Goddess of fertility and war
ORIGIN: Mesopotamian (Akkadian-Babylonian)
KNOWN PERIOD OF WORSHIP: Circa 2500 BCE until circa CE 200
SYNONYMS: Inana (Sumerian)
CENTER(S) OF CULT: throughout Mesopotamia particularly at Babylon and Nineveh, with smaller sanctuaries across a more extensive area of the ancient world including Mari.
ART REFERENCES: Votive inscriptions; cylinder seals and seal impressions; limestone reliefs; etc.
LITERARY SOURCES: Cuneiform texts including The Descent of Istar; Gilgames and Etana; temple hymns.
INFORMATION: Istar is probably the most significant and influential of all ancient Near Eastern goddesses. She is the counterpart of, and largely takes over from the Sumerian Inana. She is the daughter, in separate traditions, of the moon god Sin and of the god of heaven Anu. She is generally depicted with wings and with weapon cases at her shoulders. She may carry a ceremonial double-headed mace-scimitar embellished with lion heads and is frequentlyy accompanied by a lion. She is symbolized by an eight-pointed star.
In Egypt she was revered as a goddess of healing. There is evidence from the el-Amarna letters that Amenhotep III, who apparently suffered from severe tooth abscesses, was loaned a statur of Istar from Nineveh in the hopes that its curative powers might help his suffering.