Editing Inanna (section)

==Character==
[[File:Seal of Inanna, 2350-2150 BCE.jpg|thumb|upright=1.15|Ancient [[Akkadian Empire|Akkadian]] [[cylinder seal]] depicting Inanna resting her foot on the back of a lion while [[Ninshubur]] stands in front of her paying obeisance, {{circa|2334–2154&nbsp;BCE}}{{sfnp|Wolkstein|Kramer|1983|pp=92, 193}} ]]

The [[Sumer]]ians worshipped Inanna as the goddess of both warfare and love.{{sfnp|Black|Green|1992|page=108}} Unlike other gods, whose roles were static and whose domains were limited, the stories of Inanna describe her as moving from conquest to conquest.{{sfnp|Vanstiphout|1984|pages=225–228}}{{sfnp|Penglase|1994|pages=15–17}} She is portrayed as young and impetuous, constantly striving for more power than had been allotted to her.{{sfnp|Vanstiphout|1984|pages=225–228}}{{sfnp|Penglase|1994|pages=15–17}}

While she was worshipped as the goddess of love, Inanna was not the goddess of marriage, nor was she ever viewed as a mother goddess.{{sfnp|Black|Green|1992|pp=108–9}}{{sfnp|Leick|2013|pages=65–66}} [[Andrew R. George]] goes as far as stating that "According to all mythology, 
Ištar was not{{nbsp}}[...] temperamentally disposed" towards such functions.{{sfnp|George|2015|p=8}}
Julia M. Asher-Greve has even championed the significance of Inanna specifically because she is not a [[mother-goddess]].<ref>
{{cite journal
| last1                 = Asher-Greve
| first1                = Julia M.
| title                 = The Gaze of Goddesses: on Divinity, Gender, and Frontality in the Late Early Dynastic, Akkadian, and Neo-Sumerian Periods
| journal               = NIN – Journal of Gender Studies in Antiquity
| publication-date      = 1 January 2003
| volume                = 4
| issue                 = 1
| pages                 = 1–59
| doi                   = 10.1163/157077603775818585
| issn                  = 2156-2253
}}
cited in: Asher-Greve, Julia M.; [[Joan Goodnick Westenholz|Westenholz, Joan G.]], eds. (2013). [https://www.zora.uzh.ch/id/eprint/135436/1/Asher-Greve_Westenholz_2013_Goddesses_in_Context.pdf ''Goddesses in Context: On divine powers, roles, relationships, and gender in Mesopotamian textual and visual sources'']. Academic Press Fribourg. ISBN 978-3-7278-1738-0{{dash}}"Asher-Greve 2003; cf. Groneberg (1986a: 45) argues that Inana is significant because she is {{em|not}} a mother goddess (my italics) [...]"
</ref>
As a love goddess, she was commonly{{quantify|date=August 2022}} invoked by Mesopotamians in incantations.<ref name=AsherGreve-Westenholz-2013/>{{efn|
"According to Graham Cunningham (1997: p.&nbsp;171) incantations are connected with 'forms of symbolic identification', and it seems obvious that symbolic identitification with some goddesses relates to their divine function or domain, e.g. ... sex and love related matters with Inana and Nanaya&nbsp;...&nbsp;." {{nobr| — J.M. Asher-Greve (2013, p. 242)<ref name=AsherGreve-Westenholz-2013>
{{cite book
 |last=Asher-Greve |first=Julia M.
 |year=2013
 |editor1-last=Asher-Greve |editor1-first=Julia M.
 |editor2-last=Westenholz  |editor2-first=Joan Goodnick |editor2-link=Joan Goodnick Westenholz
 |section=Images
 |series=Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis |volume=259
 |title=Goddesses in Context: On divine powers, roles, relationships and gender in Mesopotamian textual and visual sources
 |location=Fribourg, DE
 |publisher=Academic Press
 |publication-date=2013 |isbn=9783525543825
 |page=242
 |url=https://www.zora.uzh.ch/id/eprint/135436/1/Asher-Greve_Westenholz_2013_Goddesses_in_Context.pdf
 |access-date=26 August 2022
}}
</ref>}}
}}

In ''Inanna's Descent to the Underworld'', Inanna treats her lover Dumuzid in a very capricious manner.{{sfnp|Black|Green|1992|pp=108–9}} This aspect of Inanna's personality is emphasized in the later standard Akkadian version of the ''[[Epic of Gilgamesh]]'' in which [[Gilgamesh]] points out Ishtar's infamous ill-treatment of her lovers.<ref name="Gilgamesh' p. 86">[[#Reference-Gilgamesh|''Gilgamesh'']], p. 86</ref>{{sfnp|Pryke|2017|page=146}} However, according to assyriologist Dina Katz, the portrayal of Inanna's relationship with Dumuzi in the Descent myth is unusual.{{sfnp|Katz|1996|p=93-103}}{{sfnp|Katz|2015|p=67-68}}

Inanna was also worshipped as one of the Sumerian war deities.{{sfnp|Black|Green|1992|pages=108–109}}{{sfnp|Vanstiphout|1984|pages=226–227}} One of the hymns dedicated to her declares: "She stirs confusion and chaos against those who are disobedient to her, speeding carnage and inciting the devastating flood, clothed in terrifying radiance. It is her game to speed conflict and battle, untiring, strapping on her sandals."<ref>[[Enheduanna]] pre 2250&nbsp;BCE {{cite web |title=A hymn to Inana (Inana C) |id=4.07.3 |year=2003 |work=The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature |url=http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/cgi-bin/etcsl.cgi?text=t.4.07.3# |at=lines 18–28 |ref={{harvid|ETCSL 4.07.3}}}}</ref> Battle itself was occasionally referred to as the "Dance of Inanna".{{sfnp|Vanstiphout|1984|page=227}} Epithets related to lions in particular were meant to highlight this aspect of her character.{{sfnp|Asher-Greve|Westenholz|2013|p=203-204}} As a war goddess she was sometimes referred to with the name [[Irnina]] ("victory"),{{sfnp|Westenholz|1997|p=78}} though this epithet could be applied to other deities as well,{{sfnp|Wiggermann|1997|p=42}}{{sfnp|Streck|Wasserman|2013|p=184}}{{sfnp|Asher-Greve|Westenholz|2013|p=113-114}} in addition to functioning as a distinct goddess linked to [[Ningishzida]]{{sfnp|Wiggermann|1999a|p=369, 371}} rather than to Ishtar. Another epithet highlighting this aspect of Ishtar's nature was Anunitu ("the martial one").{{sfnp|Asher-Greve|Westenholz|2013|p=71}} Like Irnina, Anunitu could also be a separate deity,{{sfnp|Asher-Greve|Westenholz|2013|p=133}} and as such she is first attested in documents from the Ur III period.{{sfnp|Asher-Greve|Westenholz|2013|p=286}}

Assyrian royal curse-formulas invoked both of Ishtar's primary functions at once, invoking her to remove potency and martial valor alike.{{sfnp|Zsolnay|2010|p=397-401}} Mesopotamian texts indicate that traits perceived as heroic (such as a king's ability to lead his troops and to triumph over enemies) and sexual prowess were regarded as interconnected.{{sfnp|Zsolnay|2010|p=393}}

While generally classified as a goddess, Inanna/Ishtar could seem at times to have ambiguous gender.<ref>{{harvp|Asher-Greve|Westenholz|2013|p=17}}: "Although the majority of Mesopotamian deities are characterized as masculine or feminine, the gender identity of numerous gods and goddesses is fluid, or changeable [...]. [...] Primeval deities as well as genies and demons are apparently genderless or bi-gendered. Although the gender of Inana/Ištar is feminine, gender ambiguity is one of her characteristics and also included in her domain as goddess of sex and sexuality."</ref> [[Gary Beckman]] states that "ambiguous gender identification" was a characteristic not just of Ishtar herself but of a category  of deities he refers to as "Ishtar type" goddesses (such as [[Shaushka]], [[Pinikir]] or [[Ninsianna]]).{{sfnp|Beckman|1999|p=25}} A late hymn contains the phrase "she [Ishtar] is Enlil, she is Ninil" which might be a reference to occasionally "dimorphic" character of Ishtar, in addition to serving as an exaltation.{{sfnp|Asher-Greve|Westenholz|2013|p=127}} A hymn to [[Nanaya]] alludes to a male aspect of Ishtar from [[Babylon]] alongside a variety of more standard descriptions.{{sfnp|Asher-Greve|Westenholz|2013|p= 116-117}} However, Ilona Zsolnay only describes Ishtar as a "feminine figure who performed a masculine role" in certain contexts, for example as a war deity.{{sfnp|Zsolnay|2010|p=401}}