Nanâ.
Her name is again playfully interpreted by the Babylonians—through association with Nin—as 'the lady' par excellence. She was the chief goddess of the city of Uruk. Her temple at Uruk is first mentioned by Ur-Gur, of the second dynasty of Ur. It is restored and enlarged by Dungi, the successor of Ur-Bau, and so thoroughly is she identified with her edifice known as E-anna (again a play upon her name), that she becomes known as the Lady of E-anna.[66] She appears to have had a temple also at Ur, and it is to this edifice that later rulers of Larsa—Kudur-Mabuk and Rim-Sin, as well as the kings of the Isin dynasty, Gamil-Ninib, Libit-Ishtar, and Ishme-Dagan—refer in their inscriptions.
The members of the Isin dynasty pride themselves upon their control over Uruk, and naturally appear as special devotees to Nanâ, whose chosen "consort" they declare themselves to be, wielding the sceptre, as it were, in union with her. Already at this period, Nanâ is brought into connection with the moon-god, being called by Kudur-Mabuk the daughter of Sin. The relationship in this case indicates, primarily, the supremacy exercised by Ur, and also a similarity in the traits of the two deities. In the fully developed cosmology, Nanâ is the planet Venus, whose various aspects, as morning and evening star, suggested an analogy with the phases of the moon.
Venus, like the moon, served as a guide to man, while her inferiority in size and importance to the former, would naturally come to be expressed under the picture of father and daughter. In a certain sense, all the planets appearing at the same time and in the same region with the moon were the children of the latter. Sin, therefore, is appropriately called the father of gods, just as Anu, the personification of the heaven itself, is the supreme father of Sin and Shamash, and of all the heavenly bodies. The metaphorical application of 'father' as 'source,' throughout Oriental parlance, must be kept in mind in interpreting the relationship between the gods. Still another name of the goddess is Anunit, which appears to have been peculiar to the North Babylonian city Agade, and emphasizes her descent from "Anu," the god of heaven. Her temple at Agade, known as E-ul-mash, is the object of Sargon's devotion, which makes her, with Bel and Shamash, the oldest triad of gods mentioned in the Babylonian inscriptions. But the name which finally displaces all others, is
Ishtar.
Where the name originated has not yet been ascertained, as little as its etymology,[67] but it seems to belong to Northern Babylonia rather than to the south.
In time, all the names that we have been considering—Innanna, Nanâ, and Anunit—became merely so many designations of Ishtar. She absorbs the titles and qualities of all, and the tendency which we have pointed out finds its final outcome in the recognition of Ishtar as the one and only goddess endowed with powers and an existence independent of association with any male deity, though even this independence does not hinder her from being named at times as the associate of the chief god of Assyria—the all-powerful Ashur. The attempt has been made by Sayce and others to divide the various names of Ishtar among the aspects of Venus as morning and evening star, but there is no evidence to show that the Babylonians distinguished the one from the other so sharply as to make two goddesses of one and the same planet.
It is more in accord with what, as we have seen, has been the general character of the Babylonian pantheon, to account for the identification of Ninni, Nanâ, and Anunit with Ishtar on the supposition that the different names belonged originally to different localities. Ishtar was appropriately denominated the brilliant goddess. She is addressed as the mother of gods, which signals her supreme position among the female deities. 'The mistress of countries' alternating with 'the mistress of mountains,'[68] is one of her common titles; and as the growing uniqueness of her position is one of the features of the Babylonian-Assyrian religion, it is natural that she should become simply the goddess. This was especially the case with the Assyrians, to whom Ishtar became a goddess of war and battle, the consort, at times, of the chief god of the Assyrian pantheon. At the same time it is important to note that the warlike character of the goddess goes back to the time of Hammurabi (Keils Bibl. 3, 1, 113), and is dwelt upon by other Babylonian kings (e.g., Nebuchadnezzar I., c. 1130 B.C.) prior to the rise of the Assyrian power. How Ishtar came to take on so violent a character is not altogether clear. There are no indications of this rôle in the incantation texts, where she is simply the kind mother who is appealed to, to release the sufferer from the power of the disease-bringing spirits. In the prayers, as will be shown in the proper place, she becomes the vehicle for the expression of the highest religious and ethical thought attained by the Babylonians. On the other hand, in the great Babylonian epic,[69] dealing with the adventures of a famous hero, Gilgamesh, Ishtar, who makes her appearance at the summer solstice, is a raging goddess who smites those who disobey her commands with wasting disease. Starting with this phase of the goddess' character, one can at least understand the process of her further development into a fierce deity presiding over the fortunes of war. The epic just referred to belongs to the old Babylonian period. It embodies ancient traditions of rivalry between the Babylonian principalities, though there are traces of several recastings which the epic received. The violent Ishtar, therefore, is a type going back to the same period as the other side of her character that is emphasized elsewhere. Since, moreover, the Ishtar in the Gilgamesh epic is none other than the chief goddess of Uruk, all further doubt as to the union of such diverging traits in one and the same personage falls to the ground. In this same epic, Ishtar appears as sympathizing with the sufferings of mankind, and bewailing the destruction that was at one time decreed by the gods. It is noteworthy that the violent Ishtar appears in that portion of the epic which, on the assumption of a zodiacal interpretation for the composition, corresponds to the summer solstice, whereas, the destruction which arouses her sympathy takes place in the eleventh month. It is quite possible, therefore, that the two aspects of Venus, as evening and morning stars, corresponding, as they do, to the summer and winter seasons, are reflected in this double character of the goddess. We are not justified, however, in going further and assuming that her double rôle as daughter of Sin and daughter of Anu is to be accounted for in the same manner. In the Gilgamesh epic, she is found in association with Anu, and to the latter she appeals for protection as her father, and yet it is as the daughter of Sin that she enters the world of the dead to seek for the waters that may heal her bridegroom, Tammuz.[70] Evidently, the distinction between Ishtar as the daughter of Anu and as the daughter of Sin is not an important one, the term daughter in both cases being a metaphor to express a relationship both of physical nature and of a political character. Of the various forms under which the goddess appears, that of Anunit—a feminine form indicating descent from and appertaining to Anu—attaches itself most clearly to the god of heaven, and it may be that it was not until the assimilation of Anunit and Nanâ with Ishtar that the goddess is viewed as at once the daughter of Anu and of Sin. If this be so, there is surely nothing strange in the fact that a planet like Venus should be regarded in one place as the daughter of heaven and in another brought into relationship with the moon. She actually belongs to both.
Just as in Babylonia, so in Assyria, there were various Ishtars, or rather various places where the goddess was worshipped as the guardian spirit, but her rôle in the north is so peculiar that all further consideration of it must be postponed until we come to consider, in due time, the Assyrian pantheon. There will be occasion, too, when treating of the Gilgamesh epic, to dwell still further on some of her traits. All that need be said here is to emphasize the fact that the popularity of the Babylonian Ishtar in Assyria, as manifested by Esarhaddon's zeal in restoring her temple at Uruk, and Ashurbanabal's restoration of Nanâ's statue (c. 635 B.C.) which had been captured by the Elamites 1635 years before Ashurbanabal's reign, is largely due to the effected identity with the goddess who, for the Assyrians, was regarded chiefly as the goddess of war and strife. In worshipping the southern Ishtars, the Assyrian kings felt themselves to be showing their allegiance to the same deity to whom, next to Ashur, most of their supplications were addressed, and of whom as warriors they stood in dread.