Property of Sekhmet

Sumerian literature has its roots in an oral tradition. It doesn't use rhyme or meter, but repetition, parallelisms, similes, and epithets.

In the early 3rd millennium BCE, An was head of the pantheon, and the tutelary deity of Uruk. Enlil of Nippur took over around 2500 BCE, probably reflecting Uruk losing its position as the dominant city-state. (Enki of Eridu may have tried and failed to take over from Enlil.) It's not known how Inanna took over from An as tutelary deity of Uruk. When the pantheon was being systematized around 2500 BCE, She became not just goddess of love, but goddess of war and the planet Venus.

Kramer ponders why the death of Dumuzi, the shepherd-god, affects plant life as well as animal life. He speculates there might be an undiscovered parallel story about the death of Enkimdu, the vegetation god who was Dumuzi's rival for the love of Inanna; or perhaps Dumuzi's identification with the king, "who was the 'farmer' as well as the 'shepherd' of his people", meant that "the languishing of all life, plant and animal, was attributed to him."
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Kramer, Samuel Noah. The Sacred Marriage Rite: Aspects of Faith, Myth, and Ritual in Ancient Sumer. Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 1969.

I'm reading an article from ReVision about "female demons and the demonic female" - the dualistic projection of all things dark and evil onto women. It's sloppy, but it makes one point I found fascinating.

First, the sloppy stuff. The landmark book Inanna: Queen and Heaven of Earth by Diane Wolkstein and Samuel Noah Kramer includes a translation of an episode from a longer epic, Gilgameš, Enkidu and the nether world, which W&K have titled Inanna and the Huluppu-Tree.

The article's author, Elinor Gaden, posits that the split between good and bad woman, virgin and whore, has already begun with this very ancient story. The "dark maid Lilith" makes her home in a tree that Inanna hopes to use for furniture, and Gilgamesh has to drive her off. Gaden says Gilgamesh smashes Lilith's home; but the text clearly states that Lilith destroys her own home and flees the threat, just as the Anzu-bird flies away. Gaden doesn't mention the other creatures also infesting the tree, a snake and a bird - surprising, since according to Marija Gumbutas, these are symbols of the controversial original Mother Goddess, and Gaden could've used them to bolster her argument.

But the real trick the author has missed is the obvious one: the complex nature of Inanna herself, who's so much more than a damsel in distress. If earlier religion should be less dualistic than later religion, then the complicated mix of love and violence in Inanna's character is surely a clue to the change. Gaden argues, rightly, that the modern Goddess movement has neglected the "dark" side of the Goddess; I think that she's missed a terrific chance to show an alternative.
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Gadon, Elinor W. Revisioning the Female Demon. ReVision 20.3 (Winter 1998): 30(1).
Wolkstein, Diane and Samuel Noah Kramer. Inanna, Queen of Heaven and Earth: Her Stories and Hymns from Sumer. Harper and Row, New York, 1983.

Some Mesopotamian snippets from Mythologies of the Ancient World, edited by Samuel Noah Kramer.

When the book was written in 1961, no Sumerian creation myths had been found - only much later Babylonian stories of creation. (I think this is still pretty much true.) However, various texts describing the organisation of the universe, and the creation of people, have been found. One of these stories involves the rape of the goddess Ninlil by the chief god, Enlil. Unlike Greek mythology, rape is taken very seriously in Sumerian myth: despite his status, Enlil is banished to the Nether World for his crime. Similarly, Inanna relentlessly pursues and slays Shukallituda for raping her while she slept. Does this bear any relation to rape law, or to the status of women, in those two societies?

One story, in which the clever god Enki's organises the world, concludes with a complaint from Inanna that she's been shortchanged in the handing out of mes (pronounced "mays" - divine offices, insignia, powers). Enki responds by listing the mes which Inanna has been given. I think this must prefigure the story of Inanna getting Enki drunk and pinching all the mes!

In another Enki story, he eats plants created with enormous effort by the goddess Ninhursag, who curses him and then leaves - Kramer suggests so that she can't change her mind about the curse. I don't know whether there's any connection, but there was an Egyptian festival celebrating the return of the Eye of Ra, who would angrily leave the other gods, and eventually be coaxed back - more on this shortly. (Based on the Enki and Ninhursag story, Kramer explains the etymology which may have resulted in Eve being created from Adam's rib.)

The Babylonian Enuma Elish was written not to explain the creation of the world, but to glorify Babylon and its patron deity Marduk - a huge chunk of the epic is just a recital of all his names and titles. No goddesses take part in creation in the epic, but there are fragments of other creation stories in which they do: for example, one in which Marduk is assisted in creating humanity by the mother goddess Aruru (aka Ninmah, Nintu, or Ninhursag to the Sumerians). In another, Aruru (this time named Mami) asks Enki for advice on creating humanity to do the gods' work, and he suggests creating them by mixing clay with the blood and flesh of a slain deity (similar to Enuma Elish).

There are also myths in which a courageous god (eg Marduk) slays a monster after other gods' collective nerve fails, as in Enuma Elish; including one with a sea monster called Labbu, which I think was aka Leviathan (I'll investigate further).
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Kramer, Samuel Noah. "Mythology of Sumer and Akkad". In Mythologies of the Ancient World. Samuel Noah Kramer (ed). Doubleday NY 1961.