TYPE: Goddess of fertility and war.
ORIGIN: Mesopotamian (Sumerian) [Iraq]
KNOWN PERIOD OF WORSHIP: Circa 3500 BCE to 1750 BCE.
SYNONYMS: Innina; Istar [Akkadian]; Nin-me-sar-ra (lady of myriad offices)
CENTER(S) OF CULT: Unug [Warka]; also Erbil and Nineveh
ART REFERENCES: plaques, reliefs, votive stelae, glyptics, etc.
LITERARY SOURCES: cuneiform texts, particularly the Gilgames Epic and Inana's Descent and the Death of Dumuzi; temple hymns, etc.
INFORMATION: The paramount goddess of the Sumerian pantheon. Though not technically a "mother goddess", she constitutes the first in a long line of historically recorded female deities concerned with the fertility of the natural world. Inana is also a warrior goddess. She is the daughter of the moon god Nanna and sister of Utu and Iskur. In alternative tradition, she is the daughter of An. Her attendant is the minor goddess Ninsubur, and her champion is the mythical hero Gilgames. Of her many consorts, the most significan is the vegetation god Dumuzi. She becomes the handmaiden of An, the god heaven. She is also identified as the younger sister of the underworld goddess Ereskigal. She is the tutelary deity of the southern Mesopotamian city of Unug (Uruk), where her sanctuary is the Eanna temple.
Inana is usually depicted wearing a horned headdres and tiered skirt, with wings and with weapon cases at her Shoulders. Her earliest symbol is a bundle of reeds tied in three places and with streamers. Later, in the Sargonic period, her symbol changes to a star or a rose. She may be associated with a lion of lion cub and is often depicted standing atop a mountain. She may be embodied in the sacred tree of Mesopotamia, which evolved into a stylized totem made of wood and decorated with precious stones and bands of metal.
Originally Inana may heve been goddess of the date palm, as Dumuzi was god of the date harvest. Her role then extended to wool, meat and grain and ultimately to the whole of the natural world. She was also perceived as a rain goddess and as the goddess of the morning and evening stars. She was worshiped at dawn with offerings, and in the evening she became the patroness of temple prostitutes when the evening star was seen as a harlot soliciting in the night skies. In less commonly encountered roles she is goddess of lightning and extinguishing fires, of tears and rejoicing, of enmity and fair dealing and many other, usually conflicting principles.
According to legend, Enki, who lives in the watery abyss or Abzu beneath the city of Eridu, was persuaded while drunk, and through Inana's subterfuge, to endow her with more than a hundred divine decrees, which she took back to Unug in her reed boat and which formed the basis of the Sumerian cultural constitution.
Inana is one of three deities involved in the primordial battle between good and evil, the latter personified by the dragon Kur. She is further engaged in a yearly conflict, also involving her consort Dumuzi, with Ereskigal. She descends to the underworld to challenge Ereskigal and finds herself stripped naked and tried before the seven underworld judges, the Anunnaki. She is sentenced and left for dead for three days and nights before being restored at the behest of Enki, the god of wisdom, who creates two beings, Kur-gar-ra and Gala-tur-ra, to secure her release and to revive her by sprinkling her with the food and water of life.