Inanna's name

From the worst-named journal article ever comes this interesting snippet: 'The name of this paramount Sumerian goddess of fertility derives from Ninanna(k) "the lady of the date clusters".' (This would fit with one of Dumuzi's titles, Amaushumgalanna, "the one great source of the date clusters"). In a footnote, Homan attributes this suggestion to Thorkild Jacobsen in Treasures of Darkness. "However," he adds, "some scholars adhere to the etymology NIN="lady/queen" AN="heaven", based on mythology involving Inanna, mostly notably 'The Exaltation of Inanna'". He gives lots of references which have me dribbling. What a research junky!

ETA: Homan also suggests a reason for Inanna, as Venus, to be the daughter of Nanna, the moon god: apparently in pre-industrial times, the phases of Venus were visible with the naked eye.
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Homan, Michael M. Date Rape: the agricultural and astronomical background of the Sumerian sacred marriage and Genesis 38. Scandinavian Journal of the Old Testament 16(2), 2002.

Another snippet - Ishtar this time

Well, it's either this or do the washing up. :-)

The lament in the article cited below describes Ishtar lamenting what was probably an invasion. At first she's called "the goddess of Uruk"; then she's identified with several other cities. At first, I thought this was a list of different goddesses, since each Mesopotamian city had its own patron deity; but Lambert explains that it's Ishtar in every case. In other Sumerian literature, Ishtar is identified with other cities as well as her home town of Uruk. 'Larak was a cult centre of Ninisinna,' he comments, 'and Keš of the mother goddess, though in late theological texts these goddesses do merge with Ištar'.

It's a pretty graphic depiction of the fate of women in war: not only has Ishtar lost her husband, but her loincloth has been torn away, and she can't beat to watch "the ripping of the mother's wombs".
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Lambert, W.G. A Neo-Babylonian Tammuz Lament. Journal of the American Oriental Society 103(1) Jan-Mar 1983, pp 211-215.