Author: Johanna Stuckey, PhD
From the Archives of MatriFocus
A Cross-Quarterly Web Magazine for Goddess Women Near & Far
Beltane 2004, Vol 3-3

An example of the so-called “Woman at the Window” motif. As is usual with these images, the face fills the opening, here a balustraded balcony/window in a building wall. The ornate ringlets are topped by what appears to be a jewelled hair ornament. Ivory plaque, almost certainly a furniture appliqué. Might originally have been painted. From Arslan Tash, Syria. Late ninth century B.C.E. Drawing © S. Beaulieu, after Hardin 1963: Plate 61.

Was the beautiful, enigmatic “Woman at the Window” a goddess, a prostitute, or both? Many ivory carvings of her have been found in the Near East, and they date to the first millennium B.C.E. Scholarly interpreters have been quite clear about her: she was a prostitute displaying her wares at an inn. Further, they have often identified her with the Sumerian great goddess Inanna, the Babylonian Ishtar, whom they see as, among other things, patron deity of prostitutes and herself a prostitute.

Feminist scholar Julia Assante questions this generally accepted scholarly position. From her meticulous research, she argues that earlier scholars misunderstood certain documents in which the names of several types of priestess were regularly listed along with the word usually translated as “prostitute.”[1] Rather than assuming, as most scholars have done, that the priestesses were prostitutes, albeit sacred ones, Assante makes a strong case that these lists describe a category of woman to which both certain priestesses and “prostitutes” belonged, that is, women who were not dependent on men. Fiercely independent and dangerous Inanna/Ishtar was no exception but, Assante suggests, she might have been patron not of prostitutes alone, but of self-supporting women, to which category many prostitutes must have belonged.[2]

Certainly the “Woman at the Window” was an aspect of Inanna/Ishtar, whatever else she might have been. Her name was Kilili, and she was a minor Babylonian goddess.[3] “Kilili” probably meant “Garlanded One.”[4] The Sumerians called her Aba-shushu “(One) Who Leans in (or Looks out of) the Window.” Abta-gigi, another of her names, has been translated as “(One) Who Answers (or Commands) from the Window.”[5] Kilili was considered wise in the sense of “skilled” or “knowing”: “You are Kilili, the wisest of the wise, who concerns herself in the matters of people.” In this wisdom and also window-posing, she and Ishtar were alike: “… at a window of the house sits wise Ishtar” (Quoted by Lapinkivi 2004: 234). Kilili was often invoked in incantations and litanies, where she was addressed as, for instance, “Kilili, the queen of the windows, Kilili, who leans into/from the windows” (Quoted by Lapinkivi 2004: 233 note 1147). She might also have been associated with the kililu, “the mural crown” worn by Assyrian queens and often by goddesses.[6]

The “Mona Lisa” of Nimrud. The beautiful face of what was a “Woman at the Window,” but separated by time from her window. Her elegant and ornate coiffure is topped by a hat which might be that of a high priestess. The rich golden ivory carving was probably a furniture appliqué. From ancient Nimrud in Babylonia, Mesopotamia, though almost certainly made in Phoenicia. Eighth century B.C.E. Drawing © S. Beaulieu, after Boardman 2006: Plate 202.

Enthroned goddess holding a lotus and a ring. She wears necklaces and bracelets, and her heavy ornate ringlets are held back by a headband. Above her is an Egyptian style of winged disc. She has been identified as probably being Kilili, usually seen in a window (Frayne 2006: personal communication). Ivory found at Nimrud in Babylonia, but almost certainly carved in Phoenicia. Eighth century B.C.E. Drawing © S. Beaulieu, after Mallowan and Herrmann 1974: Plate 46.

Another carved furniture inlay from Nimrud. Probably Kilili, according to Frayne, (2006: personal communication). The goddess holds a lotus and has wings. Her heavy ornate ringlets are contained by a headband. Eighth century B.C.E.
Drawing © S. Beaulieu, after Mallowan and Herrmann 1974: Plate 67.

Kilili is best known from many beautiful ivory images of the “Woman at the Window,” the most famous of which has been dubbed the “Mona Lisa of Nimrud.” The pieces were carved mostly in Phoenicia and were probably furniture inlays, especially for beds. They have been found in three Mesopotamian sites and also in the Levant, for instance, at Samaria in Israel. In the ninth century B.C.E., Samaria was the capital of the northern realm of the Israelite divided monarchy.[7] Its most famous or infamous ruler was Ahab, husband of the Phoenician (Canaanite) princess Jezebel (I Kings 16: 31).

Usually, Kilili stood full face in a window or balcony, which seemed situated somewhat above the ground. At a temple she would probably have been embodied by a priestess ritually showing herself to devotees in full ceremonial regalia, as in a possible “Window of Appearances” in a wall of the building.[8] Her hair was usually dressed in heavy, ornate ringlets, and she sometimes wore a necklace. Her prominent eyes looked directly out at the observer; the eyes of deities were large to indicate that they saw everything and their large ears heard everything.

However, at least one ivory shows a goddess, probably Kilili, in profile. In it, she was seated on throne, accompanied by lily plants, and facing a god enthroned opposite her.[9]

Though Phoenician artists were carving images of Kilili primarily for the Mesopotamian market, the goddess might have had a counterpart in the Levant, perhaps Asherah or Astarte,[10] for the palace of Ahab and Jezebel in Samaria was the source of at least one such carving. It might indeed have been an inlay in the royal bed of Ahab and Jezebel. From a distinguished family, Jezebel was daughter of Eth-Baal, king of Sidon, and her great-niece was Elissa (Dido in Vergil’s Aeneid), legendary founder of Carthage (royal family tree).

Small figure of a Phoenician lady or priestess. She wears a long tunic and a cloak, part of which she holds in her left hand. Her jewelry consists of necklaces and bracelets, and she is shod in sandals. Her ornate hair style is controlled by forehead bands. Limestone. Likely an ornament or handle of a large ceremonial vessel. From Golgoi, Cyprus. Seventh century B.C.E.
Drawing © S. Beaulieu, after Harden 1963: Plate 71.

Kilili, the “Woman at the Window.” Phoenician ivory from Nimrud in Mesopotamia. Dated to the end of the eighth century B.C.E,
Drawing © S. Beaulieu, after Moscati 1999: Plate 79.

Female figure, a relief sculpture from a coffin. She wears a tunic and is wrapped from her hips down with folded wings, as Egyptian Isis and Nephthys are in funerary contexts. A veil, topped by an hawk’s head, an Egyptian motif, almost covers her hair. In her right hand she holds a small dove-shaped incense burner and in her left a bowl. Everything about her suggests that she was a priestess. From Carthage. Dated to the end of the fourth/beginning of the third century B.C. E.
Drawing © S. Beaulieu, after Moscati 1999: Plate 9.

From the Hebrew Bible, we know that Jezebel was a devotee of the Canaanite deities, especially the goddess Asherah, the main female deity of her Phoenician home state.[11] Like most royalty of the area, she would have been a high religious functionary of Sidon’s city deities, particularly Asherah. After her marriage, according to the Hebrew Bible, Jezebel influenced Ahab to become a worshiper of Baal (I Kings 17: 32). As queen of the northern kingdom of Israel, she supported functionaries of Canaanite polytheistic religions and fed four hundred prophets of Asherah at her table, as well as a large number of priests and, according to the Bible, “prophets” of Baal (I Kings 18: 19). The Bible also reports that she persecuted the prophets of the Israelite deity (I Kings 18: 4).

Opposition to Canaanite religion and to Jezebel was led by the prophet Elijah (I Kings 18: 17). On Mount Carmel, Elijah defeated the Baal prophets in a contest between their deity and his, and all the Baal prophets were killed (I Kings 18: 20-40). Jezebel then threatened Elijah with death, and he had to flee (I Kings 19: 1-2). Eventually Ahab was killed in battle (I Kings 22: 35), and later his son and successor, Joram, was treacherously slain by his ambitious general Jehu (II Kings 9: 22-24). Thus, Jezebel was left alone and vulnerable in Samaria, at the mercy of Jehu, now king of Israel (II Kings 9: 1-14), and a man who blamed her “countless harlotries and sorceries” for most of the problems of the land (II Kings 9: 22).

When Jehu arrived in the city, Jezebel must have known that she was close to death. So the Phoenician queen painted her eyes, dressed her hair, and stood at a window in the palace (II Kings 9: 30). Were the writers of the tale deliberately invoking the well-known motif of the “Woman in the Window”? Or is it possible that Jezebel was greeting her death proudly and defiantly, not only as a queen but also as a priestess of her goddess? It seems very likely.

Thus, the last Biblical picture of Jezebel, defiantly and bravely confronting her enemy from a window, might over time have added to negative interpretations of the “Woman at the Window” or vice versa. As Jezebel’s name later came to signify the worst kind of female depravity, so the goddess Kilili became a prostitute offering herself from a window.

Notes

Bibliography

Graphics Credits

Contributors retain the copyright to their work; please do not take art or words without permission. Other graphics and reference materials are used and attributed as per the Fair Use Provision of The Copyright Act and individual terms of use.

Author: Johanna Stuckey, PhD
From the Archives of MatriFocus
A Cross-Quarterly Web Magazine for Goddess Women Near & Far
Samhain 2005, Vol 5-1

“Woman at the Window,” often interpreted as a prostitute, sacred or not, soliciting clients, but actually, in all likelihood, the Mesopotamian goddess Kilili, an associate or aspect of Inanna/Ishtar. One of many such ivory inlays of the same motif found in Mesopotamia, but probably made in Phoenicia/Canaan. Dated about 900 BCE.
Drawing © S. Beaulieu, after Shepsut 1993:115.

An “improbable percentage of the population [of Mesopotamia and Syria-Canaan] must have been either secular or religious prostitutes of some sort,” wrote Beatrice Brooks in 1941 (231). She was drawing conclusions from the writings of predominantly male scholars who accepted without question the concept of “sacred, cult, or temple prostitutes.” Female temple functionaries, they maintained, regularly engaged in sexual intercourse in return for a payment to their temples. Female devotees of Inanna/Ishtar, the Mesopotamian goddess of sexuality and love, were “immediately” suspect of such behavior (Assante 1998:6). Until recently, most scholars took this view for granted, and some still do.

In the nineteenth century, scholars thought Mesopotamia to be a hotbed of “naïve and primitive sexual freedom” (Assante 1998:5-6). Members of the then-new discipline of anthropology, such as Sir James Frazer of The Golden Bough fame, made matters worse by presenting for readers’ delectation the orgiastic rites of fertility cults (Assante 2003:22-24; Oden 2000:136-138). The result was a fertility-cult myth which took hold among scholars (Stuckey 2005:32-44; Assante 2003:24-25; Lambert 1992:136). A number of ancient sources were ultimately responsible for the concept of “sacred prostitute”: the Hebrew Bible; later Greek writers like Herodotus (ca.480-ca.425 BCE), Strabo (ca.64 BCE-19CE), and Lucian (ca.115-ca.200 CE); and early Christian churchmen. They greatly influenced later writers (Oden 2000:140-147; Assante 1998:8; Henshaw 1994:225-228; Yamauchi 1973:216).

Herodotus reported a “wholly shameful” custom by which every woman “once in her life” had intercourse near the temple of Aphrodite (Ishtar) with the first stranger who threw “a silver coin” into her lap (Herodotus 1983:121-122,I:199).[1] Similarly, Lucian described the punishment of women who declined to shave their heads in mourning for Adonis: “For a single day they [had to] stand offering their beauty for sale … [in a] market … open to foreigners only, and the payment [became] an offering to Aphrodite [Astarte]” (1976:13-15). The Christian writers accused pagans of indulging in orgies in honor of Aphrodite, ritual pre-marital sex, and “cult prostitution” (Oden 2000:142-144).

It is true that much ritual activity in the ancient Eastern Mediterranean focussed on promoting the fecundity of the land. In early Mesopotamia, for instance, the “Sacred Marriage,” with its fertility focus, could possibly have involved a “sacred prostitute.”

Canaanite dignitary with staff, possibly a priestess or queen. Ivory plaque carved on both sides. Probably a furniture inset. Pupils of eyes inlaid with glass. Megiddo, Israel. Dated about 1350-1150 BCE.
Drawing © S. Beaulieu, after Pritchard 1969:38, Fig. 125.

Webster’s English Dictionary defines a prostitute as, first, “… a woman who engages in sexual intercourse for money; whore; harlot”; second, “… a man who engages in sexual acts for money” (1996:1553). According to one scholar, “Cultic prostitution is a practice involving the female and at times the male devotees of fertility deities, who presumably dedicated their earnings to their deity.” The “Sacred Marriage” rite was one of “the motives of the practice, particularly in Mesopotamia,” where the king had intercourse with “a temple prostitute” (Yamauchi 1973:213).

Obviously, most scholars did not distinguish between ritual sex and sexuality for pay (Cooper forthcoming). However, ritual sex would not have been prostitution even if the act produced an offering for a temple (Lambert 1992:136). Rather, it would have been an act of worship.

In the Hebrew Bible, the word normally translated “sacred or cult prostitute” is q^edeshah/q^edeshot (feminine singular/ plural) and qadesh/q^edeshim (masculine singular/plural). These four titles do not occur very often in the Hebrew Bible (Henshaw 1994:218-221).[2] The root qdsh means “set apart, consecrated” (Brown, Driver, and Briggs 1978 (1953):871-874).[3] For the most part, the terms occur in books from Deuteronomy through to II Kings, the so-called Deuteronomistic History, which is especially nationalistic, polemical, and denunciatory of Canaanite religion (Oden 2000:131,132; Olyan 1988:3). The assumption that “sacred prostitution” had not only occurred, but had happened in the context of fertility cults, resulted from the Hebrew Bible’s “deliberate” association of q^edeshah, “sacred/consecrated woman,” with zonah, “prostitute” (Bird 1989:76).[4]

Seated North Syrian lady holding a goblet. Perhaps a priestess or a queen, who would also have been a priestess as a result of her queenship. Fragment of ivory carving found in Assyria, but probably made in Syria-Canaan.
Drawing © S. Beaulieu, after Shepsut 1993:168, fig.62.

Thus, an important category of cult functionary called q^edeshah existed in Canaan (Henshaw 1994:235-236). Otherwise, why would the Bible need to discredit such women? Their function in Canaanite religion is not known, but they were “consecrated women,” probably priestesses.

When the archives of Ugarit, an ancient Semitic-speaking city in Syria, began to be interpreted, it quickly became evident that the religion of Ugarit was similar to the Canaanite religion vilified in the Hebrew Bible. Thousands of clay tablets dated to the Late Bronze Age, 1300-1200 BCE (Astour 1981:4), were found to contain, among other things, lists of gods, offerings, and religious functionaries (del Olmo Lete 1999; de Tarragon 1980). None of the priestly titles in the texts is grammatically in the feminine gender (de Tarragon 1980:7,8,139ff.), but they could have included women if the masculine form included the feminine, as it used to do in English.

Lady from Mari in northern Mesopotamia, now in Syria. Probably a priestess. Detail of main figure in a procession depicted in white shell inlay on slate. Found at Mari. Dated c.2600-2400 BCE. Drawing © S. Beaulieu, after Shepsut 1993:33, Fig. 7.

The word qdshm, “consecrated ones,” designated important functionaries: “… we find [them] listed second after the khnm `priests’ ” (Henshaw 1994:222-225; de Tarragon 1980:134,141; Yamauchi 1973:219). Qdshm had high status, could marry and establish families, and could hold other offices (de Tarragon 1980:141). There is no suggestion that the ritual role of the qdshm was sexual, nor, indeed, is there any evidence to date of “sacred prostitution” at Ugarit (de Tarragon 1980:139,140; Yamauchi 1973:219).

In Mesopotamian lists, the Semitic word kharimtu, usually translated “prostitute,” was often written with, or close to, the titles of female cultic personnel. As a result, the latter became “tainted” by proximity (Assante 1998:11). Thus not only qadishtu but other female cultic titles were translated “sacred or temple prostitute” (Assante 2003:32).

The Mesopotamian Semitic titles which have usually been translated as “sacred prostitute” include naditu, qadishtu, and entu (Oden 2000:148-150; Assante 1998:9; Lambert 1992:137-141). In general, naditu priestesses were high-status women who were expected to be chaste (Assante 1998:38-39; Henshaw 1994:192-195). At Sippar in Old Babylonian times (ca.1880-1550 BCE), they included royal and noble women (Harris 1960:109, 123ff.). There is no evidence that a naditu‘s duties included ritual sex (Oden 2000:148). The title qadishtu, “holy, consecrated, or set-apart woman,” has the same root as the Hebrew q^edeshah (Assante 1998:44-45; Henshaw 1994:207-213). After scholars have carefully scrutinized “extensive evidence of [the qadishtu’s] cultic and other functions” (Gruber 1986:139), it is clear that the qadishtu was no “cult prostitute” (Oden 2000:149). Indeed, it is likely that most Mesopotamian priestesses, with one possible exception, were expected to be pure and chaste.

Enthroned lady, probably a high priestess, found in the Ishtar temple at Mari in northern Mesopotamia. Alabaster statue. Dated c.2600-2400 BCE.
Drawing © S. Beaulieu, after Shepsut 1993:33, Fig. 6.

The one exception might have been the entu, whom the Sumerians called Nin.Dingir “Lady Deity” or “Lady Who Is Goddess” (Henshaw 1994:47; Frayne 1985:14). If the “Sacred Marriage Rite” ever involved human participants, this priestess might, as “Inanna,” have had ritual intercourse with the king. However, the entu had very high status (Henshaw 1994:46) and, according to Mesopotamian law codes, had to adhere to “strict ethical standards” (Hooks 1985:13). Whatever else she was, she was not a prostitute.

For a certain period, the “Sacred Marriage” was an important fertility ritual in Mesopotamia (Frayne 1985:6). As a result of the king’s participation, whatever form it took, he became Inanna’s consort, sharing “her invaluable fertility power and potency” (Kramer 1969:57), as well as, to some extent, her divinity and that of her bridegroom Dumuzi. Unfortunately, no text tells us what happened in the temple’s ritual bedroom, not even whether the participants were human beings or statues (Hooks 1985:29). However, in a persuasive article, Douglas Frayne argues that, at least in early times, the participants were human: the king and the Nin.Dindir/entu (Frayne 1985:14).

In the “Sacred Marriage” material, the female participant is always called Inanna (Sefati 1998:305), so her human identity is obscured. That is not surprising, for I suspect that, during the ritual, the only female present was Inanna. What I am suggesting is that the Nin.Dindir/entu was a medium. Through talent and training, she went into a trance and allowed Inanna to take over her body. Then the goddess could actually be present during the ritual. To a greater or lesser degree, the king could similarly have embodied the god Dumuzi.

One of a large number of terracotta images of lovers on beds found in Mesopotamia. Often understood as connected to the “Sacred Marriage” rite, with the woman seen as a “sacred prostitute.” Dated to the third millennium BCE.
Drawing © S. Beaulieu, after Teubel 1984:117, Plate 19

A medium is “… a social functionary whose body only, the person’s awareness suppressed while in an ecstatic state, serves as a means for spirits to assist and/or communicate with members of the medium’s group in a positive manner” (Paper 1995:87). The “witch of Endor” in the Hebrew Bible (I Samuel 28:7-25) was likely a medium, and other ancient examples include the oracular priestesses through whom Apollo spoke at Delphi and the Maenad devotees of Dionysus (Kraemer 1989:49). Today mediums function in many religions: for instance, Chinese, Korean, African, and African-Christian of the Americas (Paper 1997:95,104-107,222-226,303; Sered 1994:181-193). Interestingly, the majority of contemporary mediums are female (Paper 1997:95).

Ancient Mesopotamia, like most other cultures, had its prophets and seers (Westenholz 2004:295). A number of them probably worked through trance. Indeed, “… ecstatic religious functionaries, that is, those whose religious functioning involves trance, are virtually ubiquitous in human cultures” (Paper forthcoming). So it would not surprise me to discover that the Inanna of the “Sacred Marriage” rite was actually properly named, for the goddess was using the body of a willing and devout ecstatic and priestess, who was certainly not a “cult prostitute.” On the contrary, she would have had extremely high status and have been deeply revered, for she was chosen of the goddess. Finally, then, the identity of the human female participant in the ritual is irrelevant. She was Inanna!

“Tragically,” says one contemporary scholar, “scholarship suffered from scholars being unable to imagine any cultic role for women in antiquity that did not involve sexual intercourse” (Gruber 1986:138). However, recent scholars are fast setting the record straight. Even if ancient priestesses were involved in ritual sex, even if they received offerings for their temples, they were not prostitutes but devotees worshipping their deity.

Notes

Bibliography

Graphics Credits

Contributors retain the copyright to their work; please do not take art or words without permission. Other graphics and reference materials are used and attributed as per the Fair Use Provision of The Copyright Act and individual terms of use.

Author: Johanna Stuckey, PhD
From the Archives of MatriFocus
A Cross-Quarterly Web Magazine for Goddess Women Near & Far
Lammas 2005, Vol 4-4

Gardener Planting a Sapling at the Base of Another Tree in a Garden, with Wilderness Outside. From a relief vessel found at Mari. Steatite. Dated around 2500 B.C.E.
Drawing © S. Beaulieu, after Wolkstein and Kramer 1983:5

As a result of her control of fecundity and her centrality in the “Sacred Marriage,” Inanna kept her high standing among the Sumerian deities even as society increased in male-dominance (Wakeman 1985: 8). The poem “Inanna and the Huluppu Tree” gives a mythic explanation of how the throne and the bed used in the “Sacred Marriage” came into existence and, in the process, records a drastic demotion in Inanna’s status.[2]

Story

The poem begins at the beginning, “when what was needful had first come forth,” when bread first started to be baked in ovens of shrines, and when the first separation occurred, that of sky and earth (Frayne 2001:130; Wolkstein & Kramer 1983: 4). A violent storm uprooted a huluppu (poplar?) tree. Inanna rescued it and planted it in her “sacred grove” at Uruk (Frayne 2001: 131). She waited for it to get large enough to be made into a chair and a bed. Unfortunately, three creatures settled in the tree: in its roots “a snake which fears no spell”; in its trunk a lilitu, a female spirit; and in its branches the Anzu bird. Unable to rid herself of these intruders, tearful Inanna requested her brother Utu, the sun god, to help. He refused, but Gilgamesh, Uruk’s warrior king, did not. After the heavily armed hero “smote” the snake, the others fled. Gilgamesh cut down the tree, took the branches for himself, and gave the trunk to Inanna.

Analysis

Inanna rescued the huluppu tree at the time of beginnings, “when what was needful had first come forth.” Is it possible that the huluppu tree was among the “needful”? Perhaps the huluppu was the World Tree, which connects heaven, earth, and underworld (Campbell 1965: 486-89). In other mythologies, the World Tree usually has a serpent in its roots and often a bird in its branches (Campbell 1964: 41).

Anyway, the huluppu flourished in “pure Inanna’s fruitful garden” in the sanctuary at Uruk (Kramer 1967: 200; Shaffer 1963: 30, n.1). Many ancient precincts had sacred groves complete with sacred trees. In male-dominated Mesopotamia, a king usually held the title “Gardener” (Widegren 1951: 9, 11, 15). Indeed, gardening and plowing could be metaphors for taking the male part in sexual intercourse. For example, in one Sumerian love poem Inanna sings of her vulva, her “uncultivated land,” and asks, “Who will plow it?” Dumu-zi answers that he will plow it for her (Sefati 1998:224-225). Metaphorically, then, the fertile grove is the goddess, particularly her womb, her vulva. In the huluppu poem, however, the garden, the womb, was “fruitful” in and of itself. Inanna did no more than tamp the tree into place with her foot and water it with her foot! Clearly, her garden did not yet have a gardener, a plowman to plow it, to control its fertility. Not surprisingly, in a world where a gardener was beginning to be necessary for ordered and controlled cultivation, untended plants had to be incapable of normal progress. So the tree acquired what, in a male-dominated world (garden, womb), would have been considered parasites.[3]

If the huluppu was the World Tree, we would expect a serpent in its roots. Also, snakes had connections with earth and fecundity goddesses (Henshaw 1994: 173; Wolkstein & Kramer 1983: 3). Indeed, these beings of earth and underworld often lived under such goddesses’s shrines. Snakes are also boundary creatures, able to move in several elements. They often live at wells and springs, entrances to the netherworld.[4] From the roots the serpent “which fears no spell” could have connected with the underworld (Wolkstein & Kramer 1983: 180). Interestingly, Inanna tended the tree with her foot, her roots. Could the snake have been Inanna’s underworld self?

Probably the Anzu, an eagle-like bird with lion’s head and outstretched wings. Detail of a relief plaque from Girsu, Mesopotamia. Stone. Around 2450 BCE.
Drawing © S. Beaulieu, after Kramer and Wolkstein 1983:8.

The Anzu was an eagle-like, powerful bird-monster with a lion’s head. When it flapped its wings, it caused whirlwinds and other kinds of storms. Inanna may also have had some connection with storms, making the bird’s presence understandable (Williams-Forte 1983: 180, 194; Wolkstein & Kramer 1983: 95-96, 102; Jacobsen 1976: 136-137). In the branches of Inanna’s tree, the bird was also at the boundary between earth and sky. It too was able to move across thresholds. Is it possible that the Anzu was Inanna’s heavenly self?

From Mesopotamian writings going back into the third millennium BCE comes evidence of spirits like the one in the tree trunk (Hutter 1995: 973).[5] She was a member of the lilu family of demons (feminine lilitu) (Chicago Assyrian Dictionary 1956). Lilu demons manipulated “stormy winds,” and the lilitu could fly like a bird. They also had negative sexual characteristics, especially the females. Unmarried, they roamed about looking for men to ensnare, and they got into buildings through windows. More important, lilu sexuality was not “normal,” so that men could not have sex with lilitus in the way they did with their wives (Hutter 1995: 973).

The lilitu sounds very much like Inanna and Ishtar, Inanna’s Semitic counterpart. Ishtar “stands at the window looking for a man in order to seduce him, love him and kill him” (Hutter 1995: 973-4). Inanna too displayed herself provocatively in windows and doors (Jacobsen 1976: 140), and, like Ishtar, she was called “sahiratu, ‘the one who roams about.'” In hymns she goes “from house to house and street to street,” a phrase later used to describe demons (Frymer-Kensky 1992: 28).

Such paralleling of independent women and demons suggests that, in increasingly patriarchal culture, Inanna’s independence was slowly being isolated from her other characteristics, and the hard-to-assimilate independence was assigned to two separate functions: prostitute and demon. The prostitute was useful, if marginalized, and the demon was feared and rejected. The fact that many translators render the word lilitu as “Lilith” may indirectly support such a theory (Kramer 1967: 200; Wolkstein & Kramer 1983: 6). The lilitu was antecedent to Lilith, the first wife of Adam, vilified in later Jewish texts (Ausubel 1979: 393-4; Graves & Patai 1964: 68).

Queen of Heaven, Earth, and the Underworld, almost certainly the Goddess Inanna/Ishtar. Terracotta relief. Dated around 2000 B.C.E.
Drawing © S. Beaulieu, after Neumann Plate 126

According to Raphael Patai, an image on a Babylonian baked-clay plaque, dated as “roughly contemporary with the [huluppu-tree] poem,” depicts a lilitu (Patai 1990: 222 & Plate 31; Wolkstein & Kramer 1983: 6). He thought that the nude figure, standing on lions and flanked by owls, was a night goddess and lady of wild animals. However, she wears the multi-horned crown and carries the ring-and-rod symbol of power (Henshaw 1994: 240; Williams-Forte 1983: 181; Jacobsen 1976: 38). She is most unlikely to be merely a lilitu. Rather she is the goddess Inanna with the wings and the death-dealing talons of an owl (?), perhaps indicating a connection with the netherworld (Williams-Forte 1983: 189). This suggestion gains support from a cylinder seal dated 2000-1600 BCE.[6] The head of a winged goddess with many-horned crown reaches its top register, and her clawed feet are firmly planted in the bottom one. Above the line are deities and human worshipers, while below it are “demonic creatures.” Some scholars interpret this winged goddess as Lilith and so a lilitu, but she too is probably Inanna (Williams-Forte 1983: 189; Wolkstein & Kramer 1983: 51). This seal provides another part of Inanna’s nature. Not only does its arrangement present the goddess’s duality — of both of the upper world and the underworld — but it suggests that she joins the two. Like the huluppu tree, she stands with feet, roots, in the underworld and head, branches, in the heavens, her body, the trunk, joining them. She herself could be interpreted as the “cosmic tree of life” and death (Campbell 1965: 64).

When Gilgamesh had disposed of the huluppu tree’s inhabitants, he uprooted it, thus eliminating, finally, any natural connection between earth and underworld.[7] He then gave the wood to Inanna to make into a bed and a throne, the furniture used in the “Sacred Marriage.” However, the furniture, which was essentially constructed from her body, was no longer entirely hers. The institution of kingship had appropriated it and, with the furniture, Inanna herself. What is more, the poem presents her as willingly co-operating in her own demotion. Both she and the furniture would henceforth serve a male monarchy in a male-dominated society. In this way, society was able to circumscribe her and direct her undoubted power into channels that would be useful to the male-dominated city.

Sacred Tree, Horned Goddess, and Priest(ess). Cylinder seal impression. Dated about 2330-2150 B.C.E.
Drawing © S. Beaulieu, after Wolkstein and Kramer 1983: 3.

Inanna was now goddess only of the heavens and the earth, and the cycle of life had suffered irreparable damage. The destroying of the huluppu tree meant that human beings could no longer count on Inanna and the World Tree to maintain the cycle of life and death. Instead, they were now facing a terrifying, linear world. The old cyclical understanding of death as merely one stage in the eternal round of birth, death, and renewal, symbolized by the tree, had been replaced by a linear perception of life with death and the underworld as the end (Kovacs 1989:59-75; Wolkstein & Kramer 1983:51-89).

The seemingly innocent poem “Inanna and the Huluppu Tree,” then, constitutes an androcentric account of the reasons for Inanna’s involvement in the “Sacred Marriage,” both as herself and as furniture. It shows well how myth can be remade to serve ideology! A powerful goddess subject, the sacred World Tree, had, over the centuries, been reshaped into limited goddess objects, a bed and a throne, while the goddess herself was co-opted into seeing this limited role as powerful. Independent Inanna had become feminine, a woman reliant on males to get her out of trouble. The extant poem probably echoes an earlier story, one in which Inanna and the World Tree had very different roles. We can only imagine what they were.

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