16
votes
Accepted
Why does Ishtar go to the underworld?
The Descent of Inanna (Ishtar) was unearthed from 1889 - 1900, but as far as I can tell, it wasn't really considered that well reconstructed until around the 1940s or later. Early published versions ...
- 9,108
12
votes
Accepted
Why does Inanna rejoice at her wondrous vulva?
I will admit that I'm not a scholar on the subject and mostly just speculating from what I have available to me, but maybe my speculation is better than nothing, lacking another answer.
My ...
- 546
10
votes
Why does Inanna rejoice at her wondrous vulva?
Doing some more reading, I found that Wolkstein does provide some information on this bit of text, which expresses a similar meaning to @Dolda2000's answer:
In Sumerian, the word for sheepfold, ...
- 9,108
10
votes
Accepted
What is the context behind Gilgamesh's rejection of Ishtar?
I understand the question to be asking what is the author’s intent in having Gilgamesh describe Ishtar’s prior lovers in the way he does, and what, as a literary matter, did the author want to convey ...
- 2,207
8
votes
What is the context behind Gilgamesh's rejection of Ishtar?
The main reason why it exists in the narrative is that it precedes the epic by quite a long time. Before the epic of Gilgamesh was put together as one single narrative, hymns of Gilgamesh were ...
- 6,739
7
votes
Why does Ishtar go to the underworld?
Ishtar was the goddess of fertility. She was married to Tammuz and when he died Ishtar was still young. She fell then in love with Gilgamesh (when he was king) but it seems he was not interested in ...
- 2,070
6
votes
Accepted
Why does Inanna need a fruit to know of sex?
The way that poem is told in your link is fancy and questionable. That is a fairly personal interpretation of the myth. In that story, Inanna doesn't have to go the underworld, but in fact does ...
- 3,471
1
vote
Why does Ishtar go to the underworld?
According to the myth, she "opened her ear to the underworld", and, after prudently arranging for help if it goes wrong, she goes to the doors of the underworld and demands entrance. The other myths ...
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