She is
Anu's second
consort, daughter of
Anu and
Antum (the earliest example of
incest?). She is the
goddess of
love,
procreation, and
war. Her
temples have special
prostitutes of both genders. She is often accompanied by a
lion, and sometimes rides it.
The
Eanna in
Uruk is dedicated both to her and
Anu. As
Irnini, she has a
parakku (= throne-base = dais, mound, platform) at the Cedar Mountain
1. She loved
Tammuz in her
youth, although he spends half the year in the nether world
wailing. She loved a
lion, a
stallion, a
shepherd, from all of whom she asked great
sacrifice and then abandoned. She loved Ishullanu
2, a
gardener who was taken aback when she revealed herself to him, so she turned him into a
frog (the word may mean
dwarf).
She asks
Gilgamesh to be her
lover and
husband, offering him many gifts and the homage of earthly rulers and kingdoms. But because she is a goddess Gilgamesh rejects her. She doesn't take that too well and asks
Anu to send the
Bull of Heaven to kill Gilgamesh, and he agrees.
In another adventure she determines to go to the
Underworld. To force the gatekeeper to open the gate, she threatens to
smash it and raise the dead so that they would eat and outnumber the living. She holds the great keppu-toy (a whipping top). The gate keeper takes her through seven gates to
Ereshkigal's realm. By Ereshkigal's rites, she is stripped of items of
clothing in this order as she passes through each of the gates:
While she in the underworld, no creatures ah...
engage in
acts of
procreation. She was kept in
Egalgina ( = ? Palace of Justice) and brought forth by
Namtar after being sprinkled with the
water of
life. She is led back out through the gates, given back her accouterments, and released in exchange for Dumuzi (
Tammuz).
Symbol: an eight or sixteen-pointed
star Sacred number: 15 Astrological region: Dibalt (
Venus) and the Bowstar (
Sirius) Sacred
animal:
lion and perhaps
dragon
___________________
1 from the
Gilgamesh Legend (Tablet V) "Then they saw the Cedar Mountain, the Dwelling of the Gods..."
2 from the
Gilgamesh Legend (Tablet VI) "You loved Ishullanu, your father's date gardener, who continually brought you baskets of dates, and brightened your table daily. You raised your eyes to him, and you went to him: 'Oh my Ishullanu, let us taste of your strength, stretch out your hand to me, and touch our vulva."