Ishtar -- known to the Sumerians as Inanna, the Arabs as Dilbat, the Assyrians as Atarmasin, and to a lesser extent to the Greeks as Aphrodite, was one of the most popular goddesses of the ancient world. Originally worship of Ishtar centered around her aspect as the the goddess of fertility -- the original earth mother. It was she who brought forth the fruit of the land with the assistance of the lesser, but essential, assistance of her consort (Tammuz to the Babylonians and Sumerians) who represented the fertilizing power of water. As time developed, she turned into the goddess of, to put it bluntly, lust. In the Epic of Gilgamesh, Gilgamesh refuses her seduction because she was untrustworthy to her lovers (she had a habit of killing them) and because they included lions, horses and an apparently an unending list of men. Her worshippers may have been of similar bent. At least the Greek historian Herodotus indicates that every woman who resided in Babylon was required to serve at the temple of Ishtar in the role of prostitute at least once in her life. Some historians have argued that the worship of Ishtar, in all her guises, was a remanant of a matriarchally based pantheon that existed prior to the introduction of a patriarchal pantheon headed by a storm-god by the Indo-European invaders of Anatolia, Greece and Mesopotamia. Ishtar's popularity and the mystery rites connected with worship of her continued throughout the entire Ancient and Classical Eras. Her cult disappeared with the coming of Christianity, which brutally persecuted her worshippers. Travel: Al Jouf and Adumatu, Saudi Arabia Back to Cry Havoc #5 Table of Contents Back to Cry Havoc List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1993 by David W. Tschanz. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com