Search Results for Ishtar
Ishtar
BritishMuseum | Old Babylonian, probably 1792 - 1750 BC. The Queen of the Night represents an ancient Babylonian goddess, probably Ishtar or Ereshkigal. It might also represent Lilitu, called Lilith in the Bible - via Wikipedia
Ishtar is a Mesopotamian goddess of fertility, ‘sacred’ prostitution¹ and war, later associated with the planet Venus as a goddess of love.
In the Gilgamesh epic, Ishtar journeys to the underworld in an attempt to rescue her brother and lover Tammuz.
If thou openest not the gate to let me enter,
I will break the door, I will wrench the lock,
I will smash the door-posts, I will force the doors.
I will bring up the dead to eat the living.
And the dead will outnumber the living.²
As she enters each successive door in her descent, she is commanded to take off a specific piece of jewelry or clothing item. By the time she reaches the abyss she stands entirely naked.
Joseph Campbell points out how this story has obvious Jungian implications. To attain knowledge of the inner self, one must dispense with (or, at least, gain a new perspective on) all the trappings of worldly life. Unfortunately, Ishtar does not succeed. The evil underworld queen Ereshkigal imprisons Ishtar and she becomes ‘one of the dead.’
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¹ Rightly seen as abhorrent today, the idea and practice of ‘sacred’ or temple prostitution was widespread in the ancient world: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacred_prostitution
² Parallel myths and different scholarly interpretations of Ishtar’s descent to the underworld shed more light (or perhaps create more ambiguity) on this ancient mythic theme: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ishtar.
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Ereshkigal
Statue c. 1792 – 1750 BC that represents an ancient Babylonian goddess, possibly Ishtar or Ereshkigal (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Ereshkigal is a Sumerian goddess and ruler of the underworld. Her sister is the heavenly Inanna/Ishtar. Her husband Nergal, an earth god scorched by the summer sun, forced her to share her power with him.
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Gilgamesh
Library of Ashurbanipal / The Flood Tablet / The Gilgamesh Tablet by Fæ via Wikipedia
Gilgamesh is a legendary Mesopotamian king of ancient Sumer as depicted in the Epic of Gilgamesh, written around 2000 BCE in cuneiform on twelve tablets of clay.
Renowned for his matchless strength, Gilgamesh went into combat with a rough monster-man, Enkidu who was sent by the Gods to keep Gilgamesh in check.
Although Gilgamesh won the bout, the harrowing battle did humble him. He and Enkidu eventually became friends. The Gilgamesh epic also portrays several accounts, some fragmentary, of a Great Flood.
Ea, the Lord, says he will cause a flood and tells Atramhasis to
Enter [the ship] and shut the door…[Bring in] to it thy grain, thy goods and chattels; Th[y wife], thy family, thy relations, and the craftsmen. [Game] of the field (and) beasts of the field, as many as eat herbs, [I will s]end unto thee, and they shall guard thy door.”¹
This is similar to the Biblical account of Noah, and to some extent the Hindu story of Matsu.
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¹ Alexender Heidel. The Gilgamesh Epic and Old Testament Parallels, Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1946, p. 110.
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Mesopotamia
Overview map of ancient Mesopotamia via Wikipedia
Mesopotamia in the Greek language means “land between the rivers” and in Saharan/Basque, “here [the rivers] flow lazily [after] a period of tumbling down the wild mountains.”
This exotic sounding description points to the ancient region lying between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.
Upper Mesopotamia belonged to the Assyrians, reaching from Baghdad to the Eastern Turkey foothills.
Lower Mesopotamia was home to the Sumerians and Babylonians, who settled from the alluvial plains at the top of the Persian Gulf to Baghdad.
The lower Mesopotamian area is thought to be the cradle of the world’s first cities, appearing in the fourth millennium BCE. The early Mesopotamians had a complex religious tradition, one mentioned often – and usually denounced as paganism - within the Old and New Testaments of the Bible.
Mesopotamian religious beliefs were somewhat pessimistic, as most of the dead entered a shadowy, dusty underworld:
To the dark house…
To the house which none leave who have entered it,
To the road from which there is no way back,
To the house wherein the entrants are bereft of light,
Where dust is their fare and clay their food,
[Where] they see no light, residing in darkness…
[And where] over door and bolt is spread dust.¹
The Sumerians asked philosophical questions about the origins of life, their identity and cosmology, but their answers conformed with their myths and were less about original thinking and more about what they believed the gods told them. In Jungian terms, their religious thinking was absorbed by archetypal energies instead of their being able to differentiate the ego from these powerful forces.
In other words, when it came to religion, these ancient peoples were in a kind of archetypal bondage and didn’t really have the ability to think freely.
Of course, the same argument could be made for much of humanity in the 21st century. The only difference, one could say, is that our myths have become more detailed and specialized.
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¹ Jack Finegan, Myth and Mystery: An Introduction to the Pagan Religions of the Biblical World (Baker Book House, 1989: 35).
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Nergal
Image via Wikipedia
Nergal is a Sumerian earth god scorched by the summer sun, who convinced his wife Ereshkigal to combine powers with him.
As Christianity gained dominance Nergal came to be associated with Satan and the spiritual spies of hell. Pious Jews also viewed Nergal as a demonic being.
He’s also the name of a Polish rock star, front man for the group Behemoth.
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Tammuz
Gilgamesh by litmuse
Tammuz
According to the Gilgamesh epic, Tammuz is a dead Babylonian god of vegetation residing in the underworld and adored by his sister Ishtar and her counterpart in Syria, Astarte.
Tammuz returned from the underworld for a brief duration on a yearly basis. His yearly descent to the underworld was met with mourning and funeral ceremonies.
As with so many dying and rising gods in world mythology, anthropologists believe that the myth of Tammuz represents the agricultural cycle.
Gilgamesh is the Story by Benry Yip
But the myth also bears a psychological interpretation. Residing in the underworld could represent a quiet, contemplative life.
Yearly moments of ‘return’ could symbolize necessary periods of interaction with those adhering to a given culture’s understanding of everyday life.
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Underworld
Orpheus in the Underworld by jepoirrier
Underworld
In mythology the underworld variously refers to a place beneath the earth’s surface or under the sea, the land of the deceased or a hellish realm filled with demons.
The mythological underworld is usually separated from everyday reality by an expanse or an abyss.
Often the gates of the underworld are guarded by menacing creatures, such as snakes or the giant three-headed dog and underworld’s Lord of Death, Cerberus.
The legendary Greek Orpheus used his melodious lyre to try to liberate Eurydice from Cerberus. But not unlike Lot’s wife, Orpheus ignored a dire warning to not look back during the escape. And while casting a glance over his shoulder Orpheus lost Eurydice to the underworld forever.
In ancient Egypt the sun god Re (or Ra) was said to pass through the underworld on a nightly basis. David Leeming notes that he was attacked by his enemies, particularly Apep, but defended by Seth and other benevolent spirits who had passed into the afterlife.†
The Egyptian Osiris was taken to be the ruler of the underworld, being a sort of death and resurrection figure due to his dismemberment and subsequent reassembly.
A similar belief to the Egyptian Re myth is expressed in India with the sun temple at Konark, essentially a chariot of 24 wheels, where the sun god Surya begins the day as Brahma, enters midday as Siva, and spends the night as Visnu.
A 2003 film about vampires and werewolves is called Underworld and its sequel is Underworld: Evolution (2006).
Depth psychologists tend to link underworld myths with the idea of the unconscious.
» Abyss, Archetypal Image, Blessed Isles, Bowie (David), Death and Resurrection, Demeter, Doors, Eleusinian Mysteries, Ereshkigal, Eurydice, Faeries, Fates, Furies, Han Solo, Heaven, Hell, Hendrix (Jimi), Hercules, Hero, Ishtar, Jedi, Jung (Carl Gustav), Kraken, Mesopotamia, Mistletoe, Odysseus, Persephone, Pisces, Shaman, Tammuz, World Tree
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† David Leeming, Oxford Companion to World Mythology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), p. 337.
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Venus
Venus
In Roman mythology Venus is the parallel to the Greek Aphrodite, although Venus is more somewhat more subdued than Aprhodite.
Venus is a goddess of seduction and, in one group of rites and myth, she is associated with Roman wine fesitvals (Vinalia) and thus regarded as a mediator between Jupiter and the Roman people.
She is also the mother of Aeneas, who according to the poet Vergil is the founder of Rome.
And she was the lover of Mars, who with the mortal Rhea Silva begat the twin brothers Romulus and Remus.
Since Rome was named after Romulus, who after disposing of Remus became the first ruler of Rome, Venus plays a kind of dual role in the founding of Rome. As such, she was given a solemnity among the Romans that Aphrodite did not enjoy among the Greeks.
Venus’ first known temple was built shortly after 295 BCE. And despite New Age and Jungian attempts to treat her as some pristine archetype, and others to link her to the Indian Vedic term for desire, her historical roots remain obscure.
However, it’s clear that her character did develop, as most mythic entities do, along with sociopolitical changes in Rome. The influential aristocrat Sulla called her his “Protectress” and by the time of the Roman Empire, Venus was incorporated into the official pantheon.
In astronomy Venus is the second planet from the sun. Due to its brightness, Venus looks like a star and is accordingly called the “morning star” or “evening star.”
» Aliens, Aphrodite, Cupid, Earth, Ishtar, Libra, Taurus
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