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2006-12-02 08:41:33 · 6 answers · asked by Chantel J 1 in Society & Culture ➔ Mythology & Folklore
Ishtar is the Assyrian and Babylonian counterpart to the Sumerian Inanna and to the cognate northwest Semitic goddess Astarte. Anunit, Astarte and Atarsamain are alternative names for Ishtar.
Ishtar is a mother goddess, fertility goddess, the goddess of spring, a storm goddess, a warrior goddess and goddess of war, a goddess of the hunt, a goddess of love, goddess of marriage and childbirth, and a goddess of fate.
She was also an underworld deity, her twin sister being Ereshkigal the Goddess of Death. But her dominant aspects are as the mother goddess of compassion and the goddess of love, sex and war.
As the goddess of love, Ishtar was irresistable. Her lovers were legion and she was the matron of courtesans and prostitutes. Ishtar herself was the 'courtesan of the gods' and she was the first to experience the desires which she inspired. Sovereign of the world by virtue of love's omnipotence, Ishtar was the most popular goddess in Assyria and Babylonia-
2006-12-03 02:03:11 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Babylon--now Iraq (Mesopotamia means "between the rivers--that is, the rivers Tigris and Euphrates. Which are also still there.)
Ishtar was the Queen of Heaven--she had a rainbow necklace (I think also a girdle, which is a decorative belt when worn by goddesses--not a suck-you-in garment!)
A bunch of Babylon's stuff was excavated by Germans and it's now in the Berlin Museum of Art. There's a fantastic wall with an "Ishtar Gate"--it's made of blue glazed bricks and it has winged lions by the gate. They took it apart and reassembled it in the museum.
Ishtar went to, um, rescue her sister Innanna? Down to Babylonian hell or something. She had to take off an article of clothing at the seven gates and eventually, she wound up in the underworld naked (she got her stuff back as she ascended back to earth.) Her big holiday was around Easter time (some people think "Easter" is a version of "Ishtar") and the whole egg and Easter bunny thing came from her worship. She was a fertility goddess.
2006-12-02 17:35:47 · answer #2 · answered by SlowClap 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Apart from the area of worship and the iconography E Sweat Pea seems a bit confused.
According to a vegetation myth Ishtar went to the throne of her sister Ereshkigal, the goddess of the underworld, to rescue her lover, and succeeded to get him back for most of the year, but only after she "went on strike" and everything was barren, until the other gods ganged together and forced Ereshkigal to let him go.
The European Easter customs are going back to the Germanic goddess Ostara, who may well have been the same deity, her name sounds very much like a cognate of Ishtars's name in the Eastern Mediterranean, Astarte. But that is only conjecture and cannot be proved.
2006-12-02 19:13:52 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Assyria and Babylon .. but for a full answer/explanation try
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ishtar
2006-12-02 17:29:56 · answer #4 · answered by The old man 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I guess, at the Ishtar temple?
2006-12-02 16:44:25 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 1⤋
She was worshiped in Egypt...ancient Egypt...at least I think so, sounds right. She was in the necronomicon.....Summeria!!! yea, they worshipped her.
2006-12-03 15:00:06 · answer #6 · answered by Countess Bathory 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋