The goddess Ishtar, earlier known as Inanna, dominated Uruk in ancient Mesopotamia. The high-level description of Uruk in the Epic of Gilgamesh distinguishes Ishtar’s temple and characterizes it as half the size of the city itself. Moreover, Ishtar was the Queen of Heaven and also an important figure in the Underworld. This goddess sought to marry the beautiful and manly Gilgamesh, King of Uruk. As the reigning divinity of Uruk, she potentially offered him favor in kingly rule, war, and sex. Mesopotamian history, however, led to the reign of the god Martu and the tribal Amorites. Underscoring that shift in divinities, Gilgamesh decisively rejected marriage to the goddess Ishtar.
Ishtar insisted on marrying Gilgamesh after gazing upon him regally dressed. Gilgamesh and his intimate friend Enkidu had killed the fearsome Humbaba in the Cedar Forest. When they returned to Uruk, Gilgamesh washed his hair, put on regal clothing, and donned his crown. Ishtar saw him:
The lady Ishtar gazed with desire upon Gilgamesh’s beauty.
“Come, Gilgamesh, you be the bridegroom.
Grant me your sexual fruits, I insist!
You will be my husband, and I will be your wife.”
{ ana dumqi ša gilgāmeš īnī ittaši rubūtu ištar
alkam-ma gilgāmeš lū ḫāʾer‡ attā
inbīka yâši qâšu qīšam-ma
attā lū mutī-ma anāku lū aššatka }[1]
Like the heroines Rigmel and Lenburc in the twelfth-century Old French Roman de Horn, Ishtar directly indicated her interest in having sex with a man, and she proposed marriage to him. Few men have ever objected to a woman respectfully asking to have sex with him, assuming she isn’t requiring him to pay her for sex. Moreover, most men would prefer that a woman propose marriage to him, even if she doesn’t do so on her knees like a feudal serf. In short, men generally don’t favor women’s sexual privilege.[2]
In addition to indicating that he would not suffer a sexless marriage with her, Ishtar offered Gilgamesh material luxuries if he became her husband. Most men would prefer to pursue personal fulfillment while their wives supported them materially. Ishtar apparently offered that appealing marital situation to Gilgamesh:
Let me harness for you a chariot of lapis lazuli and gold,
whose wheels are gold and whose horns are amber.
You shall have in harness storm-lion monsters, huge mules.
Come into our house with scents of cedar!
When you come into our house,
doorway and throne shall kiss your feet.
Kings, courtiers, and nobles shall bow down beneath you,
to you they shall bring produce of mountain and lowland as tribute,
and your nanny goats shall bear triplets and your ewes, twins.
Your young donkey under load shall outpace a mule,
your horse at the chariot shall gallop majestically,
and at the yoke your ox shall gain no rival.
{ lušaṣmidka narkabta uqnâ u ḫurāṣa
ša magarrūša ḫurāṣum-ma elmēšu qarnāša
lū ṣamdāta ūmī kūdanī rabûti
ana bītīni ina sammât erēni erba
[an]a bītīni ina erēbīka
sippu arattû linaššiqū šēpīka
lū kamsū ina šaplīka šarrū kabtūtu u rubû
[kala? li]qit šadî u māti lū našûnikka bilta
enzātūka takšî laḫrātūka tūʾamī līlidā
mūrka ina bilti parâ libāʾa
sīšû ina narkabti lū šaruḫ lasāma
[a]lapka ina nīri šānina ai irši‡ }
What a wonderful marriage proposal! Could it be too good to be true? Was Ishtar actually seeking to lure Gilgamesh to his death?[3]
Given Ishtar’s prominence in Uruk, Gilgamesh knew about her amorous history. Ishtar was renowned as a kind and generous prostitute. Kindness and generosity are very desirable attributes in a spouse. Gilgamesh, however, knew the details of Ishtar’s non-commercial amorous engagements:
To Dumuzi the husband of your youth,
to him you have allotted perpetual weeping, year after year.
…
You loved the shepherd, the cattle-grazer, the herdsman.
He regularly piled up for you bread baked in embers,
and he slaughtered young goats for you every day.
You struck him and turned him into a wolf,
so his own shepherd boys drive him away,
and his dogs take bites at his thighs.
{ ana dumuzi ḫāmiri ṣu[ḫr]ētīki
šatta ana šatti bitakkâ taltīmīššu
…
tarāmī-ma rēʾâ nāqida utulla
[ša k]ayyānam-ma tumrī išpukakki‡
ūmišam-ma uṭabbaḫakki unīqēti‡
taḫmaṣīšū-ma ana barbari tutterrīšu
uṭarradūšu kaparrū ša ramnīšu
u kalbūšu unaššakū šaprīšu‡ }
Ishtar even had lengthy love affairs with animals — a bird, a lion, and a horse, which is endowed like a donkey. Unlike Gilgamesh’s intimate friend Enkidu, Ishtar treated non-human animals badly. Gilgamesh foresaw himself in the story of Ishtar’s relationship with Ishullanu:
You loved Ishullanu, your father’s gardener.
He regularly brought you a basket of dates,
and daily made your table gleam.
You gazed at him with desire and went up to him and said:
“O my Ishullanu, let me taste your sexual power.
Put out your hand and stroke my vagina!”
Ishullanu spoke to you:
“Me! What do you want of me?
Did my mother not bake? Did I not eat?
Am I to eat bread of insults and curses?
Shall I let rushes be my covering against the cold?”
You heard what he said.
You struck him and turned him into a toad-like dwarf.
You sat him in the midst of his labors, yet now
he cannot climb up a date tree, and he cannot lower a water bucket.
{ tarāmī-ma išullānu nukarib abīki
ša kayyānam-ma šugurrâ našâkki
ūmišam-ma unammaru paššūrki
īna tattaššîšum-ma tattalkīššu
išullānî kiššūtaki i nīkul
u qātka šūṣâm-ma‡ luput ḫurdatni
išūllānu iqabbīki
yâši mīnâ terrešīnn[i]
ummī lā tēpâ anāku lā ākul
ša akkalu akla pišāti u errēti
ša kuṣṣi elpetu kutummūʾa
attī tašmê-ma annâ qabâšu
tamḫaṣī ana dallali tu[tterrīšu]
tušēšibīšū-ma ina qabal māna[ḫātīšu]
ul ēlû miḫḫi ul ārid … […] }
Ishtar’s father was the moon god Nanna. As merely a gardener, Ishullanu apparently felt that he would be cursed and dismissed for having sex with the moon god’s daughter. With her sense of sexual entitlement and her anger at a status-inferior rejecting her sexual advance, Ishtar condemned Ishullanu to a fate worse than opprobrium and poverty. Especially given lack of social concern about women sexually harassing men, many men acquiesce to powerful women’s insistent sexual demands.
Defying the established order in Uruk, Gilgamesh dared to reject the goddess Ishtar’s marriage proposal. He refused to become another man or non-human animal that Ishtar, the reigning goddess of Uruk, tormented and made miserable:
And you would love me and transform me as you did to the others?
{ u yâši tarammīnnī-ma kī šâšunu t[utarrīnni] }
A wise and outspoken man who consciously valued his sexual appeal, Gilgamesh refused to cow to Ishtar’s insistent demand. To the contrary, he vehemently disparaged this powerful goddess:
Why would I marry you?
You are frost useless for making ice,
slatted door that doesn’t block breezes or drafts,
palace that massacres warriors,
elephant that pulls down her coverings,
pitch that stains the hands of its bearer,
water-skin that dirties the hands of its bearer,
boulder that smashes a wall of stone,
battering ram that destroys walls of enemy land,
a shoe that bites the foot of its owner!
{ [… ana kâš]i? aḫḫazki
[… lā kāṣira]t šurīpi
dalat arkab[inni ša lā i]kallû šāra u zīqa
ēkallu munapp[iṣat] qarradī
pīru […] kutummīšu
ittû muṭ[a]ppil[at qāt?] nāšîša
nādu [mur]assât? [(…)] nāšîša
pīlu … […] … dūr abni
yašubû muʾabbit[at] d[ūr?] māt nukurti
šēnu munaššikat šēpī bēlīša }
Men throughout history have commonly endured vigorous invective, including invective attacking their sexuality and threatening them with castration. Gilgamesh is distinctive in directing similarly vigorous invective at a preeminent goddess, Ishtar.
Gilgamesh’s invective against Ishtar moves beyond earlier invective against the foreign god Martu. Martu was constructed as the god of the Amorites: tribal persons whose food, drink, clothing, and practices differed greatly from those of Uruk residents. The Sumerian myth Marriage of Martu tells of Martu asking his mother to find him a wife. His mother refused this traditional, very important, motherly role:
By the goddess, my son, I will give you advice. May my advice be heeded!
I shall say a word to you. You should pay attention to it.
Marry a wife of your choice —
marry a wife of your heart’s desire.
{ dsu-he-/nun\-[na-ju10] [na]/ga\-e-/ri\ na-/ri\-[ju10 he2-dab5]
inim ga-[ra-ab-dug4inim-ju10-ce3 jectug2-zu]
igi il2-la-zu dam[du12-ba-ni-ib]
cag4-ge gur7-zu dam[du12-ba-ni-ib] }[4]
A festival was then being held in the city. The god Numucda was there with his daughter Adjar-kidug. At this festival, Martu distinguished himself as a champion wrestler. Numucda in response offered Martu silver and jewels. Martu, however, preferred marriage to Numucda’s daughter Adjar-kidug. Numucda demanded extensive marriage gifts. Martu provided those gifts. He was thus positioned to marry Adjar-kidug. But one of her girlfriends disparaged him and his fellow Amorites:
Now listen! Their hands are destructive, and their features are those of monkeys.
He is one who eats what Nanna forbids, and he does not show reverence.
They never stop roaming about places.
They are an abomination to the gods’ dwellings.
Their ideas are confused. They cause only disturbance.
He is clothed in sack-leather.
He lives in a tent, exposed to wind and rain, and he cannot properly recite prayers.
He lives in the mountains and ignores the places of gods.
He digs up truffles in the foothills, he does not know how to bend the knee,
and he eats raw flesh.
He will have no house during his life,
and when he dies he will not be carried to a burial-place.
My girlfriend, why would you marry Martu?
{ a2-ce cu-bi ha-lam ulutim2 /ugu\[ugu4-bi]
an-zil-gu7 dnanna-[kam] ni2 nu-[tuku]
cu dag-dag-ge-bi X […]
[nij2]-/gig\ e2 dijir-re-e-ne-[kam]
[jalga]-/bi\ mu-un-lu3-lu3 cu [suh3-a dug4-ga]
/lu2\ /kuc\lu-ub2 mu4-a […]
/za\-/lam\-jar til3 im im-cej3-[ja2 …] sizkur [nu-mu-un-dug4-ga]
hur-saj-ja2 tuc-e ki-[dijir-re-ne nu-zu-a]
lu2 /uzu\-dirig kur-da mu-un-ba-al-la dug3 gam nu-zu-am3
uzu nu-cej-ja2 al-gu7-e
ud til3-la-na e2 nu-tuku-a
ud ba-ug7-a-na ki nu-tum2-mu-dam
ma-la-ju10 dmar-tu ta-am3 an-du12-du12-un }[5]
Adjar-kidug ignored what her sniping girlfriend said about the man she loved. Adjar-kidug simply responded assertively, “I will marry Martu! {dmar-[tu]/ga\-ba-an-du12-du12 }.” Martu and the Amorites thus gained social status within a Sumerian city.
Gilgamesh similarly challenged the established order, not by accepting a vehemently disparaged marriage, but by vehemently rejecting an apparently appealing marriage. About 2005 BGC, the Third Dynasty of Ur and its constituent city Uruk fell to invaders called Amorites. Amorites subsequently ruled Uruk for centuries through the Dynasty of Isin and the Old Babylonian Empire. Marduk, who probably evolved from Martu, became the national god of the Babylonians. The revered king Hammurabi, who reigned as the sixth king of the Old Babylonian Empire from 1792 to 1750 BGC, called himself an Amorite. Hammurabi championed worship of Martu / Marduk. Across Mesopotamian history, the god Martu probably replaced the goddess Ishtar as the most important divinity in Uruk. Gilgamesh vehemently rejecting marriage to Ishtar plausibly expressed in myth the historical rise of Martu and the Amorites.[6]
The goddess Ishtar wasn’t willing to accept amorous rejection from Gilgamesh, neither graciously nor at least according to literalist-fundamentalist “no means no” dogma. She was furious at Gilgamesh for rejecting her. Weeping, she went to heaven to plead with Antu and Anu, her divine parents. Knowing that women’s tears particularly influence men, Ishtar in tears pleaded to her father Anu:
O father, Gilgamesh has been heaping abuse on me.
Gilgamesh kept recounting things that insult me,
things that insult and revile me.
{ abī gilgāmeš itta[zzar]anni‡
gilgāmeš undenn⇠p[išātī]ya
pišātīya u errētīya }
Anu wisely inquired about the specifics of the situation. Ishtar ignored his question and insisted on getting what she wanted:
O father, give me the Bull of Heaven
that I may slay Gilgamesh within his gates.
If you won’t give me the Bull of Heaven,
I’ll smash the Underworld with its gates,
and to the world below I’ll grant manumission.
I’ll bring up the dead to consume the living.
I’ll make the dead outnumber the living.
{ abī alâ bīnam-ma
gilgāmeš lunēr[u i]na šubtīšu
šum[ma] alâ l[ā t]addan[a]
amaḫḫaṣ [danni]na? adi šubtīšu
ašak[ka]n … […] ana šaplāt[i]
ušellâm-ma [mī]tūti ikkalū ba[lṭ]ūti
eli balṭūti ušamʾad mītūti }
Anu hesitated. The Bull of Heaven (Gugalanna) was the first husband of Ishtar’s sister Ereshkigal, the Queen of the Underworld. Anu worried that if the Bull of Heaven were released, Uruk as a whole would suffer. Ishtar insisted that she needed the Bull of Heaven to kill Gilgamesh. The father naturally acquiesced to his daughter’s demand. He gave her the reins of the Bull of Heaven.
Ishtar released the Bull of Heaven on Uruk to kill Gilgamesh. The bull scorched the woodlands, the marshland, and the reeds. It lowered the water-line of the river. With snorts it opened up pits that engulfed three hundred men of Uruk. With another snort the bull sank Gilgamesh’s intimate friend Enkidu into a pit up to his waist. Enkidu then devised a plan to assail the bull together with Gilgamesh. Together they killed the fearsome, rampaging Bull of Heaven, the spouse of Ishtar’s sister.
Enkidu then enacted symbolically the change in reigning deity of Uruk. Ishtar wailed:
Woe to Gilgamesh, who vilified me, who killed the Bull of Heaven!
{ allû gilgāmeš ša uṭappilanni alâ iddūku }
Ishtar had sent the Bull of Heaven to kill Gilgamesh! Furious at Ishtar’s viciousness, refusal of responsibility, and cursing, Enkidu mythically indicated that her reign was over:
Enkidu heard this speech of Ishtar.
He ripped the penis off the Bull of Heaven and threw it down before her.
“You too, had I caught you, I would have treated you like it!
I would have draped its guts on your arms!”
{ išmē-ma enkīdu annâ qabê‡ ištar
išluḫ imitti alê(m-ma) ana pānīša‡ iddi‡
u (ak)kâši lū akšudki kī šâšū-ma lū ēpuški‡
errīšu lū ālula ina aḫīki }[7]
Castration culture is deeply entrenched in human history. Here Enkidu alluded to the change in divine reign from Anu to Kumarbi in the ancient Hurrian Song of Emergence:
Kumarbi assaulted him from behind,
and he grabbed Anu by the feet,
and he dragged him down from heaven.
He bit his male genitals,
and Anu’s manhood fused with Kumarbi’s heart like bronze.
When Kumarbi swallowed down Anu’s manhood,
he rejoiced,
and he laughed.
{ EGIR-an-da-aš-ši ša-li-ga-aš dku-mar-bi-iš
na-an GÌRMEŠ e-ep-ta da-nu-un
na-an-kán ne-pí-ša-⌈az⌉ kat-ta ḫu-it-ti-⌈et⌉
pár-ši-nu-uš-šu-⌈uš⌉ wa-ak-ki-iš
⌈LÚ-na⌉-tar-še-et-kán A-NA dku-mar-bi ŠÀ-⌈ŠU⌉ an-⌈da⌉ ZABAR
ma-a-an dku-mar-bi-iš ŠA d⌈a⌉-nu LÚ-⌈na⌉-tar kat-ta pa-aš-ta
na-aš-za du-uš-kit9-ta
na-aš-⌈za⌉ ḫa-aḫ-ḫar-aš-⌈ta⌉ }[8]
Sexual violence against men shouldn’t be regarded as a laughing matter. Kumarbi, a major Hurrian god, corresponds to the Akkadian god Enlil. In Tablet 11 of the Epic of Gilgamesh, Uta-napishti told Gilgamesh about Enlil nearly washing away humanity with a great flood. Gilgamesh had journeyed to Uta-napishti to find the secret of eternal life. Enkidu, in castrating the Bull of Heaven and flinging its penis at Ishtar, perpetuated the reign of castration culture while challenging the reign of Ishtar. Enkidu made a terrible mistake. Men’s genitals are essential to the eternal life of humanity.
For all the sexual privilege she put forward in relation to Gilgamesh, Ishtar at least appreciated the vital importance of penises. She didn’t merely react with personal anger at Enkidu hurling the Bull of Heaven’s penis at her. She mourned the general catastrophe of castration culture:
Ishtar assembled the courtesans, prostitutes, and whores.
She instituted mourning over the Bull of Heaven’s penis.
{ uptaḫḫir‡ ištar kezrēti (šamḫāti) u ḫarimāti
ina muḫḫi imitti (ša) alê bikīta iškun }
As medieval European works such as Piers Plowman indicate, many wives also appreciate their husbands’ penises. Ishtar failed to mention those women. However, prostitutes in ancient Mesopotamia typically treated men well. Prostitutes themselves are worthy women to mourn a inert penis.
Gilgamesh didn’t understand Enkidu’s terrible wrong in mutilating the Bull of Heaven’s genitals. In a council of great gods, Enlil condemned Enkidu, but not Gilgamesh, to death. Both were responsible for killing Humbaba and the Bull of Heaven. Only Enkidu, however, was guilty of mutilating the Bull of Heaven’s genitals.
Gilgamesh nonetheless couldn’t understanding why Enkidu must die. Gilgamesh incongruously admired the magnificent thickness of the Bull of Heaven’s horns. He hung them in his bedroom. Those horns are a trifling thing compared to the splendor of a penis fully functioning as part of a male’s loving body. In cutting off the Bull of Heaven’s horns, Gilgamesh wrongly aligned himself with Enkidu’s castration of the Bull of Heaven.[9]
Death for men comes through castration, not from outspokenly rejecting a goddess’s marriage proposal. Scholars haven’t recognized a ruling goddess insisting on marriage to one of her subjects is tantamount to sexual harassment. Men shouldn’t be forced into marriage out of a sense of duty to their city or their society. Yet a scholar in our benighted age has accused Gilgamesh of a “royal crime” in rejecting Ishtar, or perhaps in not speaking properly to her:
The degree to which Gilgamesh mismanages Uruk’s relationship with Ishtar makes it the most egregious of his royal crimes. Not only does he fail to pay homage to Ishtar; he insults her bitterly. His crime is not simply turning down a marriage proposal; Gilgamesh endangers the entire city with his insults. Ishtar reacts by unleashing the Bull of Heaven and had the heroes not managed to kill it, it would probably have laid waste to Uruk. Gilgamesh’s behavior is the opposite of what was expected of a responsible ruler.[10]
That is today’s common, peculiar standard for judging crimes. The goddess can do no wrong. Her seeking to kill Gilgamesh, and in the process destroy Uruk, isn’t a royal crime.[11] The egregious crime that justifies Ishtar’s murderous action is that Gilgamesh insulted her. Is it any wonder that penal systems today predominately punish persons with penises? Is it any wonder that men suffer about a six-year life-expectancy shortfall relative to women? According to this much-lauded Gilgamesh book published by Yale University Press, responsible men merely accept the goddess’s oppressive rule. Gilgamesh heroically didn’t.
Castration, even of the dead Bull of Heaven, is a deadly wrong in the Epic of Gilgamesh. Nonetheless, at the heights of intellectual life today, castration is scarcely a wrong relative to insulting a goddess:
Nowhere is Gilgamesh’s self-destructive character clearer than in his rejection of Ishtar. Why does he turn down her offer of marriage? Surely, the insatiable hero must have been tempted by the goddess of sex. … what is striking about it is the spite with which it is delivered. Even if Gilgamesh had good reasons to decline Ishtar’s offer, it was hardly a tactful way to do so, and Enkidu only adds to the insult by throwing the Bull’s penis in her face.[12]
Men will not achieve equality with women until men are free to insult goddesses. Men should feel free to insult goddesses with all the invective richness that men and women use in insulting men.
Gilgamesh rejecting Ishtar’s insistent marriage proposal and vibrantly insulting her symbolizes the change in rule in Uruk from the goddess Ishtar to the foreign god Martu. The Epic of Gilgamesh teaches that men need not always have the status of Amorite-foreigners in woman-centric society. Change in rule can come. But for men and women together to realize the promise of eternal human life, fundamental political change must also wash away castration culture.
* * * * *
Read more:
Notes:
[1] Epic of Gilgamesh, Standard Babylonian (literary Akkadian) version, 6.6-9 (tablet.verses), phonetic transcription of cuneiform text and English translation (modified) of George (2003), updated in George (2022), via the online electronic Babylonian Library (eBL), I.4 Poem of Gilgameš.
Ishtar’s marriage proposal to Gilgamesh is included in the Sumerian poem Gilgameš and the Bull of Heaven (t.1.8.1.2). George (2003) p. 471-2. Ishtar’s marriage proposal apparently wasn’t part of the earliest Akkadian version of the Epic of Gilgamesh. Abusch (1986) pp. 180-1.
Subsequent quotes from the Epic of Gilgamesh are similarly sourced from the Standard Babylonian version. I modify George’s English translation slightly to be more fluently readable and to omit editorial markings, including relative short ellipses. Some verse numbers in George (2022) differ slightly from those in George (2003). I consistently use the verse numbers of George (2022).
The subsequent quotes above from the Epic of Gilgamesh are vv. 6.10-21 (Let me harness for you a chariot…), 6.46-7, 58-63 (To Dumuzi the husband of your youth…), 6.64-78 (You loved Ishullanu, your father’s gardener…), 6.79 (And you would love me…), 6.32-41 (Why would I marry you?…), 6.84-6 (O father, Gilgamesh has been heaping abuse on me…), 6.94-100 (O father, give me the Bull of Heaven…), 6.153 (Woe to Gilgamesh…), 6.154-7 (Enkidu heard this speech of Ishtar…), 6.158-9 (Ishtar assembled the courtesans…).
[2] Having fundamentally misunderstood gender positions, scholars have trivialized Gilgamesh’s rejection of Ishtar by claiming that he rejected her because she took the initiative in love with him:
she has behaved like a man in proposing marriage and in offering him gifts. She has thus assumed an active, aggressive posture, an unacceptable role for a female.
Harris (2001) p. 215. Proposing marriage to men and offering gifts to men are roles that men generally wish more females would accept. Helle raised “the issue of female agency”:
First is the issue of female agency. Ishtar’s marriage proposal is often read as assertive, even aggressive because it is made by a woman, through here again the distance between reality and fiction can be difficult to gauge.
Helle (2021) p. 212. In the double-speak of dominant gender discourse:
the object of her desire fails to be attracted to her — by Ishtar, the most beautiful and enticing of all cuneiform goddesses! In the scene, female agency is thus both asserted and undermined. Ishtar is free to make the first move and state her desire, but she does so only to be rejected.
Id. p. 213. That’s a superb description of socially constructed female sexual entitlement. Female sexual entitlement produces the preposterous claim that female agency requires men to accept any amorous initiative a woman makes. In reality, failure is an intrinsic aspect of human interpersonal agency.
Ishtar’s proposal should be read as assertive, not because it’s made by a woman, but because the text itself indicates that her proposal is assertive. In Epic of Gilgamesh 6.8, Ishtar tells Gilgamesh, “Grant me your fruits, I insist! {inbīka yâši qâšu qīšam-ma}.” Foster rendered more literally the doubled forms of “give {qiāšu}” in translating that verse as “Give, O give me freely of your fruits of love.” In making this translation, Foster noted Ishtar’s “agitated first person” and “the intensity of her desire.” Foster (1987) p. 34.
[3] With detailed, learned textual analysis, Abusch argued that Ishtar was attempting to entice Gilgamesh to his death:
Ishtar is attainment but also attenuation; Ishtar is the opposite of what one values. To love her is to surrender one’s identity. The free become domesticated; insiders are expelled; the settled are forced to wander; the living and humans are turned into animals. Stability and balance are lost and are replaced by discontent, distress, and agitation. In proposing marriage, Ishtar offers to enhance Gilgamesh’s identity while at the same time depriving him of it. Her proposal to Gilgamesh is an offer of power; it is also an offer to transform his living self into his dead self. …
Here I must emphasize that it would be an oversimplification to say that Gilgamesh refused Ishtar’s proposal only because he recognized it to be an attempt to transform him into a lord of the netherworld. He also recognized therein a form of death that was repugnant to him. For Ishtar wished not only to kill him but also to turn him into an animal; she wished to change him from a live, civilized man into a dead, wild animal. The prospect of death is all the more frightening when it is seen to involve not only the loss of life but also the loss of human form.
Abusch (1986) pp. 173-4, 175. Men’s deaths generate relatively little social concern. Innumerous deaths of men have been largely invisible in literary scholarship on the epic tradition. Abusch’s reading is extraordinary in its concern for Gilgamesh’s humanity and his death. George described Abusch’s reading that Ishtar was attempting to lure Gilgamesh to his death as “a highly speculative and individual reading.” George (2003) p. 471, n. 98. If literary studies were more concerned about men as a distinctive gender, such a reading would be more generally appreciated.
Consistent with Abusch’s interpretation, the Epic of Gilgamesh apparently situates Ishtar in the Underworld, the place of the dead. In particular, when Enkidu died, Gilgamesh made offerings so that Ishtar would walk by Enkidu’s side in the Underworld:
A throwstick of mahogany, the gleaming wood,
for Ishtar, the great queen, Gilgamesh displayed to the sun god Shamash:
“May Ishtar, the great queen, receive this,
may she welcome my friend Enkidu and so walk at his side!”
{ [tamḫ]īṣu kallirê iṣi el[li]
ana ištar šarrati rabīti [šamaš u]ktalli[m]
[li]mḫur ištar šar[ratu ra]bīt[u]
ana pān ibrīya l[ū ḫadât-ma idāšu] lillik }
Epic of Gilgamesh 8.135-8.
The Sumerian poem Inanna’s Descent to the Netherworld (t.1.4.1) describes Inanna being detained in the Underworld. She had journeyed there apparently seeking to rule it in place of her sister Ereshkigal. Inanna allowed her husband Dumuzi (also called Dumuzid or Tammuz) to be detained in the Underworld as her substitute for half of every year. Gilgamesh would have understood Inanna’s Descent to the Netherworld as a warning against marrying Ishtar.
[4] The Marriage of Martu (c.1.7.1), vv. 45-9, cuneiform transliteration and English translation (modified insubstantially) from the Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature, second edition (ETCSL). A few other Sumerian texts refer to Martu, including A šir-gida to Martu (Martu A) (t.4.12.1) and A hymn to Martu (Martu B) (t.4.12.2).
The subsequent two quotes above are similarly from The Marriage of Martu, vv. 127-39 (Now listen! Their hands are destructive…) and v. 141 (I will marry Martu!).
[5] Linen was a luxury fabric for clothing in ancient Mesopotamia. Wool was a more common textile. Being clothed in sack-leather characterizes Martu as primitive. Living in a tent characterizes him as a nomad. Eating raw flesh is a hyperbole. Human ancestors have been using fire for cooking for more than a million years.
In being a champion wrestler, Martu was like Enkidu, who lived in the wild, and like the bull-strong Gilgamesh. Enkidu and Gilgamesh wrestled to a draw in the Epic of Gilgamesh.
Contempt for Amorites has been preserved in the Bible. Ezekiel conveyed the Lord’s scorn for unfaithful Jerusalem, a metaphor for the Israelites:
Thus says the Lord God to Jerusalem: “Your origin and your birth are of the land of the Canaanites. Your father was an Amorite and your mother a Hittite.”
Ezekiel 3:16.
[6] Mesopotamians used Martu / Mardu (logogram dMAR.TU, syllabic spelling Amarru) for a region, the Amorite people of that region, and the Amorite god:
the god dMAR.TU can only be either the deified geographic location known as Amurru, or a divine personification of the Amorites, who were generally though not exclusively associated with the West in the Mesopotamian perception. In the previous case dMAR.TU should be interpreted simply as dAmurru, meaning literally “the Divine West,” while in the latter case it should be understood as a gentilic and transcribed dAmurrû, “the Divine Westerner,” or “the Western god.”
Beaulieu (2005) p. 32. Martu, and perhaps the ethnic category Amorites as well, was a Mesopotamian conceptual construction:
Amurru was simply a product of the Mesopotamian mind projected onto a foreign population. … the god Amurru was a Mesopotamian construct, a god born of the necessity to find a symbolic place for the Amorites in the pantheon of Sumer and Akkad at the time of their invasion {Ur III period} of Mesopotamia and their eventual assumption of political power. There was no god Amurru for the Amorites, at least not until they assimilated into Mesopotamian society and embraced its values.
Id. pp. 34-5. On the possible connection between Martu / Mardu and Marduk, Sharlach (2002) p. 98.
After the fall of Ur III about 2000 BGC, rulers calling themselves Amorites governed Mespotamian cities in the Isin-Larsa period and particularly prominently in the subsequent Old Babylonian era. Amorites became much less prominent after the fall of the Old Babylonian Empire about 1600 BGC. On the Amorites, Pruitt (2019) and Boer (2014).
The god Enlil understood the terrible wrong of castration. Through castrating Anu and swallowing Anu’s manhood, the Hurrian Kumarbi gave birth to his usurper, the Hurrian Teshub. Enlil, who corresponds to the Hurrian Kumarbi, knew the pattern that Kronos learned in relation to Zeus: castration ultimately undermines a male god’s position. Enlil gave way historically to Martu / Mardak.
The Sumerian Poem of Creation / Enūma eliš tells of Marduk overthrowing the goddess Tiamat. She betrayed her husband and sought to kill her children. Like Ishtar, Tiamat was a powerful female ruler who did wrong.
[7] Consistent with philology’s penis problem, scholars have been reluctant to recognized that Epic of Gilgamesh 6.155 refers to the Bull of Heaven’s “penis {imittu}.” George prefered the translation “haunch.” He explained:
The imittu (Sum. zag.dib) of a bull is the top portion of the leg, though whether the shoulder or the haunch seems unclear. Since it was a choice cut I assume it was from the rear leg. S. Parpola has suggested, on the basis of a supposed analogy with a bullfight that marked castration rites among the Galli of Anatolia, that the word is otherwise imittu, ‘right hand’, and ‘clearly a “metaphor for “penis”’. It would certainly be more obviously an insult for Enkidu to toss a bull’s penis at Ištar, and such an interpretation of imittu was first offered by George Smith in 1875, who intuitively translated the word as ‘member’. However, the following line, in which Enkidu states a desire to do the same to the goddess, then becomes a problem, for he cannot castrate her.
George (2003) p. 843, commentary to Tablet 6, v. 155 (internal references omitted). Enkidu perhaps was referring to Ishtar’s clitoris or the head atop her shoulders, which has similar significance to a man’s penis. In any case, “penis” is obviously the best translation for imittu in the context of Epic of Gilgamesh 6.158-9. Helle, not moving beyond George Smith’s work in 1875, translated imittu as “member.” The word “member” is archaic and periphrastic. In associated commentary, Helle should be credited with using the word “penis.” Helle (2021) pp. 59, 169.
In the Sumerian poem Gilgameš and the Bull of Heaven (t.1.8.1.2), Bilgames (who corresponds to Gilgamesh) castrates the Bull of Heaven and hurls its penis at Inanna (who corresponds to Ishtar). Bilgames, however, used the bull’s horns to store fine oil for honoring Inanna at her temple E-ana. Gilgameš and the Bull of Heaven, Version from Me-Turan, Segment D, vv. 49-59. The later Epic of Gilgamesh apparently recast the castration of the Bull of Heaven into a more sophisticated form that integrates it within the overall narrative and significantly alludes to the Kumarbi Cycle’s Song of Emergence.
[8] Kumarbi Cycle, Song of Emergence / Song of Going Forth / Song of Birth (CTH 344), previously called Song of Kingship in Heaven or Song of Kumarbi, vv. 32-39 in Rieken’s numbering (from sections 4-5: A i 18-29), Hittite text from Rieken (2012), English translation (modified) from Bachvarova (2017) p. 155, also benefiting from the English translation of Hoffner (1998) p. 42 and the German translation of Rieken (2012). TITUS provides an alternate source for the Hittite text. This text, which mainly concerns Hurrian myth, has survived in the Hittite language.
In the Hitte text, the word “manhood {LÚ-na-tar}” apparently functions here as a synonym for “male genitals {paršina}.” Kumarbi bites off and swallows Anu’s genitals. Beckman (2011) p. 27. The sperm in Anu’s testicles impregnates Kumarbi. The reference to bronze functions as a metaphor:
Anu’s white sperm and Kumarbi’s red heart (equivalent to the ancient idea of the female’s contribution to the fetus, menstrual blood) are equated with white tin and red copper, the components of bronze.
Bachvarova (2017) p. 155, n. 59.
The Song of Emergence provides “theogonic narrative material with Hittite-Hurrian-Sumero/Akkadian strata in a Hittite text.” Zgoll (2021) p. 225. Ishtar was an important goddess in Anatolia from no later than the third millennia BGC. Murat (2009).
Regarding the realia of the Song of Emergence, Beckman observed:
After all, what is more natural for worshippers of gods formed in man’s image than to conceive of their mutual relationships in terms of human sexuality and family ties?
Beckman (2011) p. 32. Despite this ominous view, all should have faith that human reason can overcome castration culture.
[9] Gilgamesh used the horns to store oil dedicated to the anointing of his father-god, Lugalbanda. George observed:
The allusion is evidently to the ritual anointment of a statue kept by Gilgameš in his private chamber for the purpose of honoring his deceased father.
George (2003) p. 477. This ritual use makes the horns’ association with castration even more poignant.
[10] Helle (2021) pp. 205-6.
[11] A woman scholar dared to offer a critical appraisal of Ishtar’s behavior:
The devastation wrought by the Bull of Heaven on Uruk is terrible. It is also, like the deluge that Enlil visits on the human race in Uta-napishti’s story of the flood, a punishment out of proportion to the infraction that caused it. Ishtar wishes to kill Gilgamesh “in his dwelling” (VI 95) for the insult he has offered her; she goes rather further in devastating the city and people of Uruk — even as she fails in her primary objective. (Gilgamesh and Enkidu, working together, will ultimately slay the Bull of Heaven.) It is noteworthy that Ishtar, too, neither exercises internal regulation nor accepts external moderation: she rejects the counsel, such as it is,offered by her father, which invites her to recognize the role she has played in her own embarrassment. In giving herself over to emotion, moreover, and permitting her towering fury to drive her, she demands — and persuades her father to accept — a course of action that cannot but yield utter chaos and folly. (These at least are not unexpected outcomes when Ishtar is involved.)
Sonik (2020) p. 404 (footnotes omitted).
[12] Helle (2021) p. 169. Helle offered an astonishing explanation for why Gilgamesh rejected Ishtar:
perhaps it was considered unacceptable for women to be so forward, and Gilgamesh’s reply suggests that, while she might be a great sex partner, Ishtar would not have provided him with the basic comforts he expected from a wife in a patriarchal household — food and clothes.
Id. The “patriarchal” household would have been Ishtar’s massive temple in Uruk. Certainly food and clothes would have been readily available to Gilgamesh as a husband whom Ishtar luxuriously maintained.
[images] (1) Man of Larsa (worshipper of Larsa) in ancient Sumer making an offering to Amurru (Martu) for Hammurabi’s life and his own life. Bronze statuette with gold leaf found at Larsa and made in Babylonia between 2004 and 1595 BGC. Preserved as accession # AO 15704 in the Louvre Museum (Paris). Image thanks to Marie-Lan Nguyen and Wikimedia Commons. (2) Votive tablet plausibly depicting Bilgames / Gilgamesh castrating the Bull of Heaven, as indicated in the Sumerian poem, Gilgameš and the Bull of Heaven, Version from Me-Turan, Segment D, vv. 49-59. The tablet might alternatively depict Lakmu (“The curly One”), the Akkadian God of underground rivers. Lakmu is often represented alongside the bull man, Kusarikku. This votive table was created during the reign of Naram-Sin, between 2255 and 2219 BGC. Preserved as accession # O.1054 in the Royal Museums of Art and History (Brussel, Belgium). Source image via Wikimedia Commons.
References:
Abusch, Tzvi. 1986. “Ishtar’s Proposal and Gilgamesh’s Refusal: An Interpretation of The Gilgamesh Epic, Tablet 6, Lines 1-79.” History of Religions. 26(2): 143–87. Reprinted as Chapter 1 in Abusch (2015).
Abusch, Tzvi. 2015. Male and Female in the Epic of Gilgamesh: Encounters, Literary History, and Interpretation. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns.
Bachvarova, Mary. 2017. “The Hurro-Hittite Kumarbi Cycle.” Section 3.4.b (pp. 154-175) in Carolina López-Ruiz, ed. Gods, Heroes, and Monsters: A Sourcebook of Greek, Roman, and Near Eastern Myths in Translation. 2nd ed. New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Beaulieu, Paul-Alain. 2005. “The God Amurru as Emblem of Ethnic and Cultural Identity.” Pp. 31-46 in Wilfred H. van Soldt. ed. Ethnicity in Ancient Mesopotamia. Papers Read at the 48th Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, Leiden, July 1-4, 2002 (PIHANS 102). Leiden, Netherlands: Nederlands Instituut voor her Nabije Oosten.
Beckman, Gary. 2011. ‘Primordial Obstetrics: “The Song of Emergence” (CTH 344).’ Pp. 25-34 in Manfred Hutter and Sylvia Hutter-Braunsar, eds. Hethitische Literatur Überlieferungsprozesse, Textstrukturen, Ausdrucksformen und Nachwirken Akten des Symposiums vom 18. bis 20. Februar 2010 in Bonn. Münster: Ugarit-Verlag.
Boer, Rients de. 2014. Amorites in the Early Old Babylonian Period. Doctoral Thesis. Leiden Institute for Area Studies (LIAS), Faculty of Humanities, Leiden University.
Foster, Benjamin R. 1987. “Gilgamesh: sex, love, and the ascent of knowledge.” Pp. 21–42 in John H Marks and Robert McClive Good. 1987. Love & Death in the Ancient near East: Essays in Honor of Marvin H. Pope. Guilford, CT: Four Quarters.
George, Andrew R. 2003. The Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic: Introduction, Critical Edition, and Cuneiform Texts. 2 vols. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Alternate source. Alternate vol. 2.
George, Andrew R. 2022. Poem of Gilgameš. With contributions by E. Jiménez and G. Rozzi. Translated by Andrew R. George. electronic Babylonian Library.
Harris, Rivkah. 2001. “Images of Women in the Gilgamesh Epic.” Pp. 207-218 in Foster, Benjamin R., trans. The Epic of Gilgamesh: A New Translation, Analogues, Criticism. New York London: Norton & Company.
Helle, Sophus. 2021. Gilgamesh: A New Translation of the Ancient Epic with Essays on the Poem, its Past, and its Passion. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Hoffner, Harry A. trans. 1998. Hittite Myths. Second edition. Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press.
Murat, Leyla. 2009. “Goddess Išhara / Tanrıça İšhara.” Tarih Araştırmaları Dergisi. 28/45: 159-189.
Pruitt, Madeline Lawson. 2019. Cultural Identity, Archaeology, and the Amorites of the Early Second Millennium BCE: An Analytical Paradigmatic Approach. Ph.D. Thesis, Near Eastern Studies, University of California, Berkeley.
Rieken, Elisabeth et al., eds. 2012. hethiter.net/: CTH 344 (TX 2012-06-08, TRde 2009-08-31).
Sharlach, Tonia. 2002. “Foreign Influences on the Religion of the Ur III Court.” Studies on the Civilization and Culture of Nuzi and the Hurrians. 12: 91-114.
Sonik, Karen. 2020. “Gilgamesh and Emotional Excess: The King Without Counsel in the SB Gilgamesh Epic.” Chapter 16 (390–409) in Shi-Wei Hsu and Jaume Llop Raduà, eds. The Expression of Emotions in Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia. Leiden: Brill.
Zgoll, Christian. 2021. “The Hittite ‘Theogony’ or Song of Going Forth (CTH 344): Stratification of Mythical Traditions with a Suggested Translation for Kub 33.120 Vs. I 19 F.” Journal of Ancient Near Eastern Religions. 21(2): 208–227.
.jpg){kind=link}
