More from "The Sacred Marriage Rite"

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.

Yet more from "Sacred Marriage Rite"

(I'm just jotting down a few notes here - I hope I can do a more detailed summary of the book later on.)

Kramer points out that there are multiple, conflicting versions of the courtship of Inanna and Dumuzi.

Discussing the Descent, Kramer remarks, "For it would seem that not satisifed with being queen of the 'Great Above' only, she aspires to be queen of the 'Great Below' as well. She therefore... decks herself out in all of her rich finery and tempting jewels; and holding on tightly to the sacred emblems of her powers and prerogatives, she is all set to descend..." This description made me wonder why Inanna doesn't bring weapons, if Her plan is to take over the underworld - is she planning to argue or bully Her sister into giving up the throne? If She could smash the gates and enter anyway, why try for a diplomatic approach, with the excuse of attending Her brother-in-law's funeral?

If Inanna's intention was to conquer the underworld, that explains the lack of sympathy on the part of Enlil and Nanna when Inanna's vizier goes to them for help after Inanna has been gone for three days and three nights (or seven months, or seven years, seven months, and seven days, depending on the version!)

Here's something I wondered about... if the Queen of the Underworld is giving birth, which would explain the internal pains with which Enki's emissaries sympathise, who is she giving birth to? (She was originally Ninlil, Enlil's wife, and followed him to the underworld where he had been banished after raping her.)

Now this is interesting: Inanna is never presented as a mother goddess, but She does have sons, who are mentioned in the Descent - Shara and Lulal are both in mourning for Her, while Her husband Dumuzi neglects this duty.

The galla, the demons who accompany Inanna as She searches for a substitute for Herself, cannot be propitiated - completely inhuman, they "eat no food, drink no water, drink not libated water, accept not mollifying gifts, sate not with pleasure the lap of the wife, kiss not children, the sweet".

Mourning for the dead Dumuzi, the poet says the god "no longer competes among the lads of his city... no longer wields his sword among the kurgarra of his city". Kramer footnotes: "The kurgarra were part of the Inanna cult personnel who entertained the goddess by duelling with knives and swords."

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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.