The Ancient Matriarchal Goddess Ishtar & the Birth of Patriarchal New Age


The Old Matriarchal Ages: Goddess Inanna/Ishtar.

"As Ninanna, she is the 'Queen of heaven' and as Ninsianna she is the goddess of Venus. Her symbol is the reed-bundle, and this is also her determinant in the cuneiform script. She is described as the daughter of sky-god An, or of the moon-god Nanna. Iconographically, Inanna belongs to the class of naked goddesses, though often she is shown with bright rays streaming out from her back. Her Akkadian counterpart is Ishtar,"0* (or Istar/Ester/Easter), "and is the cognate for the Northwest Semitic Aramean goddess Astarte."2*

"Ishtar (original from: Eshtar) Babylonian (Akkadian) goddess of love and sexuality. One myth tells of her descent to the underowrld, where her sister Ereshkigal ruled. In Ishtar's absence, all procreation ceases oin earth. Although she is hailed as 'virgin' she has manylovers, notably Tammuz (Dumuzi). Like Inanna, her Sumerian counterpart, she has, alongside her erotic aspect, both war-like and astral functions. She is the goddess of Venus as morning star (the other forms of Venus would be the hidden and the evening star "Zib"), and on Middle and late Babylonian border markers she is represented as an eight-pointed star. Her brother is Shamash (Sun). Her importance was such that her name could be used as a general appellation for 'goddess'; and ishtarata are 'the goddesses'."0**

"The Goddess Ishtar "The Lightbringer". Babylonian High-Mother-Goddess. Like Inanna, she is the goddess of fertility, love and war. Her cult was the most important one in ancient Babylon and Ishtar became under various names the most important Goddess of the Near-East and Western Asia.

Inanna (sumerian name), Astarte (kanaanäic name), Arinna (hethitic sun goddess), Tanit (karthargic name) Anna = Goddess, Other spelling: Ishara, Istar, Istaru, Aschtar, Aschtart, Geschtinanna, Nins-Anna

Babylonian scriptures called her the "Light of the World, Leader of Hosts, Opener of the Womb, Righteous Judge, Lawgiver, Goddess of Goddesses, Bestower of Strength, Framer of All decress, Lady of Victory, Forgiver of Sins, Torch of Heaven and Earth.

Many are her sacred titles - "Exalted Light of Heaven", "She Who Begets All", "Guardian of the Law" and "Shepherdess of the Lands"

She assimilated into herself a number of 'lesser' deities. In the case of Ishtar this is well documented and traceable, and the following alphabetical listing will show a goddess who should perhaps be called 'Ishtar Incorporated'.

Absusu - A Sumerian title for Ishtar in her role as a promiscuous goddess

Abtagigi - "She Who Sends Messages of Desire"; a Sumerian title used for Ishtar as patroness of sacramental promiscuity and/or Sacred Prostitution

Agasaya - A Semitic goddess of war called 'the Shrieker' she was absorbed into the concept of Ishtar, who was also known as goddess of battles.

Anatha Baetyl - A planetary goddess (Venus) known in Egypt and among the Hebrews, later absorbed into Ishtar; part of a trinity with males.

Anatu - In early Mesopotamia she was known as Ishtar's mother (with alternative names such as Antu, Antum); the ruler of both Earth and Heaven. Later in time she became absorbed and merged into the worship of her daughter.

Anunit - or Anunitu was the patron-goddess of the city of Akkad and associated with Venus as evening star; daughter/sister of the moon-god Sin. She became - in the course of time - absorbed into the great figure of Ishtar who also took over her role as ruler of the city.

Asakhira - Early Semitic goddess of promiscuity; merged into Ishtar

Dilbah - Ishtar as Venus the morning-star and goddess of war and hunting

Gumshea - Mesopotamian goddess of vegetation and fertility who was assimilated into Ishtar

Hanata - A name for Ishtar as warrior-deity

Har - A name of Ishtar that led to the title Harine

Irnini - Originally a patroness or guardian-deity of the Lebanese cedar-mountains she later became absorbed into Ishtar

Kilili - The goddess Ishtar as symbol of the promiscuous and independent woman - the ancient idea of the virgin - whose wanton behavior inspires both excitement and a tremendous anxiety in many of those who desire her.

Nanab - 'Queen'; an old Babylonian title used for Ishtar at the cities of Lagash and Ninevah; it may refer back to a global form of Inanna from which Ishtar has developed.

Nin Si Anna - Ishtar as the all-seeing 'Lady Eye of Heaven'

Ninkasi - Sumerian goddess of Wine, 'Lady Horn-Face', who became 'incorporated' into Ishtar

Ninkharak - A dog-headed goddess of healing who was assimilated into Ishtar

Nintur or Nintu Sentu - An ancient goddess of Shirpurla who became merged into Ishtar; the names meaning 'Lady of the Womb' and 'Lady Life-Giver'.

Sarbanda - 'Queen of the bow', a goddess of the hunt or of war who was venerated at the city of Erech; later she became assimilated into Ishtar

Sharrat Shame - Ishtar as 'Queen of Heaven'

Siduri (Shiduri, Shidurri) - Ishtar in her guise as innkeeper and wine-maker in the story of the hero Gilgamesh

Ulsiga - A title of reverence meaning 'Ishtar of Heaven and Earth'

Zanaru - A title of Ishtar meaning 'Lady of the Lands'

Zib - Ishtar as Venus the evening-star and goddess of love"4*

"Inanna (Inini) Sumerian goddess of love and war."0* or as wikipedia describes her, "the East Semitic Akkadian, Assyrian and Babylonian goddess of fertility, love, war, and sex."2*

Inanna/Ishtar was known originally as the goddess of healing and fertility. Actually, as far as seven thousand years ago, around 5000 BC the matriarchal society was still prevalent, where many goddesses were worshipped and many women occupied positions of power, including being healers, teachers, judges, priests, and the queens. 


Sargon the Great -- The Rise of the Patriarchal Age.

However later, beginning around 3500 BC, with the advance of the dark ages of the patriarchal rule, the matriarchal society started to disintegrate and eventually replaced with the male dominated doctrine and social order, thus the traditional roles of female deities were redefined. By the 3rd millennium BC the Sargon of Akkad has conquered Mesopotamia and far beyond.

"Sargon I the Great of Akkad, Eighty-Second Sumerian King after the Flood; First King of the Dynasty of Agade (Akkad) From 2,461to 2,405 BCE | 27,917 to 27,964 years after the Flood or (c. 2371 - 2315 BCE) (Children: 1. Manicticcu, Man-icticcu, Manishtushu, Manishtusu 2. Rimuc, Rimush) Notes: The Akkadians were an early Semitic people in northern Iraq, they were not Sumerian. As recorded in Sumerian King List translations: (Connections of Chaos, Vynamix, LLC, 2001) "In Agade, Sargon, whose father was a gardener, the cupbearer of Ur-Zababa, became king, the king of Agade, who built Agade (ms. L1+N1 has instead: under whom Agade was built); he ruled for 56 (ms. L1+N1 has instead: 55) (ms. TL has instead: 54) years." 

"In Agade, Sargon, whose father (?) was a gardener, the cupbearer of Ur-Zababa, the king of Agade who built Agade, reigned 56 years as king;..."  Sargon was adopted into the royal family and became king after all royal brothers killed each other in fight for the throne."3*

""My mother was a changeling (?), my father I knew not. The brothers of my father loved the hills. My city is Azurpiranu (the wilderness herb fields), which is situated on the banks of the Euphrates. My changeling mother conceived me, in secret she bore me. She set me in a basket of rushes, with bitumen she sealed my lid. She cast me into the river which rose not over me. The river bore me up and carried me to Akki, the drawer of water. Akki, the drawer of water, took me as his son and reared me. Akki the drawer of water, appointed me as his gardener. While I was gardener Ishtar granted me her love, and for four and (fifty?) ... years I exercised kingship."

Later claims on behalf of Sargon, that his mother was an "entu" priestess (high priestess). The claims might have been made to ensure a descendancy of nobility, considering only a high placed family can be made such a position.


Kings of the Akkad Dynasty

Originally a cupbearer (Rabshaqe) to a king of Kish with a Semitic name, Ur-Zababa, Sargon thus became a gardener, responsible for the task of clearing out irrigation canals. This gave him access to a disciplined corps of workers, who also may have served as his first soldiers. Displacing Ur-Zababa, Sargon was crowned king, and he entered upon a career of foreign conquest. Four times he invaded Syria and Canaan, and he spent three years thoroughly subduing the countries of "the west" to unite them with Mesopotamia "into a single empire."

However, Sargon took this process further, conquering many of the surrounding regions to create an empire that reached westward as far as the Mediterranean Sea and perhaps Cyprus (Kaptara); northward as far as the mountains (a later Hittite text asserts he fought the Hattian king Nurdaggal of Burushanda, well into Anatolia); eastward over Elam; and as far south as Magan (Oman) — a region over which he reigned for purportedly 56 years, though only four "year-names" survive. He consolidated his dominion over his territories by replacing the earlier opposing rulers with noble citizens of Akkad, his native city where loyalty would thus be ensured."1*

Thus the Inanna/Ishtar originally as the goddess of healing and love became redefined as goddess of profane sex and war. Many other goddesses have dissapeared altogether without a trace. By the 1st millennium BC most social positions of importance were dominated by the men with the patriarchal order of the day culminating with rise of the ancient Rome.

But, nothing remains the same when change is the only constant, after the Iron Ages have passed, replaced with the Copper Ages, then Silver and Gold again, the old matriarchal order will return and become anew again and the proper meaning will correct the mistaken confusion of ancient sacred identities.


Ishtar by Zoran Zoran.

“Ishtar is one of my favourite pagan goddesses! She is Semitic goddess, her cult was huge with Phoenicians. According to Walter Burkert, who was very serious and with Campbell one of the most refined analysts of mythology, Ishtar’s cult travels from Phoenicia to Cyprus, where the evidence of her presence is positively identified by archeologists. Her metamorphosis starts there. From that point, she travels to Greece, Etruria and Asia Minor, changing in the process. In classical Greece she becomes Aphrodite. It is not only Burkert who establishes connection between Ishtar and Aphrodite, there are so many others that to mention them would take too much space. She is also known under other names. Carthaginians call her Astarte. Bilingual Etruscan inscriptions known as Pyrgi Tablets (approximately 500 BC), inscribed on golden foil both in Etruscan and Punic, refer to a ritual that honours her. Punic (Carthaginian-Phoenician) text says: “To my Lady, to Astarte (…)”

Ishtar is one of the most powerful warriors in pagan religions. She can compare with Odin, Thor, Ares. Seriously, if you are on the wrong side of Ishtar, she’ll screw you up and you’ll be cut in pieces. She also has huge sexual appetite and is very promiscuous, her charms are irresistible. Celebrations of Ishtar are tightly connected to Easter. As we now, it is all about rebirth, resurrection. The underlying story is about “death” and rebirth of all of the nature. The story goes like this: her lover Tammuz is “stuck” in the Underworld. To bring him back Ishtar has to descend in the world of the Dead. But there are conditions, she has to get rid of her clothes and that includes the famous Ishtar’s girdle. And, when Ishtar doesn’t wear her girdle the Nature becomes barren and the life stops . Will we live? But Ishtar is brave, beautiful and intelligent. She overcomes all the obstacles, brings her lover back from the dead and retrieves her girdle. The Life has been restarted. Similar task performs Aphrodite who saves her lover Adonis.

Egyptian Isis will re-assemble her lover Osiris whose remnants lay on the bottom of the Nile, he is cut in pieces and dead, but she will resurrect him, sleep with him and get pregnant. In its variation, the basic story-line of Ishtar could be found across other mythologies: Celtic, Nordic, Slavic (Vesna is goddess of Spring). As Easter is, Ishtar is about Spring and life that is given to us again (for Christians it is resurrection of Jesus Christ). This long article is a part of my shameless advertizing campaign for a couple of books that I will release on Kindle and Kobo this year… so I am going to tease a bit more. Those books just touch Ishtar, it is not their main subject, so I am not revealing here almost anything that eventually makes them good. So, why not give some other bits of Ishtar story? The Bible is not favourable to Ishtar and other pagan deities. Many Christian sources give her demonic attributes. As we know, The Bible means The Book.

Semitic Phoenicians not only invented the alphabet but also, conditionally speaking, the book as we know it. Those first books were made in the Phoenician city of Byblos, and “the thing” or a book was named after that city. Byblos itself had two major religious cults. One was of Nanaa and another one was of… Ishtar. So, in a way, the holy book got the name from the city that worshipped a demon. Funny, huh? Another little bit of info. We all know that symbol of Islamic religion is crescent moon and the star. It is less known that Turks took over this symbol from Byzantine state after the fall of Constantinople. This symbol is clearly associated with Ishtar.

Phoenicians recognized in the sky planet Venus as a form or symbol of Ishtar. She could be seen on the horizon around dawn (when transition from “night-death” to “light-day-life” occurs), and also at the sunset (when she will descend to the Underworld). There is no doubt where this symbolism that Byzantines had came from. And Turks loved it and spread it so much that it became an internationally known symbol of one of the biggest contemporary religions. So if you are Muslim, Jew, Christian or even just an atheist that loves our various ancestries (like myself), never forget that you always owe something to this beautiful story about powerful hyper-sexual and warlike figure of Woman. Her name was Ishtar. Happy Easter!”


From a Jewish Perspective: Idolatry.

“The word “Easter” appears in the KJV translation, but in the Greek from which it is translated, it is ‘pascha’, and it means Passover, from the Hebrew word “Pesach”. All scholars admit that this is an error in translation, and it only appears ONCE, at Acts 12:4. Luke, who wrote almost 40% of the writings in the New Testament, didn’t put it there as “Easter”, he wrote it as “Pesach/Passover”. The KJV is the only one with this error, since translators have since corrected it in all others!”

“The Easter or Ishtar symbolism of the Sunday resurrection of the spring fertility cult (Easter, the Anglo-Saxon form of Ishtar), is a pagan system of worship that first penetrated Christianity in the second century. The symbolism stems from the death of Tammuz (or Dumuzi) on Friday and his resurrection on Sunday. This mirrors the grain and new shoot symbolism of the corn harvest which occurred at this time of the year. The 40 days of Lent were picked as one day for each year of his life since he died at age 40. The rest of the traditions of Easter were “Christianized” into the story of the death and resurrection of Yeshua the Messiah.”

“Nimrod was killed because of his violence and iniquity against the true and living God and his body was cut in pieces and sent to various parts of his kingdom. His wife/mother told the people of Babylon that Nimrod had ascended to the sun and was now to be called “Baal”, the sun god. Semiramis was creating a mystery religion, and with the help of Satan, she set herself up as a goddess. Semiramis claimed that she was immaculately conceived. She taught that the moon was a goddess that went through a 28 day cycle and ovulated when full and that she had come down from the moon in a giant moon egg that fell into the Euphrates River at sunrise at the time of the first full moon after the spring equinox, on a Sunday. Semiramis became known as “Ishtar” which is pronounced “Easter” referred to as Ashtoreth in scripture, and her moon egg became known as “Ishtar’s” egg.” One of her titles was the Queen of Heaven, and two of her fertility symbols were the rabbit and the egg. She soon became pregnant and claimed that it was the rays of the sun-god Baal (the ascended Nimrod) that caused her to conceive.

The son that she brought forth was named Tammuz. Tammuz was believed to be the son of the sun-god, Baal. Tammuz, like his supposed father, became a hunter. The day came when Tammuz was killed by a wild pig. Queen Ishtar told the people that Tammuz was now ascended to his father, Baal, and that the two of them would be with the worshipers in the sacred candle or lamp flame as Father, Son and Spirit.

Ishtar, who was now worshipped as the “Mother of God and the Queen of Heaven”, continued to build her mystery religion. The queen told the worshippers that when Tammuz was killed by the wild pig, some of his blood fell on the stump of an evergreen tree, and the stump grew into a full new tree overnight. This made the evergreen tree sacred by the blood of Tammuz.”

“Says Alexander Hislop, “It was an essential principle of the Babylonian system, that the Sun or Baal was the one only God. When, therefore, Tammuz was worshiped as God incarnate, that implied that he was an incarnation of the Sun” (p.96). Connected with his worship was a pagan “Lent” of forty days. Hislop adds, “Among the Pagans this Lent seems to have been an indispensable preliminary to the great annual festival in commemoration of the death and resurrection of Tammuz, which was celebrated by alternate weeping and rejoicing . . . being observed in Palestine and Assyria in June, therefore called the ‘month of Tammuz;’ in Egypt, about the middle of May, and in Britain, some time in April. To conciliate the Pagans to nominal Christianity, Rome, pursuing its usual policy, took measures to get the Christian and Pagan festivals amalgamated, and, by a complicated but skillful adjustment of the calendar, it was found no difficult matter, in general, to get Paganism and Christianity — now far sunk in idolatry — in this as in so many other things, to shake hands” (ibid., p.105).”

Women were required to celebrate the conception of Tammuz by lying down in the temple and having sex with whoever entered. The man was required to leave her money. Babies were sacrificed in the honor of these pagan gods and their blood was consumed by the worshipers. The priest of Easter would sacrifice infants (human babies) and take the eggs of Easter/Ishtar, as symbols of fertility, and die them in the blood of the sacrificed infants (human babies). The Easter eggs would hatch on December 25th (nine months later), the same day her son Tammuz the reincarnate sun-god would be born.

This is where the practice of coloring “easter eggs” came from. Many babies would be born around Dec 25 from the sex orgies that began on the feast of Ishtar in the Spring and many of these babies would be sacrificed the following Easter/Ishtar feast .

“It was also common for pagans to bake cakes to offer to her (the Queen of heaven) on the Friday before the Easter festival. This is where we gained the custom of ‘hot cross buns’, with the “cross” symbol indicating the female (the Babylonian symbol for the “female” was, and is, a circle with a crux/cross beneath). The cross also indicated the Equinox, when the Earth’s orbit “crossed” the celestial equator.”6*


From a Christian perspective.

“We also know that Easter can be as much as three weeks away from the Passover, because the pagan holiday is always set as the first Sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox.
Some have wondered why the word “Easter” is in the the King James Bible.

It is because Acts, chapter 12, tells us that it was the evil King Herod, who was planning to celebrate Easter, and not the Christians.

The true Passover and pagan Easter sometimes coincide, but in some years, they are a great distance apart.

So much more could be said, and we have much more information for you, if you are a seeker of the truth.

[...]

The truth is that the forty days of Lent, eggs, rabbits,hot cross buns and the Easter ham have everything to do with the ancient pagan religion of Mystery Babylon. These are all antichrist activities!”7*


Happy Easter!5* :)


References:
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0* - Dictionary of Gods and Goddesses, Devils and Demons by Manfred Lurker, *p.165, **170.
1* - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akkadian_Empire
2* - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ishtar
3* - http://www.theuniverse.name/members/gallery/albums/symbiosis/_cache/symbiosisHomeSashaAncientHistoryGenealogy.html ***

*** - at the bottom of this geneology article the New Kingdom history is a bit incorrect as i did not fix it yet. i have compiled it years ago and since have changed my mind, specially about the geneology of historical Jesus, whom i believe to be Caesarion, son of Cleopatra and Julius Caesar, while Abraham is Egyptian pharaoh Amenemhat I of the twelve dynasty, but that's another article you can find in my fb notes.

4* - http://inanna.virtualave.net/ishtar.html
5* - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easter
6* – <a>http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Hebrew_Roots/Neglected_Commandments/Idolatry/Easter</a>
7* – <a>http://www.lasttrumpetministries.org/tracts/tract1.html</a>

http://theuniverse.name/wp/2014/04/the-ancient-times-of-matriarchal-goddess-ishtar-the-birth-of-patriarchal-new-age/