Ishtar stands at the threshold between worlds. She is Venus as both morning and evening star, love and war, the one who descended to the underworld and returned transformed, the Queen of Heaven. She extends further than any single story can contain. Over millennia of devotion, Ishtar has become a vessel, absorbing other local goddesses, carrying their stories, carrying the divine feminine through its most dangerous centuries. To approach her is to approach vastness itself, multiplicity incarnate. She is a goddess whose very nature is to contain contradictions and remain ultimately unknowable.

If she feels overwhelming, you're meeting her accurately.

The card on the header image is from Modern Goddesses Oracle by Ethony.

Origins and Lineage: Two Goddesses, One Name

The question "who is Ishtar?" doesn't have a simple answer, and that complexity is itself revealing.

Inanna was a Sumerian goddess worshipped at Uruk from at least the late 4th millennium BCE. Her name appears in the very earliest written texts humanity produced—those proto-cuneiform tablets (written by a woman) from around 3500 BCE that mark the beginning of recorded history. Innana was associated with the storehouse, with abundance and fertility, with the reed bundle gateposts that symbolised the threshold between scarcity and plenty. Her symbol was the reed bundle, representing gates, boundaries, sacred containers. She was Venus, the morning and evening star. She descended to the underworld ruled by her sister Ereshkigal and returned, a journey that is likely the oldest reliably attested myth in human history.

Ishtar was an Akkadian/Semitic goddess originally venerated in the Euphrates valley region, associated in the earliest texts from Ebla and Mari with the desert poplar. She too was connected to Venus, to love, to war.

The merging: During the reign of Sargon of Akkad (circa 2334-2279 BCE), these goddesses—originally separate deities with their own distinct worship—became syncretised. Sargon appointed his daughter Enheduanna as high priestess of the moon god Nanna at Ur, and she became the first named author in human history. Writing in Sumerian, Enheduanna composed passionate hymns to Inanna: "The Exaltation of Inanna," "The Great-Hearted Mistress," "Goddess of the Fearsome Powers." Her poetry was so influential, copied for centuries, that many scholars believe it contributed to the merging of these two goddesses. By the time her work spread across the Akkadian Empire, Inanna and Ishtar were increasingly treated as the same goddess under different names.

Whether this syncretism was deliberate imperial policy, organic cultural blending, or something in between, we cannot say with certainty from this distance. What we know is that by the end of Sargon's dynasty, the two goddesses had become so intertwined that later sources treat them as one being—Inanna/Ishtar, the Queen of Heaven.

Her family varies across traditions: Sometimes she's the daughter of the sky god An, sometimes his wife. In other sources, she's the daughter of Nanna (the moon god) and Ningal. Her twin brother is Utu/Shamash (the sun god). Her older sister is Ereshkigal, queen of the underworld. Her relationship with Dumuzi/Tammuz—shepherd god, her lover, the dying god of vegetation—is complex and often brutal. She has no permanent spouse, no role as mother or helpmate. She is always sovereign, always autonomous, always herself.

Stories and Myths: Descent, Rejection, and Return

The Descent to the Underworld

The story exists in both Sumerian (Inanna) and Akkadian (Ishtar) versions, and the differences between them are interesting.

In the Sumerian version: Inanna decides to descend to the underworld, ostensibly to attend funeral rites for Gugalanna the Bull of Heaven, her sister Ereshkigal's husband. Before she goes, she instructs her faithful servant Ninshubur to seek help from the gods if she doesn't return in three days. Inanna arrives at the underworld gates and demands entry. At each of the seven gates, she must remove a piece of her regalia—crown, jewellery, royal garments—until she arrives naked and powerless before her sister. Ereshkigal murders her, and she's hung on a hook as a corpse.

After three days, Ninshubur does exactly as instructed. Most gods refuse to help, but Enki creates two tiny beings who slip into the underworld, mourn with Ereshkigal, and secure Inanna's release. However, the underworld demands a substitute. When Inanna returns to the upper world and finds Dumuzi sitting on her throne, apparently unbothered by her absence, she designates him as her replacement. (Eventually his sister Geshtinanna volunteers to take his place for half the year, creating the cycle of seasons).

In the Akkadian version: Ishtar's approach is more aggressive. She threatens to break down the gates of the underworld if not admitted. The descent happens the same way—seven gates, seven pieces of regalia removed. But the story emphasises Ishtar's absence causing fertility to cease on earth. The gods are forced to intervene not because of a loyal servant's plea, but because life itself is threatened. The resurrection happens through different mechanisms, and there's less emphasis on Ishtar's personal relationships.

What both versions share: The goddess who descends is transformed by the journey. She experiences death, powerlessness, the stripping away of all status and protection. She returns changed, carrying knowledge of the underworld, embodying the truth that sovereignty requires understanding of both realms. 

A Babylonian plaque dating to around 1800 BC, believed to depict Ishtar, a later form of the Sumerian goddess Inanna.    Photograph: Adam Eastland Art + Architecture/Alamy

The Epic of Gilgamesh

In the standard Akkadian version of this epic (composed circa 1600-1000 BCE), Ishtar appears after Gilgamesh and Enkidu have defeated the monster Humbaba. Ishtar approaches Gilgamesh and propositions him—offering riches, power, and her divine favour if he becomes her consort.

Gilgamesh refuses, brutally. He lists her previous lovers and their terrible fates, essentially calling her a destroyer of those who love her. Enraged and humiliated, Ishtar goes to her father Anu and demands the Bull of Heaven to punish Gilgamesh. When Anu hesitates, she threatens to break down the gates of the underworld and release the dead to devour the living. Anu relents. The Bull of Heaven wreaks destruction on Uruk, but Gilgamesh and Enkidu kill it. Enkidu throws the bull's hindquarter at Ishtar in contempt.

The gods decide one of the heroes must die for this offence. They choose Enkidu, whose death sets Gilgamesh on his quest for immortality.

The earlier Sumerian poem "Gilgamesh and the Bull of Heaven" tells a different version with Inanna, where the details differ—the reason for her anger is less clear, her approach less sexual, the consequences less severe.

So, the Akkadian version portrays Ishtar as dangerous, sexually aggressive, destructive to her lovers—a characterisation that may reflect patriarchal anxiety about female sexual autonomy as much as it reflects the goddess's actual nature. The story has been used for millennia to paint her as the "femme fatale," the woman whose love brings death. But we might also read it as a story about a goddess who refuses to accept rejection, who has the power to demand cosmic consequences, who will not be dismissed or diminished.

Inanna and Ebih

In this Sumerian poem attributed to Enheduanna, the mountain Ebih refuses to bow before Inanna. The mountain stands tall, proud, refusing to acknowledge her authority. Inanna goes to her father An and asks for permission to destroy the mountain. An advises against it. He says the mountain is too powerful, too dangerous. Inanna ignores him, attacks the mountain with her full fury, and utterly destroys it.

The message: Inanna/Ishtar will not tolerate being challenged. She will not accept disrespect or limitation. When something stands in her way, she removes it completely.

Themes and Archetypes: What She Holds

Venus: The Liminal Star

Ishtar is associated with the planet Venus, visible as both morning and evening star. This isn't decorative symbolism, it's core to her nature. She is the threshold itself, the transition between states, the one who appears at dawn and dusk, neither fully day nor fully night. This liminality extends through everything about her: she crosses between heaven and underworld, between love and war, between creation and destruction. She cannot be pinned to one realm, one role, one face.

Love and War: The Paradox Goddess

"Goddess of love and war" sounds contradictory only if you don't understand power. Ishtar embodies both because both are about sovereignty, desire, the capacity to say yes or no, the willingness to fight for what you want. She is sexual love, romantic love, erotic desire, but never domesticated, never tamed into marriage and motherhood. She is warfare, conquest, righteous rage, but not as divorced from fertility and life. These aren't opposite qualities that happen to coexist. They're different expressions of the same fierce autonomy.

The love she represents is sovereign. The war she wages is sometimes for empire, sometimes for justice, sometimes for her own will.

Storehouse and Abundance: The Connection with Innana

In her Sumerian origins as Inanna, the goddess was associated with the storehouse, with dates, grain, wool, meat. The reed bundle gatepost, her earliest symbol, represented storehouse gates. She was the threshold between scarcity and abundance, the sacred container that holds enough for everyone. She wasn't about ownership or property (those are patriarchal impositions). She represented the reciprocal flow of resources - the goddess as the one through whom abundance moves.

The Underworld Journey: Death and Return

Inanna/Ishtar is one of the few deities who descends to the underworld and returns. This journey—stripped of power, killed, resurrected—marks her as a goddess of transformation through death. She carries knowledge of both realms. She understands that sovereignty requires knowing the depths as well as the heights.

Sacred Sexuality: Contested Territory

Some scholars associate Ishtar with sacred prostitution, temple sexuality, and practices involving sex workers. The historical evidence for these practices is not universally accepted. Most of our sources are from outsiders (Greek historians like Herodotus describing "those people over there," biblical writers condemning Canaanite practices, later interpreters with their own biases). Archaeological evidence is limited and interpretation varies widely.

What we know: Ishtar carried strong associations with sexuality, with priestesses, with alehouses and beer, with practices that made monotheistic cultures deeply uncomfortable. Her clergy included people of various genders, with frequent cross-dressing and gender-blurring. Whether these practices were sacred expressions of goddess worship, or whether "goddess" was used to legitimise exploitation of women—or both, in different times and places—we cannot say with certainty from this distance.

What Ishtar holds now is the weight of all these interpretations: the authentic sacred practices, the imperial projections, the patriarchal demonisation, the monotheistic condemnation, and the modern feminist reclamation. All of it. That's part of her vastness, she can hold things that are in direct contradiction.

Her Composite Nature: Vessel and Archive

Over millennia of devotion, Ishtar becomes something beyond a single goddess. She - Queen of Heaven - absorbed countless other goddesses.

She syncretised with Ninisina (medicine goddess), Ninsianna (Venus deity), Pinikir (Elamite love goddess), and many others, some whose names are lost to us. Her influence spread beyond Mesopotamia to become Astarte (Canaanite), Ashtoreth (biblical demonisation), and eventually to shape Aphrodite, Venus, and influence aspects of Isis.

But this isn't what happened TO her. This is part of WHO she is.

Some goddesses have this capacity—the sheer size—to hold multiplicities. Ishtar is one of these Star Goddesses. She was already paradoxical, already liminal, already holding contradictions. She was already the one who was both morning and evening star, already the boundary-crosser, already the vessel for "both/and" rather than "either/or." This inherent vastness made her willing to and capable of absorbing and containing other goddesses while remaining sovereign herself.

Why this matters: During those (these!) millennia when the divine feminine was being systematically suppressed—as polytheism gave way to monotheism, as goddess worship was vilified and pushed underground—Ishtar's vastness became crucial. She held everything. All the local goddesses who may have been forgotten. All the sacred practices. All the female sovereignty.

When monotheism said "there is no goddess," Ishtar was too big, too relevant, too widespread to fully erase. She became demonised ("the Whore of Babylon"), absorbed (for example, some aspects of Her went into Mary, Mother of Christ), pushed to the margins, but she kept existing. And inside her, all those other goddess faces, all those other sacred relationships, all those other ways of understanding the divine feminine, they survived too.

She became an archive. She holds the memory we are forbidden to re-member.

Symbols: Reading Her Signs

The eight-pointed star (sometimes six or sixteen rays): Her primary symbol, representing Venus, appearing on everything from cylinder seals to monumental gates.

Lions: Associated with her from earliest Sumerian times, representing power, sovereignty, the roar that resembles thunder. She is often depicted standing on lions or with them at her side.

Doves: Sacred to her, shown on cultic objects from the third millennium BCE onwards. Represent her gentler aspects, though she contains both the fierce and the tender.

Reed bundles/gateposts: Inanna's earliest symbol, representing storehouse gates, thresholds, boundaries, the container that holds abundance.

The colours: Lapis blue (like the Ishtar Gate of Babylon), gold, red.

Rosettes: Particularly prominent in Neo-Assyrian period, possibly eclipsing even the star as her primary symbol during certain eras.

Meeting Her Today

Approaching Ishtar isn't like approaching a goddess with a clear, singular identity. When we seek Her out we are approaching vastness itself.

She is a goddess who contains contradictions, holds paradoxes, and carries millennia of other goddesses within her. This means our experience of her may be completely different from someone else's. That's not confusion, that's to be expected.

You might meet Ishtar as the fierce warrior goddess of the Akkadian Empire. You might meet her as Inanna, keeper of the storehouse gates. You might meet one of the many goddesses she absorbed over millennia—they're still there, still distinct within her vastness. Sometimes they'll even give you a name, a symbol, a specific face that's uniquely theirs. You might find an aspect of her in your local landscape, in your own environment, showing you that her reach extends beyond ancient Mesopotamia into the here and now.

When you come to Her, you cannot know in advance which face she'll show you. Whether you'll meet the sexual sovereign, the mourning lover, the destroyer of mountains, the queen of heaven, or something else entirely.

So, come with openness rather than expectation. Understand that contradiction is her essence (definitely not a problem to solve). Don't try to pin her down to one interpretation. Trust what comes through, even if it doesn't match scholarship or someone else's experience. If she shows you a specific aspect or gives you a name, honour that—you may be meeting one of the goddesses she holds within her. Know that she's big enough to hold your projections, your needs, your questions—and still remain herself.

You probably won't fully grasp her (I never have even after a couple of decades of working with Her). She's the goddess of multiplicity, of things that can't be reduced to single truths. But know that she can and will fully hold you in your healing and growth. Her vastness isn't a barrier, it's her gift. She has the capacity to hold whatever you bring, whatever face you need to see, whatever transformation you're moving through.

A Gift and An Invitation

For those called to the vastness of Ishtar, a free guide is available for you to download. Designed for printing or use in digital journaling apps like GoodNotes, it includes journal prompts, reflections, and simple practices to help you engage with Ishtar’s energy in your own life.

We are working with Ishtar this moonth as part of the MoonWise Membership, where we journey with a different goddess through each lunar cycle.

Each cycle brings a new archetypal exploration, grounding ancient wisdom in contemporary practice. If this work calls to you—if you want to deepen your relationship with the goddesses who shape our spiritual landscape—MoonWise offers structured journal prompts, workbooks, and a community of practitioners walking this path together.

The goddess is still here. Still teaching. Still holding us through transformation. Join us in remembering.

Follow the Thread: Resources and Sources

For those wanting to explore further, here are some starting points:

Primary Sources and Translations:

• "The Exaltation of Inanna" by Enheduanna (various translations available, including Betty De Shong Meador's "Inanna, Lady of Largest Heart")
• "Inanna, Queen of Heaven and Earth" by Diane Wolkstein and Samuel Noah Kramer
• The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature (ETCSL) - free online access to Sumerian texts

Scholarly Works:

• "Inanna/Ishtar" entries in scholarly encyclopaedias and databases
• Ancient Mesopotamian Gods and Goddesses project (online resource)

Note on Sources: Most of our information about Inanna comes from texts written centuries after the Uruk period (primarily Ur III and Old Babylonian periods, 2100-1600 BCE). The earliest references are administrative tablets and iconography, not narrative texts. This means we're always working with material filtered through time, through empire, through the very syncretism we're trying to understand.

Approach all sources with awareness that we're reading goddesses through the lens of those who recorded them—priests, scribes, conquerors, and later, largely male archaeologists and scholars.

When working with a goddess this ancient, this layered, this vast, our own experience is a valid source. Trust what she shows you, even as you hold it alongside scholarly knowledge. Both matter. Both are real.