Creation and Ishtar

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Creation and Ishtar
Mesopotamian Mythology
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Enuma Elish

• Enuma Elish means In the beginning
• Apsu (god of primordial waters) and Tiamat
  (goddess of the sea) are the father and mother of
  the other gods
• The new generations of gods are too noisy, and
  their noise troubles Apsu. He plots to destroy
  them, though Tiamat objects.
• But Ea, god of sweet water, destroys him and
  gains authority over the gods.

What is Tiamats role so far?
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Enuma Elish

• Ea and his wife create Marduk.

Four were his eyes, and four were his ears when
his lips moved, fire blazed forth his eyes
perceived everything. Highest among the gods,
his form was outstanding.
The other gods convince Tiamat to destroy the new
gods. She creates a race of monsters.
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Enuma Elish

• Qingu is the chief monster who assails the
  younger gods
• Ea fails to defeat him.
• Anu, an authority figure among the gods, fails to
  defeat him
• Marduk is called upon to try. He asks for
  kingship of the gods in return. They agree.

Marduk makes his weapons and prepares for battle
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Enuma Elish
Marduk, a storm god, encircles Tiamat with a net
and blows her into pieces to defeat her. From
these pieces, earth is made.
He sliced her in half like a fish for drying
half of her he put up to roof the skyhe opened
up gates in her ribs with her liver he
locatedthe heights he placed her head, heaped
up opened up springs, water gushed out
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Enuma Elish
He opened the Tigris and Euphrates from her eyes,
piled up clear-cut mountains from her udder he
set up her thigh to make fast the sky with half
of her he made a rook, and fixed the earth.
Then Marduk defeats Qingu. From Qingus blood,
human beings are formed, to do all the work so
the gods can be at leisure
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Enuma Elish
Marduks last act (of the Enuma Elish) is to have
a ziggurat constructed, as a sign of human
worship of the gods (and himself, as the gods
new king).
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Ishtar

• Ishtar (Sumerian Inanna) was the city goddess of
  Uruk.
• In Sumerian tradition, she appeared in several
  important stories
• Story of the me (decrees which represent the key
  elements of Sumerian civilization)Inanna visits
  Enki (same as Ea) here her father. He gets
  drunk, she steals the me, and thus confers power
  on Uruk.

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Ishtar
In another story, she got the hero Gilgamesh to
chase a demon from her hulupu tree, and make her
a throne a story which shows a good
relationship between the powerful king of Uruk
and the citys patron goddess..
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Ishtar
and played a key role in civic cult, in a sacred
marriage.
She was worshipped in ornate temples . . .
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Ishtar
Here she takes a king by the hand and leads him,
a sign of divine favor. Ishtar is goddess of
prostitutes but the idea that there was sacred
prostitution at her temples is a western
misreading of the evidence blame Herodotus. But
its possible that in a yearly sacred marriage,
Ishtars priestess had a ritual (real or
symbolic?) sexual union with the citys king, to
insure fertility for the coming year.
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Ishtars Descent
Ishtar decides to visit the Underworld . . .
Ishtar daughter of Sin was determined to go to
the dark house, to the house which those who
enter cannot leave, where those who enter are
deprived of light, where dust is their food, clay
their bread . . .
Ereshkigal is angry that Ishtar has come.
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As Ishtar enters each of the underworlds seven
gates, the gatekeeper takes away an item of her
high-status adornment crown, earrings, jewelry,
and finally the proud garment of her body.
Ishtars Descent
What brings her here? What has incited her
against me? Surely not because I eat clay for
bread, drink muddy water for beer? I have to
weep for young men forced to abandon their
sweethearts. . .
Go in, my lady. Such are the rites of the
Mistress of Earth.
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Ishtars Descent
Ishtar hangs like a corpse on a stake for three
days (the Sumerian version) During this time all
fertility on the earth stops. Ea sends a
pleasure boy to the underworld who apparently
performs the right action to get Ishtar
released. But a substitute must be found. In the
longer more complete Sumerian version, it is
Dumuzi. He is taken down into the underworld to
take Ishtars place. But he too is a fertility
god (young herd animals), and cannot remain under
ground forever.
Apparently his sister Belili (goddess of vines)
takes his place, and trades off parts of the year
with him.
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Ishtars Descent

• How is this story like the Greek underworld myths
  we have encountered (Demeter and Persephone,
  Orpheus, Heracles, etc.)?
• How is it different?
• How similar are the ideas of the underworld and
  its deities?
• What underlying meanings are there are they
  similar to the ideas about human fate you see in
  the Mysteries at Eleusis?

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finis