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Updated: June 26, 2025
We have also to note the equally significant facts that the recognised symbol of the Phoenician Goddess of Love Astarte, Ashtoreth, or Ishtar, the Bride of the Sun-God was a cross; that a cross was also associated with the Phoenician Baal or Sun-God; and that the circle and cross, now the symbol of the planet held sacred to the Goddess of Love, frequently occurs upon the ancient coins of Western Asia and was not improbably more or less akin in signification to the crux ansata of Egypt.
It is to the latter that when hard pressed by the Elamites he addresses his prayer, calling her 'the lady of Arbela'; and it is this Ishtar who appears to the royal troops in a dream. The month of Ab the fifth month of the Babylonian calendar is sacred to Ishtar. Ashurbanabal proceeds to Arbela for the purpose of worshipping her during this sacred period.
Corresponding to each male deity was a female deity: thus, the consort of Marduk was Ishtar, while that of Bel was Belit. Furthermore, the ancient myths appear to have been, cooerdinated, so that from this time on Babylonian, theology presents a certain unity and symmetry, although one is constantly reminded of the very different elements out of which it had been built up.
I will raise up the dead to eat the living Until the dead outnumber the living. The entrance to the nether world is strongly guarded. The watchman is to prevent the living from entering, and also the dead from escaping. The violence of Ishtar is an interesting touch in the narrative. As a goddess, she resents any opposition to her desires.
Ashurbanabal, however, goes still further, and, influenced by the title of 'Belit' as applied to Ishtar, makes the latter the consort of Ashur.
In accordance with the desire of Ashur and the gods, which was thus conveyed to him, the king founded the city of Kar-Tukulti-Ninib, and he erected therein temples dedicated not only to Ashur, but also to the gods Adad, and Sha-mash, and Ninib, and Nusku, and Nergal, and Imina-bi, and the goddess Ishtar.
The early clay figurines found at Nippur and on other sites, representing a goddess suckling a child and clasping one of her breasts, may well be regarded as representing Ninkharsagga and not Ninlil. Her sanctuaries were at Kesh and Adab, both in the south, and this fact sufficiently explains her comparative want of influence in Akkad, where the Semitic Ishtar took her place.
What is most remarkable in the Assyrian worship of Ishtar is the local character assigned to her. The Ishtar of Nineveh is distinguished from the Ishtar of Arbela, and both from the Ishtar of Babylon, separate addresses being made to them in one and the same invocation.
In any case it may be concluded that the cult in question, if it existed, was late, popular, and without marked influence on the Semitic religious development. Ishtar, originally a deity of fertility, became, through social growth, a patron of war and statecraft; but there is no indication that an attempt was ever made to combine these two characters in one figure.
For their nostrils was the perfume of prayers and of psalms; for their passions the virginity of girls. Originally the first born of men were also given them, but while, with higher culture, that sacrifice was abolished, the sacred harlotry, over which Ishtar presided, remained.
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