Inanna

Queen of Heaven

Inanna is the most celebrated and complex deity of ancient Mesopotamia. She embodies seemingly contradictory forces: passionate love and bloody war, fertility and destruction, order and chaos. As the personification of the planet Venus, she is both the morning and evening star, combining masculine and feminine energies in her divine nature.

Goddess of Love

Inanna presides over sexual desire, passionate love, and fertility. Her temples included sacred prostitutes, and her worship involved ecstatic rites celebrating sexuality and the life force. She is portrayed in hymns as irresistibly beautiful, seductive, and demanding. Her sacred marriage to the shepherd god Dumuzi (Tammuz) ensured the fertility of the land.

Goddess of War

Equally central to Inanna's nature is her aspect as goddess of war. She delights in battle, going forth adorned for war as if for love. Kings invoked her before campaigns, and her blessing was essential for military victory. She could drive warriors into battle-frenzy and tip the scales of conflict.

The Descent to the Underworld

Inanna's most famous myth tells of her descent to the underworld to confront her sister Ereshkigal. She passed through seven gates, stripped of her power at each one, and was killed and hung on a hook. Through Enki's intervention she was revived, but had to provide a substitute: her husband Dumuzi, who spends half the year in the underworld.

The Ambitious Goddess

Unlike passive fertility goddesses, Inanna actively acquires power. She tricks Enki while he is drunk to give her the me, the divine powers of civilization, and carries them triumphantly to her city of Uruk. She demands admission to the underworld as her right. She is the goddess of ambition itself.