Inanna

Inanna is the ancient Mesopotamian goddess of love, war, and fertility. She is also associated with beauty, sex, divine law, and political power. Originally worshiped in Sumer, she was known by the Akkadian Empire, Babylonians, and Assyrians as Ishtar (and occasionally the logogram ). Her primary title was "the Queen of Heaven". She was the patron goddess of the Eanna temple at the city of Uruk, her early main cult center. In archaic Uruk she was worshiped in three forms: morning Inanna (Inana-UD/hud), evening Inanna (Inanna sig) and princely Inanna (Inanna NUN), the former two reflecting the phases of her associated planet Venus. Her most prominent symbols included the lion and the eight-pointed star. Her husband was the god Dumuzid (later known as Tammuz), and her (attendant) was the goddess Ninshubur, later conflated with the male deities Ilabrat and Papsukkal. Inanna was worshiped in Sumer at least as early as the Uruk period, and her cultic activity was relatively localized before the conquest of Sargon of Akkad. During the post-Sargonic era, she became one of the most widely venerated deities in the Sumerian pantheon, with temples across Mesopotamia. The cult of Inanna / Ishtar, which may have been associated with a variety of sexual rites, was continued by the East Semitic-speaking peoples (Akkadians, Assyrians and Babylonians) who succeeded and absorbed the Sumerians in the region. She was especially beloved by the Assyrians, who elevated her to become the highest deity in their pantheon, ranking above their own national god Ashur. Inanna / Ishtar is alluded to in the Hebrew Bible, and she greatly influenced the Ugaritic goddess Ashtart and later the Phoenician goddess Astarte, who in turn possibly influenced the development of the Greek goddess Aphrodite. Her cult continued to flourish until its gradual decline between the first and sixth centuries CE in the wake of Christianity.