The sexual energy produced by
this rite was believed to be a potent and powerful fertilizing source for all life for that year. It ensured
the success of the crops, human and animal fertility and overall abundance. In the ritual the High
Priestess chose a young lad as her son and consort who is always identified as Dumuzi. His job was to
perform Inanna’s holy rites and to give pleasure to the High Priestess, and thus to Inanna.

As you can see, Inanna has paradoxical characteristics. She was the power in the storehouse and in the
rain; the spirit of battle and warfare; goddess of love and sexuality; and bringer of fertility. She
represented perpetual adolescence and non-domesticated femaleness. Despite her paradoxical nature
there is a unifying thread that is illustrated by one of Her symbols, that of the bird. Birds soar through
the skies, they also live on earth, and so they cross boundaries. Inanna is also a boundary crosser. She is
a woman who behaves like a man. She often cross-dressed, took up manly arms in battle, she was
sometimes presented as an androgyne. Even some of her cult personnel were “transvestites and
castrates. (2004:159)

All of her various aspects and functions involve transition, boundary crossing, and transformation -- seed
in a storehouse seemingly dead, but alive, poised to become something else; rain which changes the
infertile to fertile. On the battlefield fortunes change, and people die -- the ultimate transformation.
Love, sexuality, and sexual intercourse -- all present important ways for human beings to change.
Adolescence is a transition time -- a non-domestic woman has no fixed place. Neither does the
prostitute. Both are crossers of boundaries. (Stucky 2004)
So Inanna was goddess of paradox, yet she was not, a contradictory deity. What unifies Inanna is
change -- transformation and transition.
Transformation often requires going deep within to reflect and gain knowledge and self awareness in
order to become awakened. The transformative quality of Inanna is illustrated in the Descent of Inanna,
one of the poems left to us by Enheduanna.

Discussion Questions

1. How does the Sumerian Goddess Inanna differ from our Western concept of God?
2. Inanna is both order and chaos. She both creates, nourishes and destroys? What might it have
been like to live in a culture whose concept of the Divine was so paradoxical?
3. What might it have been like for a woman in Ancient Sumer to have a primary Goddess who was
non-domesticated, could go into battle, could cross dress if she chose, and who proudly owned
her sexuality?
4. How would life be different in our culture is sex was seen as a gift from the Goddess and was
held sacred?
Inanna - Bibliography

Meador, Betty De Shong, Inanna, Lady of the Largest Heart: Poems of the Sumerian High
Priestess, Enheduanna, Austin, University of Texas Press, 2000.
Meador, Betty De Shong, Uncursing the Dark, Treasures from the Underworld, Wilmette, IL,
Chiron Publications, 1992
Perera, Sylvia Brinton, Descent to the Goddess: A Way of Initiation for Women, Toronto,
Canada, Inner City Books, 1981.
Wolkstein, Dianne, and Samuel Noah Kramer, Inanna, Queen of Heaven and Earth, New York,
Harper and Row, 1983.