The 12th Planet (19 page)

I sought out its ancient foundation-platform,

and I went down eighteen cubits into the soil.

Utu, the Great Lord of Ebabbara ...

Showed me personally the foundation-platform

of Naram-Sin, son of Sargon, which for 3,200 years

no king preceding me had seen.

When civilization blossomed in Sumer, and Man joined the gods in the Land Between the Rivers, Utu became associated primarily with law and justice. Several early law codes, apart from invoking Anu and Enlil, were also presented as requiring acceptance and adherence because they were promulgated "in accordance with the true word of Utu." The Babylonian king
H
ammurabi inscribed his law code on a stela, at the top of which the king is depicted receiving the laws from the god. (Fig. 51)

Tablets uncovered at Sippar attest to its reputation in ancient times as a place of just and fair laws. Some texts depict Utu himself as sitting in judgment on gods and men alike; Sippar was, in fact, the seat of Sumer's "supreme court."

The justice advocated by Utu is reminiscent of the Sermon on the Mount recorded in the New Testament. A "wisdom tablet" suggested the following behavior to please Utu:

Unto your opponent do no evil;

Your evildoer recompense with good.

Unto your enemy, let justice be done....

Let not your heart be induced to do evil....

To the one begging for alms–

give food to eat, give wine to drink....

Be helpful; do good.

Because he assured justice and prevented oppression-and perhaps for other reasons, too, as we shall see later on—Utu was considered the protector of travelers. Yet the most common and lasting epithets applied to Utu concerned his brilliance. From earliest times, he was called Babbar ("shining one"). He was "Utu, who sheds a wide light," the one who "lights up Heaven and Earth."

Fig. 51

H
ammurabi, in his inscription, called the god by his Akkadian name, Shamash, which in Semitic languages means "Sun." It has therefore been assumed by the scholars that Utu/Shamash was the Mesopotamian Sun God. We shall show, as we proceed, that while this god was assigned the Sun as his celestial counterpart, there was another aspect to the statements that he "shed a bright light" when he performed the special tasks assigned to him by his grandfather Enlil.

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Just as the law codes and the court records are human testimonials to the actual presence among the ancient peoples of Mesopotamia of a deity named Utu/Shamash, so there exist endless inscriptions, texts, incantations, oracles, prayers, and depictions attesting to the physical presence and existence of the goddess Inanna, whose Akkadian name was Ishtar. A Mesopotamian king in the thirteenth century
B.C.
stated that he had rebuilt her temple in her brother's city of Sippar, on foundations that were eight hundred years old in his time. But in her central city, Uruk, tales of her went back to olden times.

Known to the Romans as Venus, to the Greeks as Aphrodite, to the Canaanites and the Hebrews as Astarte, to the Assyrians and Babylonians and Hittites and the other ancient peoples as Ishtar or Eshdar, to the Akkadians and the Sumerians as Inanna or Innin or Ninni, or by others of her many nicknames and epithets, she was at all times the Goddess of Warfare and the Goddess of Love, a fierce, beautiful female who, though only a great-granddaughter of Anu, carved for herself, by herself, a major place among the Great Gods of Heaven and Earth.

As a young goddess she was, apparently, assigned a domain in a far land east of Sumer, the Land of Aratta. It was there that "the lofty one, Inanna, queen of all the land," had her "house." But Inanna had greater ambitions. In the city of Uruk there stood the great temple of Anu, occupied only during his occasional state visits to Earth; and Inanna set her eyes on this seat of power.

Sumerian king lists state that the first nondivine ruler of Uruk was Meshkiaggasher, a son of the god Utu by a human mother. He was followed by his son Enmerkar, a great Sumerian king. Inanna, then, was the great-aunt of Enmerkar; and she found little difficulty in persuading him that she should really be the goddess of Uruk, rather than of the remote Aratta.

A long and fascinating text named "Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta" describes how Enmerkar sent emissaries to Aratta, using every possible argument in a "war of nerves" to force Aratta to submit because "the lord Enmerkar who is the servant of Inanna made her queen of the House of Anu." The epic's unclear end hints at a happy ending: While Inanna moved to Uruk, she did not "abandon her House in Aratta." That she might have become a "commuting goddess" is not so improbable, for Inanna/lshtar was known from other texts as an adventurous traveler.

Her occupation of Anu's temple in Uruk could not have taken place without his knowledge and consent; and the texts give us strong clues as to how such consent was obtained. Soon Inanna was known as "Anuniturn," a nickname meaning "beloved of Anu." She was referred to in texts as "the holy mistress of Anu"; and it follows that Inanna shared not only Anu's temple but also his bed-whenever he came to Uruk, or on the reported occasions of her going up to his Heavenly Abode.

Having thus maneuvered herself into the position of goddess of Uruk and mistress of the temple of Anu, Ishtar proceeded to use trickery for enhancing Uruk's standing and her own powers. Farther down the Euphrates stood the ancient city of Eridu—Enki's center. Knowing of his great knowledge of all the arts and sciences of civilization, Inanna resolved to beg, borrow, or steal these secrets. Obviously intending to use her "personal charms" on Enki (her great-uncle), Inanna arranged to call on him alone. That fact was not unnoticed by Enki, who instructed his housemaster to prepare dinner for two.

Come my housemaster Isimud, hear my instructions;

a word I shall say to you, heed my words:

The maiden, all alone, has directed her step to the Abzu ...

Have the maiden enter the Abzu of Eridu,

Give her to eat barley cakes with butter,

Pour for her cold water that freshens the heart,

Give her to drink beer....

Happy and drunk, Enki was ready to do anything for Inanna. She boldly asked for the divine formulas, which were the basis of a high civilization. Enki granted her some one hundred of them, including divine formulas pertaining to supreme lordship, Kingship, priestly functions, weapons, legal procedures, scribeship, woodworking, even the knowledge of musical instruments and of temple prostitution. By the time Enki awoke and realized what he had done, Inanna was already well on her way to Uruk. Enki ordered after her his "awesome weapons," but to no avail, for Inanna had sped to Uruk in her "Boat of Heaven."

Quite frequently, Ishtar was depicted as a naked goddess; flaunting her beauty, she was sometimes even depicted raising her skirts to reveal the lower parts of her body. (Fig. 52)

Gilgamesh, a ruler of Uruk circa 2900
B.C.
who was also partly divine (having been born to a human father and a goddess), reported how Inanna enticed him—even after she already had an official spouse. Having washed himself after a battle and put on "a fringe cloak, fastened with a sash,"

Fig. 52

Glorious Ishtar raised an eye at his beauty.

"Come, Gilgamesh, be thou my lover!

Come, grant me your fruit.

Thou shall be my male mate, I will be thy female."

But Gilgamesh knew the score. "Which of thy lovers didst thou love forever?" he asked. "Which of thy shepherds pleased thee for all time?" Reciting a long list of her love affairs, he refused.

As time went on—as she assumed higher ranks in the pantheon, and with it the responsibility for affairs of state-Inanna/lshtar began to display more martial qualities, and was often depicted as a Goddess of War, armed to the teeth. (Fig. 53)

The inscriptions left by Assyrian kings describe how they went to war for her and upon her command, how she directly advised when to wait and when to attack, how she sometimes marched at the head of the armies, and how, on at least one occasion, she granted a theophany and appeared before all the troops. In return for their loyalty, she promised the Assyrian kings long life and success. "From a Golden Chamber in the skies I will watch over thee," she assured them.

Was she turned into a bitter warrior because she, too, came upon hard times with the rise of Marduk to supremacy? In one of his inscriptions Nabunaid said: "Inanna of Uruk, the exalted princess who dwelt in a gold cella, who rode upon a chariot to which were harnessed seven lions—the inhabitants of Uruk changed her cult during the rule of king Erba-Marduk, removed her cella and unharnessed her team." Inanna, reported Nabunaid, "had therefore left the E-Anna angrily, and stayed hence in an unseemly place" (which he does not name). (Fig. 54)

Seeking, perhaps, to combine love with power, the much-courted Inanna chose as her husband DU.MU.ZI, a younger son of Enki. Many ancient texts deal with the loves and quarrels of the two. Some are love songs of great beauty and vivid sexuality. Others tell how Ishtar—back from one of her journeys-found Dumuzi celebrating her absence. She arranged for his capture and disappearance into the Lower World—a domain ruled by her sister E.RESH.KI.GAL and her consort NER.GAL. Some of the most celebrated Sumerian and Akkadian texts deal with the journey of Ishtar to the Lower World in search of her banished beloved.

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Of the six known sons of Enki, three have been featured in Sumerian tales: the firstborn Marduk, who eventually usurped the supremacy; Nergal, who became ruler of the Lower World; and Dumuzi, who married Inanna/lshtar.

Enlil, too, had three sons who played key roles in both divine and human affairs: Ninurta, who. having been born to Enlil by his sister Nin
h
ursag, was the legal successor; Nanna/Sin, firstborn by Enlil's official spouse Ninlil; and a younger son by Ninlil named ISH.KUR ("mountainous," "far mountain land"), who was more frequently called Adad ("beloved").