Holy Inanna, Batman

Read a large chunk of E. Jan Wilson's detailed analysis of the Mesopotamian ideas of "holy" and "pure" (which included a terrific summary of anthropological thought on the concepts). What struck me was the different attitude of the Sumerians to the Egyptians, and, IIUC, the Hebrews: "We are not told, for example, that only priests may enter certain parts of the temple complexes" (p 49), "Presumably, all Sumerians had access to the temple and thus to the realm of the divine, ie to holiness" (p 52). If that's right, it's radically different - an accessible god integrated into the city, rather than "set apart and forbidden".

ETA: Followed this up in Jean Bottéro's book Religion in Ancient Mesopotamia. He writes that it's an open question who was allowed in the temples, but that at the end of the poem Ludlul, the grateful worshipper "wanders around" Marduk's temple Ésagil, "going through one portal after another (there are thirteen in all)", performing rituals and receiving favours. Bottéro concludes that "The temples, at least some of them, were therefore more or less accessible to the common 'faithful', who were free to carry out their devotions there." (pp 118-9)

(He also quotes a priceless bit from the apocryphal Epistle of Jeremiah, reassuring the captive Hebrews that the local gods are merely statues: "Upon their bodies and heads sit bats, swallows, and birds, and the cats also." XD

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Bottéro, Jean. Religion in Ancient Mesopotamia. Chicago; London: University of Chicago Press, 2004.
Wilson, E. Jan. 'Holiness' and 'purity' in Mesopotamia. Kevelaer : Butzon und Bercker ; Neukirchen-Vluyn : Neukirchener Verlag, 1994.

Set in the slaughter-house of Sekhmet

Check out this Late Period stela:



Here's my best stab at rendering the inscription in English:

"Down! Down! You greedy creature that grabs with both arms for the Eye of Re and the Horus child! Fly to the block of Sekhmet, so that it burns your limbs and cuts off your fingers, and your footprints run away from Egypt, without your son taking your place. If you go to the Lake of Fire as an enemy devouring the Eye of Horus, may the flame be in your body; may she cut off your limbs, may your life on earth be miserable before you. Do not direct your wickedness against the prophets and priests of Haroesis, the prophet Pechrodise, son of mistress of the house Qris."

Sekhmet is captioned "Sekhmet, mistress of executioners' blocks, whose fire threatens all, the great". Set, not unusually, isn't directly named. He appears to have the head of an ass rather than the set-animal; Blok discusses the representation of Apophis as an ass, and also mentions the ass-faced, knife-wielding underworld demon I have inelegantly labelled face out donkey guy. Anywho, I'll have to have a proper crack at the German later. (I wonder what the significance of the lizard and, erm turtle? under his prison is?)

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Blok, H.P. Eine magische Stele aus der Spätzeit. Acta Orientalia 7,8, 1929, pp 7-112.