Ishtar, Ancient Goddess of Love and War

[icymist]

Ishtar
Ancient Goddess of Love and War

Ishtar was the goddess of love and war to the ancient Babylonians. This same goddess was also worshiped throughout the Near East and Mediterranean worlds from the beginning of recorded history until the predominance of Christianity. Her name varied from place to place, but it was the same goddess who was known as Inanna, Innin, Astarte, Ashtar, and Aphrodite among other names. Ishtar first arose among the Sumerians sometime in the third millennium. They created an entire pantheon of gods who were like humans - only better. The gods of Sumer reflected the general pessimism of the Sumerians, but also their belief that the human mind could divine the minds of gods by observing perceived supernatural activity.

The Sumerians' views were a major influence on their contemporaries (especially the early Semites) as well as on their successors, the Babylonians. They also influenced the Hittites, Assyrians, Elamites, and those living in Palestine. Certain Sumerian gods made the leap to Greece and later to Rome, and Ishtar was such a deity. She became Aphrodite to the Greeks. They stripped her of her war-making aspect and focused almost solely on her nature as goddess of love (especially sexual) and beauty. From the Greeks, the Romans adopted this goddess as their own under the name of Venus. All forms of Ishtar under all of their different names were associated with the planet we now know as Venus and which was first known as the morning and evening stars. Thus we are able to see how the worship of this goddess has reached across the void of time and touched us in some small way.

Ishtar was born in Sumer in very ancient times. She did not start out with all of the traits which made her such a great and powerful goddess. In fact, many scholars believe that this goddess began as a simple Neolithic fertility goddess. Ishtar gradually usurped many of the functions of the Mother Goddess, Ninhursag, and even took her place as Anu's spouse. Anu was the king of the Sumerian gods at this time and Ninhursag was his original wife. She continued to absorb what had been functions of preceding goddesses until the name Ishtar came to mean "goddess". She was the supreme female deity in the pantheons of most of the civilizations in the Near East. Ishtar became goddess of love, fertility, passion, and war. She was Lady of Battle and Queen of Heaven.

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[Jackpine Radical]

1. ...and so we get a bunch of words like Easter, estrus, etc.

in English (Oster in German), and nobody knows they are semantic survivals from Ishtar/Astarte