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ikhet_sekhmetI'm suffering from sleep deprivation this morning, which may explain my idling brain converting Pink Floyd's Eclipse into the list of mes from Inanna, Lady of Largest Heart:
To touch, to see, to taste, to feel, are yours, Inanna
Love, hate, to distrust, to save, are yours, Inanna
... and so on.
Anyway, the actual reason for this posting is to make some notes on Ishtar of Nineveh and Ishtar of Arbela. As far as I can figure out, around the middle of the previous decade, I started searching databases for terms like "Ishtar" and then photocopying or downloading anything I could get my hands on; the articles cited below must have been amongst those early acquisitions. At the time I really couldn't make head nor tail of them.
The main puzzle addressed by the articles' authors is whether Ishtar of Nineveh was the same goddess as Ishtar of Arbela, or if they were local variants of the same goddess. Comparative evidence is not as helpful as you might think; as Porter points out (p44n16), there are cultures where the local variants of the Blessed Virgin Mary are understood as different saints, not all of them the mother of Christ. (I don't think Ancient Egypt isn't much help either, with its multiple, overlapping Amuns and Isises.) (Beckman discusses the various local Zeuses on p4.)
Happily, grammar comes to the rescue: Assurbanipal's hymn to the Ishtars of Nineveh and Arbela consistently uses the feminine plural to address them, and credits them with different contributions to his kingliness: the former is his birth mother, while the latter "formed him" in the womb; the former granted him "unparalleled kingship" and the latter "long life"; the former suckled him, the latter was his nanny. So for Assurbanipal, at least, these were two different individual deities.
To add to the confusion, there are also other Ishtars, including just plain "Ishtar", referred to by Assurbanipal - including "the rather mystifying Assur-Ishtar, Assur-Ishtar of Arbela and then Ishtar the panther". Offerings lists include further "delimited" Ishtars (Beckman p2n22), and course more cities had their own Ishtars, such as Alalakh. And the whole thing is made more complex by whether and when the Hittites, Hurrians, or Assyrians are in charge (something I'm still pretty confused about, actually, eight years after making the photocopies).
Beckman notes that "she of Nineveh" doesn't seem to have the usual "astral or martial" characteristics, but was a magician and healer, asked to cure disease and lift curses. I guess this brings up the question of whether all these Ishtars were originally local deities who have been assimilated to the dominant goddess of the land. In fact I'm sure I've read a suggestion somewhere that "Ishtar" eventually became synonymous with "tutelary goddess".
Finally, two cool details from Lambert. There are Old Akkadian personal names such as Innin-laba which mean "Ishtar is a lion". He also translates a hymn to Ishtar of Arbela which addresses the goddess as "massive jackal/vulture". Awesome. :)
__
Beckman, Gary. Ištar of Nineveh Reconsidered. Journal of Cuneiform Studies 50 (1998) pp 1-10.
Lambert, W.G. Ištar of Nineveh. Iraq 66 2004, pp 35-39.
Porter, Barbara Nevling. Ishtar of Nineveh and her collaborator, Ishtar of Arbela, in the reign of Assurbanipal. Iraq 66 2004, pp 41-44.
To touch, to see, to taste, to feel, are yours, Inanna
Love, hate, to distrust, to save, are yours, Inanna
... and so on.
Anyway, the actual reason for this posting is to make some notes on Ishtar of Nineveh and Ishtar of Arbela. As far as I can figure out, around the middle of the previous decade, I started searching databases for terms like "Ishtar" and then photocopying or downloading anything I could get my hands on; the articles cited below must have been amongst those early acquisitions. At the time I really couldn't make head nor tail of them.
The main puzzle addressed by the articles' authors is whether Ishtar of Nineveh was the same goddess as Ishtar of Arbela, or if they were local variants of the same goddess. Comparative evidence is not as helpful as you might think; as Porter points out (p44n16), there are cultures where the local variants of the Blessed Virgin Mary are understood as different saints, not all of them the mother of Christ. (I don't think Ancient Egypt isn't much help either, with its multiple, overlapping Amuns and Isises.) (Beckman discusses the various local Zeuses on p4.)
Happily, grammar comes to the rescue: Assurbanipal's hymn to the Ishtars of Nineveh and Arbela consistently uses the feminine plural to address them, and credits them with different contributions to his kingliness: the former is his birth mother, while the latter "formed him" in the womb; the former granted him "unparalleled kingship" and the latter "long life"; the former suckled him, the latter was his nanny. So for Assurbanipal, at least, these were two different individual deities.
To add to the confusion, there are also other Ishtars, including just plain "Ishtar", referred to by Assurbanipal - including "the rather mystifying Assur-Ishtar, Assur-Ishtar of Arbela and then Ishtar the panther". Offerings lists include further "delimited" Ishtars (Beckman p2n22), and course more cities had their own Ishtars, such as Alalakh. And the whole thing is made more complex by whether and when the Hittites, Hurrians, or Assyrians are in charge (something I'm still pretty confused about, actually, eight years after making the photocopies).
Beckman notes that "she of Nineveh" doesn't seem to have the usual "astral or martial" characteristics, but was a magician and healer, asked to cure disease and lift curses. I guess this brings up the question of whether all these Ishtars were originally local deities who have been assimilated to the dominant goddess of the land. In fact I'm sure I've read a suggestion somewhere that "Ishtar" eventually became synonymous with "tutelary goddess".
Finally, two cool details from Lambert. There are Old Akkadian personal names such as Innin-laba which mean "Ishtar is a lion". He also translates a hymn to Ishtar of Arbela which addresses the goddess as "massive jackal/vulture". Awesome. :)
__
Beckman, Gary. Ištar of Nineveh Reconsidered. Journal of Cuneiform Studies 50 (1998) pp 1-10.
Lambert, W.G. Ištar of Nineveh. Iraq 66 2004, pp 35-39.
Porter, Barbara Nevling. Ishtar of Nineveh and her collaborator, Ishtar of Arbela, in the reign of Assurbanipal. Iraq 66 2004, pp 41-44.
