I N A N N A - Sumerian Mother Goddess - The goddess of beauty, sex, love, and fertility, Ishtar, was the East Semitic version of Inanna, the Sumerian goddess; the Northwest Semitic goddess was called Astarte; and the Armenian goddess was called Astghik. She was a prominent goddess in 3500 BC until the spread of Christianity from the first to the fifth centuries. Her symbols were the eight-pointed star and a lion. She was closely related to Venus in the Babylonian pantheon. Her myth is mostly related to that of the Sumerian legend of the descending of Inanna to the underworld. In the Epic of Gilgamesh, she is represented as a spoiled and short-tempered femme fatale. She demands to be Gilgamesh’s consort and on his refusal, Ishtar unleashes the Bull of Heaven which results in the death of the wild man, Enkidu.

She is said to be the daughter of the god of the sky, Anu. She was worshiped by the people of Upper Mesopotamia in the Assyrian cities of Ashur, Arbela, and Nineveh. The people of Uruk were also great devotees of Ishtar. The fact that her cult involved some kind of sacred prostitution has been disputed for centuries now. Whether the priestess performed sexual acts or not is still a matter of conjecture though many have argued that this never happened. She might be the goddess of love and sexuality, but she was not considered the mother goddess or the goddess of marriage.