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Where is the material on Astarte, now that we are being redirected here? Wetman 11:15, 21 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Removed this theory on the eight-pointed star:
because I can't find anything to confirm it, and it states a connection that could just as well be coincidence. I rather doubt that the Turkish Osmanli adopted the cult of a Mesopotamian goddess, especially considering the generally shamanistic bent of pre-Islamic religion among the Turks. —Charles P. (Mirv) 11:48, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)
It would be VERY good to separate Inanna and Ishtar !
Inanna was a sumerian goddess.
Ishtar was babylonian (mix of sumerian and akkadian) and came much later (1000 years). That's why Ishtar inherited semitic properties and replaced Innana in the babylonian religion.
Indeed. This is only one of the things wrong with this article. It contains a number of speculations that appear to be original work, or should at least not be presented uncritically as fact. (For example "She was probably the precursor to the Greek Athena," and similar assertions are not things documented in any relible source I know of.) I'd undertake this myself only I'm insufficiently expert in the subject. The main reference in my possession is Kramer, which may be a tad out of date by now, and I know next to nothing about Ishtar as distinct from Inanna. Csernica 20:55, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Ok let me add details ;)
Ishtar was an akkadian goddess, she appeared much later than old sumerian goddess Inanna .
And there is already an article about Inanna.
This article is unfortunately mixing all together...
User:saggiga
This issue may be partially clarified by the wikipedia article on En-hedu-ana, which should be linked to this article!!!!! Lily20 ( talk) 18:35, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
Removed "Pleiadian" from "Pleiadian-sumerian". As there was "Semetic" nearby, I don't even want to know what was meant with it. -- Oop 09:29, Jan 30, 2005 (UTC)
the second name derives from the first Semitic people, the Akkadians.
I'm pretty sure Akkadians were not the first Semitic people. -
Tydaj 21:34, 10 July 2005 (UTC)
yes there are significant problems with the Inanna / Ishtar seperation. One very problematic entry is on the Uruk Vase. THis depicts Inanna, not Ishtar. And indeed mentions of inscriptions are misleading. There are no inscriptions on the vase. In addition its identification of the depicting Inanna's Sacred Marriage Rite is problematic. The Uruk Vase which appears to depict the Sacred Marriage Rite predate any texts which mention the Sacred Marriage Rite. So either that attribution is an anachronism. Or as I have argued in my thesis, the visual depictions on the Uruk Vase are in fact neccessary for the particularities of the Sacred Marriage Rite to appear textuality. That is to say that the Uruk Vase is the visual model with complex representational and recursive properties that actually aid in the later development of textual language that can accurately describe the Sacred Marriage Rite. I'm very interested in this topic, and have done much scholarly work on it. I shall create an account soon so that I may give a serious update to the Inanna entry on the wikipedia.
Perhaps you may be interested in a difference between I-Nanna and Ishtar as this following theory if it can be allowed in Ishtar Talk (not being the main article) without someone scrapping it out before you read it. I-Nanna is Sumerian but so is the dates of the sumerian 360-day calendar. Where as Ishtar is later during the 365-day calendar. Nannar is said to be the moon, and yet nannar means great mother, a name that was applied to Venus. Aligning long NeoBabylon chronology to short Genesis chronology and you get the same 177 years for Ur by either. However, in the short Meskiag-Nannar begins 243 years after the Hebrew Flood which is a Venus cycle not lunar. As for those who dont want Ishtar and Astoreth to be the same goddess Venus, do see my answer to AnonMoos below. 69.76.46.169 03:35, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
There is no I-nanna, if you want to know how to spell it in sumerian, it's In-anna. She was originally Ninanak, or the lady of the datepalm storehouses, but she eventually evolved to take on more attributes slowly becomming Inanna. Though she is the daughter of Nanna, that's not part of her name. I'm not sure what you are talking about with a 365 day calendar, do you mean during the hellenistic era? There really wasn't any babylonian/assyrian/sumerian paganism left by the time they adopted (if they did) that calendar), as the local religions got absorbed into the zoroastrian and zoroastrian-influenced religions of the time.
Nannar doesn't mean great mother, learn akkadian. As for the Venus cycle, the only calendars that go by that are the mayan one. Other than that, its not applicable elsewhere. As for Ishtar and Ashtoreth, they aren't the same. Ashtoreth is a hebrew invented word, and no such deity was worshipped. They corrupted the name Ashtart/Athtart, of whom is etymologically linked to Ishtar, but they aren't the same necessarily. [User:Abdishtar|Abdishtar] 15:12 31 January 2010 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Abdishtar ( talk • contribs) 20:12, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
The text "Of the Sleep of Ishtar" appears in Simon's Necronomicon and is readily available on the net (in this location among others). Is this an actual ancient Sumerian or Babylonian text? (Note: I am asking about this particular text, not the myth in general.)
I am asking because I don't know how much of Simon's Necronomicon is fiction and how much consists of actual myths and authentic texts. (Also, the text contains names such as Cuthalu and Azag-Thoth, which I have not seen anywhere outside the Necronomicon.) Does anyone know? SpectrumDT 22:58, 25 September 2005 (UTC)
Of course the one thing not mentioned is that Ishtar is also the origin of "Mary & baby Jesus" paintings and worship in the RCC - Ishtar by another name.
And neither of you supplied any sources for either of your statements, so your'e both wrong.
Response: Is not the Catholic version of Mary revered as the "Queen of Heaven"? Jeremiah 44 is sufficient enough evidence to clearly see how the "Queen of Heaven" is an insult to Yahweh God — Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.94.96.131 ( talk) 16:12, 24 October 2015 (UTC)
213.141.89.20 06:47, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
You don't have to provide sources for obvious things . . . — Preceding unsigned comment added by 170.3.8.253 ( talk) 15:07, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
First of all, I would like to make a note on the above message concerning the origin of the classic Madonna-with-baby-Jesus image. Although I've never heard of any Ishtar-Madonna conection, I would like to note that it is widely believed that the image ultimately derives from the ancient Egyptian image of Isis suckling baby Horus. For text evidence, try pg. 63 of the following book: Fletcher, Joann. The Egyptian Book of Living and Dying. London: Thorsons, 2002. Also, try looking on the Wikipedia Isis page. There's a set of two images on the page that show the similarities between the images.
Secondly, while studying Mesopotamian cultures in school recently, my class participated in a simulation to see how ancient empires worked. The simulation, known simply as "Empires," is complex and directs the classroom teacher to assign all the students into one of five groups, the Babylonians, Hittites, Medes, Persians, and Phoenicians. As a member of the Babylonian group, I began to search for a Babylonian god or goddess that our group could "worship" (although the simulation didn't require this, we thought it might be fun). After researching the subject, I suggested Ishtar (coincidentally, my birthday is on the same day as a festival of hers). While I was doing my research, I read some text that strongly implied that Ashtaroth was another name for Isthar. Is this correct, or is this just a misperception? -- The Great Honker 22:48, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
ashtaroth was a demon name given to her by the hebrews i think like calling baal bezelbub. im pretty sure of that. im pretty sure u all know that — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.31.107.12 ( talk) 22:02, 27 January 2014 (UTC)
The Arabic script is totally irrelevant to this page, since Ishtar was not an Arab goddess, and since there was no real significant permanent presence of Arabs in Mesopotamia until Christianity was already getting pretty solidly established in the area. Also, the form of the Arabic name عشتار reveals that this Arabic word is not even any kind of close or direct borrowing from an Akkadian language -- since the Akkadian languages had no pharyngeal ع or `Ayn consonant, and since the so-called "š" of the late Akkadian languages was in fact borrowed into other languages as an "s" sound. Arabic عشتار is probably the end product of a rather convoluted Canaano-Aramaic historical transmission path, ultimately resulting from Akkadian Ishtar being equated with Canaanite Ashtoreth. So Arabic عشتار really has no ascertainable relevance whatsoever to Akkadian Ishtar. AnonMoos 07:18, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
The article says that Ishtar is a major figure in the story of Gilgamesh. But the Wikipedia page about Gilgamesh doesn't mention Ishtar. A sentence or two here explaining her major role in the epc would be good.
She actually does show up in the Epic of Gilgamesh, she plays a bigger role in the Babylonian epic than in the sumerian tales. If it hasn't been already, I will try to get around to adding in the role she takes in it. Abdishtar ( talk) 02:10, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
The Biblical name Esther actually has a much more solid connection to Ishtar than does pagan Eostre. Strange but true... AnonMoos 19:34, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
The name Asherah begins with an Aleph ( glottal stop) consonant, while the etymological cognates of Ishtar (such as Hebrew `Ashtoreth) begin with an `Ayin (voiced pharyngeal) consonant . Therefore it is extremely unlikely that there is any etymological connection between these two words. Also, "Goddess" should not be capitalized except when it appears at the beginning of a sentence. And Eostre is nonsense. AnonMoos 19:29, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
Linguistics alone does not explain away syncretisms, epithets, and the understanding of entities in the past. Ishtar is a major deity and has as many names, if not more, than Marduk and YHWH. Inanna, from d.NIN.AN.AK, LITERALLY means GOD. LADY/QUEEN. of Heaven. Ishtar, despite all its derived meanings, literally means 'DAWN STAR', IE MORNING STAR. Dawn happens in the east. The only reason people will not accept the connections is because recognising the importance of Ishtar will literally wreck every existing major religion. Goodnight.
I find it very offensive that AnonMoos is allowed to take astronomy and judge it as occultism which would mean astrological nonsense. He degrades every form of astronomy aspect for any myth or calendar or god or legend. And it is a very disgrace to treat astronomy in this fashion when its exact physical laws have provided the satelite orbits and technology to have this internet and communicate in any of this fashion. Ishtar is Venus, it does come from various related languages, scholars every where have different theories, it is NOT point of view and favoritism in any form other than to let AnonMoos make his little editorial judgements on every posting following around like a policeman. This is not an attack on AnonMoos but rather a defence stating that AnonMoos is doing the attacking if he can claim anything he wants as fiction, and occult, and name call away any label he perceives others writings to be. May i state that i disagree with many encyclopedia claims or theories, i don't wipe out and judge as being fanatic anything i have read on Wikipedia. -- anonmous IP 69.76.46.169, 19:42, 5 February 2007
It is no theory that Ishtar is depicted as 8 points on thousands of reliefs on tablets. And it is astronomical fact not occultism that Venus returns to the same stars in 8 years (8x365 days) after 5 orbits (5x584 days) of 5 risings. Someone needs to learn actual real astronomy instead of finger pointing name calls of occultism and of astrology and claiming its personal view points. And how is it if Catholicism is the Catholic viewpoint, and Judaism is the Jewish viewpoint, that Sumerian astral stories aren't astral viewpoints in contrast to Babylon's astral stories as their viewpoint. This editing games is getting redundant and shows no professionalism at all to learn. I find it offensive that under Ishtar we can find smart ass reply remarks on comments made in other places, the Kali Talk, or Google Talk, following me and others around. And in the end of the matter, I would like to say that those who are wrong thruout history will wish they were dead if there ever is a God of resurrection back to life on earth. Like Judas whom millions would say to him how dare you, you killed Jesus, and like Egypt's Jannes who millions would say look how you defied Moses, and to quote Jesus as saying a Queen of Sheba who comes back and says you fools, i see an AnonMoos who likewise would come back to millions who will recall the high almighty atitude AnonMoos ruled Wikipedia with so that millions of others couldnt learn because you feel i must be killed like Moses or Jesus. Quit trying to shut me up, i am learning to use the discussion section for topics to consider rather than change the main article, and i am also presenting sources. Not to mention i am also defending many others you seem to be freely editing as if youre the God of final decision. Grow up and join the learning process instead of defying it making many others miserable...i speak this for them, not just me. -- anonymous IP 69.76.46.169, 6 February 2007
I would like to suggest this article show the Ishtar/Easter connection, with the fertility symbols of Rabbits and eggs and all. does anyone agree? Kljenni 14:57, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
There is overwhelming evidence that Astarte, Ishtar Ashtoreth is also Easter. Let it be mentioned at least as a possibility.
“What means the term Easter itself? It is not a Christian name. It bears its Chaldean origin on its very forehead. Easter is nothing else than Astarte . . . the queen of heaven, whose name, as pronounced by the people of Nineveh, was evidently identical with that now in common use in this country [England]. That name, as found by Layard on the Assyrian monuments, is Ishtar. The worship of Bel and Astarte was very early introduced into Britain. . . . Such is the history of Easter. The popular observances that still attend the period of its celebration amply confirm the testimony of history as to its Babylonian character. The hot cross buns of Good Friday, and the dyed eggs of Pasch or Easter Sunday, figured in the Chaldean rites just as they do now.”
The Two Babylons (London; 1957), by Alexander Hislop pp. 103, 107, 108. Kljenni 00:58, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
From the Easter wiki page with cited sources:
Some suggest an etymological relationship between Eostre and the Babylonian goddess Ishtar (variant spelling: Eshtar) ([2] [3] [4] [5]) and the possibility that aspects of an ancient festival accompanied the name, claiming that the worship of Bel and Astarte was anciently introduced into Britain, and that the hot cross buns of Good Friday and dyed eggs of Easter Sunday figured in the Chaldean rites just as they do now.
Any alleged connection between Ishtar and Easter is geographically distant and linguistically untenable.[3]
Claiming a connection between Ishtar and Easter also ignores the fact that Easter is called "Passover" in almost every other language in the world. (The only exceptions appear to be the languages of those people who first learned Christianity at the hands of English or other Anglophone missionaries.) Examples of this are the Hebrew Pesach; the Greek Paskha; the Latin Pascha; the Italian Pasqua; the Spanish La Pascua; and Scots Gaelic An Casca. The holiday was not called "Easter" until the 8th Century, by which time it had already been in existence for 700 years.
There is the additional problem that the very lands where Ishtar was once known have never been known to use a name like "Easter" for this or any other spring holiday.[4]
Xuchilbara 02:02, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
It doesn't prove that roman catholic church is evil but it does prove it was all copied from pagans and that is why no one wants to talk about it. 170.3.8.253 ( talk) —Preceding undated comment added 15:12, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
The Jews had their passover so the hellenistic jews who were creating a new religion wanted to have a similar sprintime holiday but if they canlled it passover it'd look like they were copying. So they called it easter which helped get them new converts from pagans who already followed the holiday celebrating ishtar in the spring, a fertility goddess because spring is when the soil is fertile again, and all the rabbits and eggs also symbolize this. Why do christians intend to deny this to their deathbed when it is obvious? — Preceding
unsigned comment added by
170.3.8.253 (
talk) 15:15, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
Actually, I am noticing a huge amount of information pointing towards the Ishtar and Easter connection to be real. starting to get sick of defending all aspects and corners constantly in various places, and sick of people thinking that 'linguists' actually have any theological, anthropological, and historical understanding outside of the scope of linguistics itself and they are clearly inept at piecing together history, and should stick to language alone. Especially when there ARE linguistic connections that arent being put together. I think I will just write a book to sort this situation out. — Preceding unsigned comment added by I3R0K3N7FEET ( talk • contribs)
Can someone verify some of the info provided outside of 'The Women's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets' by Barbara G. Walker? It's kinda hard to trust that book, and it's not usually considered a reference source.
Xuchilbara 19:32, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
A lot of nonsense was cut from this article a while back, but the valid connection between Ishtar and Biblical Hebrew `Ashtoreth was also cut out (see Ancient Semitic religion). AnonMoos 15:22, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
I don't see why it's necessary really to have her under Ishtar. Aside from that, Ishtar actually has more connections with the male deity Athtar, from whom her name is derived. Though you are right, there is a valid connection between them. I don't know why whoever cut it out. Abdishtar ( talk) 02:05, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
Text of article includes "To sum it up, she was a HO FO SHO". Seems to not belong in there.
Ryz 14:30, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
I have removed the sentence from the article lead; article Atarsamain makes no mention of the goddess being a counterpart of Ishtar, and the link between biblical Esther and Ishtar is highly disputed by scholars - the article shouldn't state it as a fact. - Mike Rosoft ( talk) 08:13, 26 June 2008 (UTC)
Actually, Anunit is a seperate goddess, she isn't Ishtar, Cuthaean Creation Legend: 'I prayed to Ishtar, (...), Zamama, Anunit, Nabu, (...) and shamash the warrior' I think that you are confusing the Ishtars with the goddess herself. The Ishtars were a group of goddesses, that included both Ishtar and Anunit. Is there any references to Atarsamain being female? [User:Abdishtar|talk] 15:25 31 January 2010 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Abdishtar ( talk) 22:50, 4 February 2010 (UTC) ( talk • contribs) 20:25, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
the following books...
^^^^^
FYI
-- 124.78.214.145 ( talk) 07:50, 22 November 2009 (UTC)
A few years ago I was interested in writing a book about temple prostitution for Ishtar, and quickly found most serious scholars don't think it was true. Apparently, from what I recall, the only report of it comes from Herodatus (the same guy who gave us the story of the Lost City of Atlantis) and no actual reports come from within the culture. This makes it a bit tricky to write about, since that Herodotus thing gets quoted all over the place and can easily be cited, but nevertheless might not be true. -- 174.56.0.212 ( talk) 14:05, 26 June 2010 (UTC)
I'd like to add that you can also read up on sacred prostitution with regards to Ishtar in Sex and Gender in the Ancient Near East, though I have to look up the author. I'm sure the title should pop up on google books or amazon. Abdishtar ( talk) 02:02, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
The sacred prostitution and sexuality obsession with Ishtar in this Wikipedia entry is really outdated and needs to be updated. It currently relies on a book of essays and some dubious theory references. There has been considerable scholarship and archaeology in the past three years since this text was last edited. The references from Guirand, Felix, 1968, are especially out of date and just plain wrong. It's certainly fun to ascribe sexual inferences to ancient gods who were female, but that doesn't make it accurate or useful to scholars. We can do better than this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.231.129.144 ( talk) 06:07, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
No mention of the movie "Ishtar"? Shjacks45 ( talk) 06:10, 9 March 2014 (UTC)
The "In other media" section for this article has become full of uncited and irrelevant information. This is the same problem that I have been encountering at Inanna in the "In popular culture" section. I am writing this notification to warn that, unless someone objects to it within the next day or so, I will go through the "In other media" section and delete all material I deem irrelevant to the subject of the article. I also think that some basic guidelines must be set in place regarding what content is allowed in this section. My proposal is that all new material added to the section should be required to meet all of the following requirements:
1. The new material must include at least one citation to a reliable source. If it has no citation, it should not be added.
2. The popular culture artifact being discussed must mention Ishtar at least five times. If she is only mentioned once or twice in the entire book/movie/song/television show, then it does not have a strong enough connection to her to be worth mentioning in this article.
3. The popular culture artifact must be notable enough in itself to warrant an article of its own. If it is an obscure novel by some author no one has ever heard of, then it is not worth mentioning here.
If you have any objections over any of this, please leave a response explaining your reasons for opposition. I am not doing this because I enjoy deleting material willy-nilly or because I enjoy imposing restrictions on what material can be added, but rather because I earnestly feel that this is a necessary measure in order to ensure the protection and well-being of this article.-- Katolophyromai ( talk) 04:25, 26 February 2017 (UTC)
I have just added a brief section to the end of the article explaining how the words Ishtar and Easter are totally unrelated. I really did not want to include any mention of Alexander Hislop or his ludicrous Two Babylons theory, but, unfortunately, his ideas have become so widely promulgated on the internet in recent years that I fear there is no other solution but to provide some kind of a rebuttal to them in the article. Sadly, the main reason why most people are coming here seems to be to find out if the name Ishtar really is related to Easter (which, of course, it is not), as is evidenced by the fact that the number of people viewing this page spiked exponentially during Easter 2017, far above its usual levels, receiving over 8,000 more page views than Jesus. ( [1]) -- Katolophyromai ( talk) 21:49, 3 May 2017 (UTC)
"his ideas have become so widely promulgated"
That is really news to me. Other than a few references in fringe books read by my deceased mother and a couple of mocking mentions in the Internet, I have barely even heard of Hislop. I thought he was just another long-forgotten crackpot.
"receiving over 8,000 more page views than Jesus"
I am not certain if this has anything to do with Hislop. Ishtar turns up often in books that have to with comparative mythology, neo-paganism, and various fantasy novels. For example in the Conan the Barbarian series and its adaptations, many characters are Ishtar worshipers. In the " Black Colossus" (1933), the monotheistic god Mitra tries to intervene in a military conflict in favor of Princess Yasmela, but she points that she and her people are mostly Ishtar worshipers. Dimadick ( talk) 20:12, 12 May 2017 (UTC)
. So even if Ishtar and Easter are not the same festival they share the same attributes of bunnies and eggs minus the sexual orgies and Easter today. 2600:6C56:7700:2795:6:8CB2:CFA5:8A57 ( talk) 23:20, 16 December 2021 (UTC)
Maybe the article should present the Assyrian cuneiform form of the name. This was the type of cuneiform that was first deciphered in the 19th century, and that has been often considered quasi-standard in scholarly work on Akkadian (not Sumerian), though disfavored by the Unicode standard: AnonMoos ( talk) 10:13, 31 May 2017 (UTC)
This
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The article on the goddess Ishtar currently states in paragraph 3:
"Although various publications have claimed that Ishtar's name is the root behind the modern English word Easter, reputable linguists have unanimously rejected these putative etymologies as entirely false."
This is a strong claim and has no citations. It should either have more than one citation added, reduce the strength of the claim if only adding one citation, or (probably the best option) the claim should be removed altogether and replaced with something akin to "The etymology of the name Ishtar is currently unknown and disputed".
Also, I pose a similar but far more detailed argument for the entire final section, titled "Alleged associations with Easter":
Once again, strong claims of Ishtar having nothing to do (etymologically) with Easter (and by extension, Eostre) are made, yet your cited sources numbers 34 (Grabbe, Lester L., 1997) and 35 (Mcllhenny, Albert M., 2011) are not written by linguists, and do not even mention the etymology of Ishtar, but simply discredit Hislop. Further, your cited sources numbers 39 (Haupt, P., 1885), 40 (Barton, George A., 1911), and 41 (Pinker, A., 2005) have the following major issues: numbers 39 and 40 are both well over 100 years old, and we'll just say that the field of linguistics has come some ways since then. Number 41, once again, does not even mention the etymology of the word Ishtar (it discusses the translations of several verbs in the story of her descent to the underworld, and mentions that Ishtar is "identified" with the dawn star/Venus (Pinker, A., 2005, p. 92), but nothing about the etymology of her actual name). In short, your sources do not satisfactorily (in the case of 39 and 40) or at all (in the case of 41) support your claim that the word Ishtar has nothing to do with the word Easter.
I am not vouching for Hislop here per se, but the facts are thus:
1. There is no definitive linguistic consensus on the meaning of Ishtar, and the topic does not seem to have been published on in any reputable journals (or any journals at all, that I can find) recently... meaning, in the past 30 years or less... or even the past 50. The field of linguistics is quite young (and was in its infancy when Haupt and Barton wrote their works), and works from over 100 years ago, especially on topics that are only discussed by (as far as I can find) two people, are hardly definitive. 2. Ishtar is associated with the dawn star ( Pinker, A. (2005). Descent of the Goddess Ishtar to the Netherworld and Nahum II 8. Vetus Testamentum, 55(1), p. 92) 3. The nameEsther is also associated with the dawn star as well as with the word Ishtar (Yahuda, A. (1946). The Meaning of the name Esther. Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 78(3-4), 174-178. doi:10.1017/S0035869X00100413), also attested in the far out-dated work of Barton (1911, p. 356) 4. The name Eostre, from which it is well-agreed that the word Easter derives (and your own sources agree), is also associated with the dawn, and of course, the east. 5. Aphrodite, in one of your sources (which didn't mention the etymology of Ishtar) is claimed to be "the Greek counterpart of Ishtar" and "is also often associated with doves, which are her symbol" (Pinker, A. 2005, p. 98), and she (Aphrodite) is also claimed linguistically to be related to the Indo-European dawn goddess *Haéusōs, whose etymology you argue for in the final paragraph in question (that being the one titled "Alleged associations with Easter"). This also argues against your claim that the Greek adoption of the word "Pascha" for "Easter" is significant, since "Pascha" is clearly a loan word from Hebrew, and so all it really means is that they decided to call Easter by the Hebrew word instead of by a clearly Pagan-origin word such as "Aphrodite Day" or some such, as the Greek have historically often chosen not to do when it comes to Christianity (but it does not stop non-Greeks from doing it with their own similar dawn goddesses).
As someone with a masters degree in linguistics, I can tell you that it is not much of a stretch, especially given the phonological similarities, to see how there might be some linguistic connections here, and the mythological similarities strengthen these possibilities.
Of course, the most direct etymology for the term Easter must be to Eostre and east, and so I would argue that this should be made the main crux of the argument against Easter being based on Ishtar. However, the fact that the word Easter is based on Eostre does not preclude Easter per se from also having a more distant linguistic (and/or mythological) relationship with Ishtar, insofar as the word and Goddess Ishtar is probably related to the word and Goddess Eostre. An elementary understanding of historical linguistics would encourage you not to make such strong claims in the absence of thorough research on the topic (which, from a purely linguistic standpoint, there does not appear to be much research, as most papers published about Ishtar are in relation to anthropology or her mythologies, not the linguistics of ancient Akkadian), ESPECIALLY in the presence of so much probably-not-so-circumstantial evidence both phonologically and thematically between the two Goddesses of Eostre and Ishtar.
Thank you. 68.134.216.244 ( talk) 07:28, 7 July 2017 (UTC)
A user recently attempted to change the main image for this article to this image, which is a late representation of Ishtar from the third century AD. (Although in my edit summary, I incorrectly stated that it was from the second century AD, which was wrong.) The iconography does not match the typical representation found in Akkadian, Old Babylonian, and Assyrian art at all and presents a version of Ishtar that more closely resembles Cybele than the Akkadian Ishtar. In the typical iconography, Ishtar is usually represented wearing a horned cone-shaped crown and a flounced skirt, often holding either some manner of weapons or a rod-and-ring symbol. In most representations, she is usually standing. In the new image that user added, she is shown with none of the above. Furthermore, her style of dress and the context in which she is shown seems, to me at least, to be very similar to the iconography of Cybele: seated, wearing Graeco-Roman style dress with elaborate jewelry and a cylindrical crown rather than a conical one. The original image, which I have now restored, was much more representative depiction of Ishtar the Akkadian and Babylonian goddess. -- Katolophyromai ( talk) 15:24, 17 July 2017 (UTC)
I have come to a bit of a dilemma: I am hoping to eventually bring this article up to GA status, but I think that the section on "Alleged associations with Easter" might be a major obstacle in doing so. Quite simply, no respectable encyclopedia would ever mention Alexander Hislop or the whole "Easter is Ishtar" nonsense because it is so far off from the views of mainstream scholarship, but, judging from the fact that look-ups to this article skyrocketed on Easter Sunday this year, far above their usual levels, coupled with the fact that we have had multiple people come forth with crazy conspiracy theories about how Ishtar and Easter could be related clearly indicates that a very large number of people are coming to this article to look for answers to precisely that question. I do not want to have a section about it since I would much rather devote the whole article to description of Ishtar, but I feel that the section is necessary simply due to public ignorance. AnonMoos, what do you think? Should I delete the section or leave it in? -- Katolophyromai ( talk) 20:10, 15 August 2017 (UTC)
I went to the local university library and looked up Ištar in the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary, but it had nothing about the wider Semitic etymology, and I'm not sure where else to find a quasi-modern source on that... AnonMoos ( talk) 17:38, 25 August 2017 (UTC)
The modern uses of the Star of Ishtar symbol aren't important for this article, but they are relevant (if prominent). If we had an article on "Mesopotamian divine symbols" or similar, they could go there, but I don't think we do... AnonMoos ( talk) 17:38, 25 August 2017 (UTC)
@ I3R0K3N7FEET: We have been through this same cycle many times before. People keep adding their own conspiracy theories in effort to "prove" that Easter and Ishtar could somehow be related. Apart from being clear cases of original research and synthesis, these arguments also go against the mainstream academic consensus, which holds that the names Ishtar and Easter are unrelated. They sound similar, sure, but if you trace the name Easter back to its origins, the further back you go, the less it sounds like Ishtar. That, combined with the fact that the cult of Ishtar could not have been spontaneously transported across the entire European continent from the Middle East to England without leaving any trace of an intermediary, the fact that Ishtar and Eostre's cults do not even remotely resemble each other, as well as dozens of other obvious problems, have led scholars to conclude that the names cannot be connected; it is not even etymologically plausible. -- Katolophyromai ( talk) 14:43, 26 December 2017 (UTC)
There are intermediaries, and it is etymologically plausible. Many of the included sources do not give any clear indication and the written conclusions in the articles are synthesis themselves. I included sources to recent information that suggests a genealogical and historical connections between peoples of the north, and peoples of the mid-east, along with evidence to suggest that there is a link (stronger than the current article has against it). There is also no mention of the link between Ishtar, Astarte, Artemis/Diana, Ishtar was twin with UTU as Artemis is with apollo ( technically triplets with Ereshkigal, though that may actually be a duality of ishtar), Asherah, Tārā, and various other syncretisms as Ishtar absorbed pretty every other role of the 'lady of heaven' or 'lady of the night/hunt'. The fact you dismiss it as 'cannot be linked' and broadly suggest 'mainstream academics' have said ' it cannot' be connected, is absolute nonsense. Throwing around the words such as 'conspiracy theories' with the intentional aim to withhold actual viable information on the subject with no solid support of that actual position. Wikipedia is a record of what is and what may be, and doesn't always present facts, and and situations where there is on-going debate, the debate must be represented for either side of the discussion, and not just one side which says 'no, I don't think that is true'. This isn't a 'fringe theory', especially when you can DIRECTLY connect Ishtar to Hausos (Hittite Sawska was rendered as Ishtar in Cuneiform), and the Caucasus connection can link Astghik directly to ÁSTRÍÐR (Astrid) = Freyja = Ostara Eostre. I appreciate you wishing to protect the information people will come to read, but that information should be informative, accurate and well represented. If the page is going to address the 'Easter connection', it should represent both sides with all current information, rather than have a nonsense synthesized conclusion of 'it is not connected' based on bad sources that say nothing of the sort, while intentionally trying to discredit the entire notion again based on nothing. You stated as a reason for taking what I put up down that 'it damages the article', when in actuality, the only thing the connection actually damages is all modern religions. I3R0K3N7FEET ( talk) 12:15, 29 December 2017 (UTC)
I just read a few paragraphs up. You have made some good points previously, but I still feel that the discussion should be equally represented, or the sub-article should simply be removed. I3R0K3N7FEET ( talk) 12:52, 29 December 2017 (UTC)
Hello! Some of you may recall that, when I first came along, there was a proposal to merge this article into the article Inanna. I opposed that merge and removed the tag suggesting it. I am now going back on that decision, for several reasons, which include the following:
I have already moved all of the material from this article into the article Inanna, which means that all we need to do to complete the merge is turn this article into a redirect. -- Katolophyromai ( talk) 21:34, 9 January 2018 (UTC)
Why did you do this unilaterally? The articles were fine separate. I liked that article and I don't think this really helps anything by deleting everything. Thanks a lot. 216.80.118.27 ( talk) 07:51, 11 January 2018 (UTC)
I concur with the above user; the two articles were fine as separate entries, much like the entities of Ishtar and Inanna seemed to have been quite distinct before the discovery of the Sumerian mythology in the 19th Century. Moreover any such grave actions as deletion or merging of major Wikipedia articles should have been undertaken only after extensive debate and reaching of a community consensus; not unilaterally by a single user, however well-meaning.
Thus the two articles should be restored as separate encyclopedic entries; at least until such time as an aforementioned discussion and community consensus is reached. Jove ( talk) 07:48, 12 January 2018 (UTC)
As it stands it would seem, noticing both the talk page for Ishtar, as well as the talk page for Inanna, if anything the community consensus currently seem to favor a restoration of Ishtar and Inanna as separate articles.
Indeed I can only agree that there should have been a notice of a proposed merger, and a community discussion and consensus prior to merging the two articles of the Sumerian Inanna and Akkadian/ Babylonian Ishtar.
What would be the next step in a merge spree? Merging Aphrodite, Venus, Astarte and every goddess associated with planet Venus? Or perhaps a single page for ALL goddesses?
Jove (
talk) 11:50, 24 January 2018 (UTC)
The author of this highly respected page should be held accountable for his or her misinterpretation of history. And, possibly be banned from further injections of historical phallisies based on their lack of true historical facts and research. I agree we should only share truth on this page and ask for a legitimate examination on this author for the good of all that are truth seeking. I thank this page and all those who contribute to the truth. God bless you all— Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.235.164.168 ( talk • contribs)
There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Inanna which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. — RMCD bot 21:46, 18 August 2020 (UTC)
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Where is the material on Astarte, now that we are being redirected here? Wetman 11:15, 21 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Removed this theory on the eight-pointed star:
because I can't find anything to confirm it, and it states a connection that could just as well be coincidence. I rather doubt that the Turkish Osmanli adopted the cult of a Mesopotamian goddess, especially considering the generally shamanistic bent of pre-Islamic religion among the Turks. —Charles P. (Mirv) 11:48, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)
It would be VERY good to separate Inanna and Ishtar !
Inanna was a sumerian goddess.
Ishtar was babylonian (mix of sumerian and akkadian) and came much later (1000 years). That's why Ishtar inherited semitic properties and replaced Innana in the babylonian religion.
Indeed. This is only one of the things wrong with this article. It contains a number of speculations that appear to be original work, or should at least not be presented uncritically as fact. (For example "She was probably the precursor to the Greek Athena," and similar assertions are not things documented in any relible source I know of.) I'd undertake this myself only I'm insufficiently expert in the subject. The main reference in my possession is Kramer, which may be a tad out of date by now, and I know next to nothing about Ishtar as distinct from Inanna. Csernica 20:55, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Ok let me add details ;)
Ishtar was an akkadian goddess, she appeared much later than old sumerian goddess Inanna .
And there is already an article about Inanna.
This article is unfortunately mixing all together...
User:saggiga
This issue may be partially clarified by the wikipedia article on En-hedu-ana, which should be linked to this article!!!!! Lily20 ( talk) 18:35, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
Removed "Pleiadian" from "Pleiadian-sumerian". As there was "Semetic" nearby, I don't even want to know what was meant with it. -- Oop 09:29, Jan 30, 2005 (UTC)
the second name derives from the first Semitic people, the Akkadians.
I'm pretty sure Akkadians were not the first Semitic people. -
Tydaj 21:34, 10 July 2005 (UTC)
yes there are significant problems with the Inanna / Ishtar seperation. One very problematic entry is on the Uruk Vase. THis depicts Inanna, not Ishtar. And indeed mentions of inscriptions are misleading. There are no inscriptions on the vase. In addition its identification of the depicting Inanna's Sacred Marriage Rite is problematic. The Uruk Vase which appears to depict the Sacred Marriage Rite predate any texts which mention the Sacred Marriage Rite. So either that attribution is an anachronism. Or as I have argued in my thesis, the visual depictions on the Uruk Vase are in fact neccessary for the particularities of the Sacred Marriage Rite to appear textuality. That is to say that the Uruk Vase is the visual model with complex representational and recursive properties that actually aid in the later development of textual language that can accurately describe the Sacred Marriage Rite. I'm very interested in this topic, and have done much scholarly work on it. I shall create an account soon so that I may give a serious update to the Inanna entry on the wikipedia.
Perhaps you may be interested in a difference between I-Nanna and Ishtar as this following theory if it can be allowed in Ishtar Talk (not being the main article) without someone scrapping it out before you read it. I-Nanna is Sumerian but so is the dates of the sumerian 360-day calendar. Where as Ishtar is later during the 365-day calendar. Nannar is said to be the moon, and yet nannar means great mother, a name that was applied to Venus. Aligning long NeoBabylon chronology to short Genesis chronology and you get the same 177 years for Ur by either. However, in the short Meskiag-Nannar begins 243 years after the Hebrew Flood which is a Venus cycle not lunar. As for those who dont want Ishtar and Astoreth to be the same goddess Venus, do see my answer to AnonMoos below. 69.76.46.169 03:35, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
There is no I-nanna, if you want to know how to spell it in sumerian, it's In-anna. She was originally Ninanak, or the lady of the datepalm storehouses, but she eventually evolved to take on more attributes slowly becomming Inanna. Though she is the daughter of Nanna, that's not part of her name. I'm not sure what you are talking about with a 365 day calendar, do you mean during the hellenistic era? There really wasn't any babylonian/assyrian/sumerian paganism left by the time they adopted (if they did) that calendar), as the local religions got absorbed into the zoroastrian and zoroastrian-influenced religions of the time.
Nannar doesn't mean great mother, learn akkadian. As for the Venus cycle, the only calendars that go by that are the mayan one. Other than that, its not applicable elsewhere. As for Ishtar and Ashtoreth, they aren't the same. Ashtoreth is a hebrew invented word, and no such deity was worshipped. They corrupted the name Ashtart/Athtart, of whom is etymologically linked to Ishtar, but they aren't the same necessarily. [User:Abdishtar|Abdishtar] 15:12 31 January 2010 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Abdishtar ( talk • contribs) 20:12, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
The text "Of the Sleep of Ishtar" appears in Simon's Necronomicon and is readily available on the net (in this location among others). Is this an actual ancient Sumerian or Babylonian text? (Note: I am asking about this particular text, not the myth in general.)
I am asking because I don't know how much of Simon's Necronomicon is fiction and how much consists of actual myths and authentic texts. (Also, the text contains names such as Cuthalu and Azag-Thoth, which I have not seen anywhere outside the Necronomicon.) Does anyone know? SpectrumDT 22:58, 25 September 2005 (UTC)
Of course the one thing not mentioned is that Ishtar is also the origin of "Mary & baby Jesus" paintings and worship in the RCC - Ishtar by another name.
And neither of you supplied any sources for either of your statements, so your'e both wrong.
Response: Is not the Catholic version of Mary revered as the "Queen of Heaven"? Jeremiah 44 is sufficient enough evidence to clearly see how the "Queen of Heaven" is an insult to Yahweh God — Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.94.96.131 ( talk) 16:12, 24 October 2015 (UTC)
213.141.89.20 06:47, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
You don't have to provide sources for obvious things . . . — Preceding unsigned comment added by 170.3.8.253 ( talk) 15:07, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
First of all, I would like to make a note on the above message concerning the origin of the classic Madonna-with-baby-Jesus image. Although I've never heard of any Ishtar-Madonna conection, I would like to note that it is widely believed that the image ultimately derives from the ancient Egyptian image of Isis suckling baby Horus. For text evidence, try pg. 63 of the following book: Fletcher, Joann. The Egyptian Book of Living and Dying. London: Thorsons, 2002. Also, try looking on the Wikipedia Isis page. There's a set of two images on the page that show the similarities between the images.
Secondly, while studying Mesopotamian cultures in school recently, my class participated in a simulation to see how ancient empires worked. The simulation, known simply as "Empires," is complex and directs the classroom teacher to assign all the students into one of five groups, the Babylonians, Hittites, Medes, Persians, and Phoenicians. As a member of the Babylonian group, I began to search for a Babylonian god or goddess that our group could "worship" (although the simulation didn't require this, we thought it might be fun). After researching the subject, I suggested Ishtar (coincidentally, my birthday is on the same day as a festival of hers). While I was doing my research, I read some text that strongly implied that Ashtaroth was another name for Isthar. Is this correct, or is this just a misperception? -- The Great Honker 22:48, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
ashtaroth was a demon name given to her by the hebrews i think like calling baal bezelbub. im pretty sure of that. im pretty sure u all know that — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.31.107.12 ( talk) 22:02, 27 January 2014 (UTC)
The Arabic script is totally irrelevant to this page, since Ishtar was not an Arab goddess, and since there was no real significant permanent presence of Arabs in Mesopotamia until Christianity was already getting pretty solidly established in the area. Also, the form of the Arabic name عشتار reveals that this Arabic word is not even any kind of close or direct borrowing from an Akkadian language -- since the Akkadian languages had no pharyngeal ع or `Ayn consonant, and since the so-called "š" of the late Akkadian languages was in fact borrowed into other languages as an "s" sound. Arabic عشتار is probably the end product of a rather convoluted Canaano-Aramaic historical transmission path, ultimately resulting from Akkadian Ishtar being equated with Canaanite Ashtoreth. So Arabic عشتار really has no ascertainable relevance whatsoever to Akkadian Ishtar. AnonMoos 07:18, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
The article says that Ishtar is a major figure in the story of Gilgamesh. But the Wikipedia page about Gilgamesh doesn't mention Ishtar. A sentence or two here explaining her major role in the epc would be good.
She actually does show up in the Epic of Gilgamesh, she plays a bigger role in the Babylonian epic than in the sumerian tales. If it hasn't been already, I will try to get around to adding in the role she takes in it. Abdishtar ( talk) 02:10, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
The Biblical name Esther actually has a much more solid connection to Ishtar than does pagan Eostre. Strange but true... AnonMoos 19:34, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
The name Asherah begins with an Aleph ( glottal stop) consonant, while the etymological cognates of Ishtar (such as Hebrew `Ashtoreth) begin with an `Ayin (voiced pharyngeal) consonant . Therefore it is extremely unlikely that there is any etymological connection between these two words. Also, "Goddess" should not be capitalized except when it appears at the beginning of a sentence. And Eostre is nonsense. AnonMoos 19:29, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
Linguistics alone does not explain away syncretisms, epithets, and the understanding of entities in the past. Ishtar is a major deity and has as many names, if not more, than Marduk and YHWH. Inanna, from d.NIN.AN.AK, LITERALLY means GOD. LADY/QUEEN. of Heaven. Ishtar, despite all its derived meanings, literally means 'DAWN STAR', IE MORNING STAR. Dawn happens in the east. The only reason people will not accept the connections is because recognising the importance of Ishtar will literally wreck every existing major religion. Goodnight.
I find it very offensive that AnonMoos is allowed to take astronomy and judge it as occultism which would mean astrological nonsense. He degrades every form of astronomy aspect for any myth or calendar or god or legend. And it is a very disgrace to treat astronomy in this fashion when its exact physical laws have provided the satelite orbits and technology to have this internet and communicate in any of this fashion. Ishtar is Venus, it does come from various related languages, scholars every where have different theories, it is NOT point of view and favoritism in any form other than to let AnonMoos make his little editorial judgements on every posting following around like a policeman. This is not an attack on AnonMoos but rather a defence stating that AnonMoos is doing the attacking if he can claim anything he wants as fiction, and occult, and name call away any label he perceives others writings to be. May i state that i disagree with many encyclopedia claims or theories, i don't wipe out and judge as being fanatic anything i have read on Wikipedia. -- anonmous IP 69.76.46.169, 19:42, 5 February 2007
It is no theory that Ishtar is depicted as 8 points on thousands of reliefs on tablets. And it is astronomical fact not occultism that Venus returns to the same stars in 8 years (8x365 days) after 5 orbits (5x584 days) of 5 risings. Someone needs to learn actual real astronomy instead of finger pointing name calls of occultism and of astrology and claiming its personal view points. And how is it if Catholicism is the Catholic viewpoint, and Judaism is the Jewish viewpoint, that Sumerian astral stories aren't astral viewpoints in contrast to Babylon's astral stories as their viewpoint. This editing games is getting redundant and shows no professionalism at all to learn. I find it offensive that under Ishtar we can find smart ass reply remarks on comments made in other places, the Kali Talk, or Google Talk, following me and others around. And in the end of the matter, I would like to say that those who are wrong thruout history will wish they were dead if there ever is a God of resurrection back to life on earth. Like Judas whom millions would say to him how dare you, you killed Jesus, and like Egypt's Jannes who millions would say look how you defied Moses, and to quote Jesus as saying a Queen of Sheba who comes back and says you fools, i see an AnonMoos who likewise would come back to millions who will recall the high almighty atitude AnonMoos ruled Wikipedia with so that millions of others couldnt learn because you feel i must be killed like Moses or Jesus. Quit trying to shut me up, i am learning to use the discussion section for topics to consider rather than change the main article, and i am also presenting sources. Not to mention i am also defending many others you seem to be freely editing as if youre the God of final decision. Grow up and join the learning process instead of defying it making many others miserable...i speak this for them, not just me. -- anonymous IP 69.76.46.169, 6 February 2007
I would like to suggest this article show the Ishtar/Easter connection, with the fertility symbols of Rabbits and eggs and all. does anyone agree? Kljenni 14:57, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
There is overwhelming evidence that Astarte, Ishtar Ashtoreth is also Easter. Let it be mentioned at least as a possibility.
“What means the term Easter itself? It is not a Christian name. It bears its Chaldean origin on its very forehead. Easter is nothing else than Astarte . . . the queen of heaven, whose name, as pronounced by the people of Nineveh, was evidently identical with that now in common use in this country [England]. That name, as found by Layard on the Assyrian monuments, is Ishtar. The worship of Bel and Astarte was very early introduced into Britain. . . . Such is the history of Easter. The popular observances that still attend the period of its celebration amply confirm the testimony of history as to its Babylonian character. The hot cross buns of Good Friday, and the dyed eggs of Pasch or Easter Sunday, figured in the Chaldean rites just as they do now.”
The Two Babylons (London; 1957), by Alexander Hislop pp. 103, 107, 108. Kljenni 00:58, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
From the Easter wiki page with cited sources:
Some suggest an etymological relationship between Eostre and the Babylonian goddess Ishtar (variant spelling: Eshtar) ([2] [3] [4] [5]) and the possibility that aspects of an ancient festival accompanied the name, claiming that the worship of Bel and Astarte was anciently introduced into Britain, and that the hot cross buns of Good Friday and dyed eggs of Easter Sunday figured in the Chaldean rites just as they do now.
Any alleged connection between Ishtar and Easter is geographically distant and linguistically untenable.[3]
Claiming a connection between Ishtar and Easter also ignores the fact that Easter is called "Passover" in almost every other language in the world. (The only exceptions appear to be the languages of those people who first learned Christianity at the hands of English or other Anglophone missionaries.) Examples of this are the Hebrew Pesach; the Greek Paskha; the Latin Pascha; the Italian Pasqua; the Spanish La Pascua; and Scots Gaelic An Casca. The holiday was not called "Easter" until the 8th Century, by which time it had already been in existence for 700 years.
There is the additional problem that the very lands where Ishtar was once known have never been known to use a name like "Easter" for this or any other spring holiday.[4]
Xuchilbara 02:02, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
It doesn't prove that roman catholic church is evil but it does prove it was all copied from pagans and that is why no one wants to talk about it. 170.3.8.253 ( talk) —Preceding undated comment added 15:12, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
The Jews had their passover so the hellenistic jews who were creating a new religion wanted to have a similar sprintime holiday but if they canlled it passover it'd look like they were copying. So they called it easter which helped get them new converts from pagans who already followed the holiday celebrating ishtar in the spring, a fertility goddess because spring is when the soil is fertile again, and all the rabbits and eggs also symbolize this. Why do christians intend to deny this to their deathbed when it is obvious? — Preceding
unsigned comment added by
170.3.8.253 (
talk) 15:15, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
Actually, I am noticing a huge amount of information pointing towards the Ishtar and Easter connection to be real. starting to get sick of defending all aspects and corners constantly in various places, and sick of people thinking that 'linguists' actually have any theological, anthropological, and historical understanding outside of the scope of linguistics itself and they are clearly inept at piecing together history, and should stick to language alone. Especially when there ARE linguistic connections that arent being put together. I think I will just write a book to sort this situation out. — Preceding unsigned comment added by I3R0K3N7FEET ( talk • contribs)
Can someone verify some of the info provided outside of 'The Women's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets' by Barbara G. Walker? It's kinda hard to trust that book, and it's not usually considered a reference source.
Xuchilbara 19:32, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
A lot of nonsense was cut from this article a while back, but the valid connection between Ishtar and Biblical Hebrew `Ashtoreth was also cut out (see Ancient Semitic religion). AnonMoos 15:22, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
I don't see why it's necessary really to have her under Ishtar. Aside from that, Ishtar actually has more connections with the male deity Athtar, from whom her name is derived. Though you are right, there is a valid connection between them. I don't know why whoever cut it out. Abdishtar ( talk) 02:05, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
Text of article includes "To sum it up, she was a HO FO SHO". Seems to not belong in there.
Ryz 14:30, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
I have removed the sentence from the article lead; article Atarsamain makes no mention of the goddess being a counterpart of Ishtar, and the link between biblical Esther and Ishtar is highly disputed by scholars - the article shouldn't state it as a fact. - Mike Rosoft ( talk) 08:13, 26 June 2008 (UTC)
Actually, Anunit is a seperate goddess, she isn't Ishtar, Cuthaean Creation Legend: 'I prayed to Ishtar, (...), Zamama, Anunit, Nabu, (...) and shamash the warrior' I think that you are confusing the Ishtars with the goddess herself. The Ishtars were a group of goddesses, that included both Ishtar and Anunit. Is there any references to Atarsamain being female? [User:Abdishtar|talk] 15:25 31 January 2010 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Abdishtar ( talk) 22:50, 4 February 2010 (UTC) ( talk • contribs) 20:25, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
the following books...
^^^^^
FYI
-- 124.78.214.145 ( talk) 07:50, 22 November 2009 (UTC)
A few years ago I was interested in writing a book about temple prostitution for Ishtar, and quickly found most serious scholars don't think it was true. Apparently, from what I recall, the only report of it comes from Herodatus (the same guy who gave us the story of the Lost City of Atlantis) and no actual reports come from within the culture. This makes it a bit tricky to write about, since that Herodotus thing gets quoted all over the place and can easily be cited, but nevertheless might not be true. -- 174.56.0.212 ( talk) 14:05, 26 June 2010 (UTC)
I'd like to add that you can also read up on sacred prostitution with regards to Ishtar in Sex and Gender in the Ancient Near East, though I have to look up the author. I'm sure the title should pop up on google books or amazon. Abdishtar ( talk) 02:02, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
The sacred prostitution and sexuality obsession with Ishtar in this Wikipedia entry is really outdated and needs to be updated. It currently relies on a book of essays and some dubious theory references. There has been considerable scholarship and archaeology in the past three years since this text was last edited. The references from Guirand, Felix, 1968, are especially out of date and just plain wrong. It's certainly fun to ascribe sexual inferences to ancient gods who were female, but that doesn't make it accurate or useful to scholars. We can do better than this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.231.129.144 ( talk) 06:07, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
No mention of the movie "Ishtar"? Shjacks45 ( talk) 06:10, 9 March 2014 (UTC)
The "In other media" section for this article has become full of uncited and irrelevant information. This is the same problem that I have been encountering at Inanna in the "In popular culture" section. I am writing this notification to warn that, unless someone objects to it within the next day or so, I will go through the "In other media" section and delete all material I deem irrelevant to the subject of the article. I also think that some basic guidelines must be set in place regarding what content is allowed in this section. My proposal is that all new material added to the section should be required to meet all of the following requirements:
1. The new material must include at least one citation to a reliable source. If it has no citation, it should not be added.
2. The popular culture artifact being discussed must mention Ishtar at least five times. If she is only mentioned once or twice in the entire book/movie/song/television show, then it does not have a strong enough connection to her to be worth mentioning in this article.
3. The popular culture artifact must be notable enough in itself to warrant an article of its own. If it is an obscure novel by some author no one has ever heard of, then it is not worth mentioning here.
If you have any objections over any of this, please leave a response explaining your reasons for opposition. I am not doing this because I enjoy deleting material willy-nilly or because I enjoy imposing restrictions on what material can be added, but rather because I earnestly feel that this is a necessary measure in order to ensure the protection and well-being of this article.-- Katolophyromai ( talk) 04:25, 26 February 2017 (UTC)
I have just added a brief section to the end of the article explaining how the words Ishtar and Easter are totally unrelated. I really did not want to include any mention of Alexander Hislop or his ludicrous Two Babylons theory, but, unfortunately, his ideas have become so widely promulgated on the internet in recent years that I fear there is no other solution but to provide some kind of a rebuttal to them in the article. Sadly, the main reason why most people are coming here seems to be to find out if the name Ishtar really is related to Easter (which, of course, it is not), as is evidenced by the fact that the number of people viewing this page spiked exponentially during Easter 2017, far above its usual levels, receiving over 8,000 more page views than Jesus. ( [1]) -- Katolophyromai ( talk) 21:49, 3 May 2017 (UTC)
"his ideas have become so widely promulgated"
That is really news to me. Other than a few references in fringe books read by my deceased mother and a couple of mocking mentions in the Internet, I have barely even heard of Hislop. I thought he was just another long-forgotten crackpot.
"receiving over 8,000 more page views than Jesus"
I am not certain if this has anything to do with Hislop. Ishtar turns up often in books that have to with comparative mythology, neo-paganism, and various fantasy novels. For example in the Conan the Barbarian series and its adaptations, many characters are Ishtar worshipers. In the " Black Colossus" (1933), the monotheistic god Mitra tries to intervene in a military conflict in favor of Princess Yasmela, but she points that she and her people are mostly Ishtar worshipers. Dimadick ( talk) 20:12, 12 May 2017 (UTC)
. So even if Ishtar and Easter are not the same festival they share the same attributes of bunnies and eggs minus the sexual orgies and Easter today. 2600:6C56:7700:2795:6:8CB2:CFA5:8A57 ( talk) 23:20, 16 December 2021 (UTC)
Maybe the article should present the Assyrian cuneiform form of the name. This was the type of cuneiform that was first deciphered in the 19th century, and that has been often considered quasi-standard in scholarly work on Akkadian (not Sumerian), though disfavored by the Unicode standard: AnonMoos ( talk) 10:13, 31 May 2017 (UTC)
This
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The article on the goddess Ishtar currently states in paragraph 3:
"Although various publications have claimed that Ishtar's name is the root behind the modern English word Easter, reputable linguists have unanimously rejected these putative etymologies as entirely false."
This is a strong claim and has no citations. It should either have more than one citation added, reduce the strength of the claim if only adding one citation, or (probably the best option) the claim should be removed altogether and replaced with something akin to "The etymology of the name Ishtar is currently unknown and disputed".
Also, I pose a similar but far more detailed argument for the entire final section, titled "Alleged associations with Easter":
Once again, strong claims of Ishtar having nothing to do (etymologically) with Easter (and by extension, Eostre) are made, yet your cited sources numbers 34 (Grabbe, Lester L., 1997) and 35 (Mcllhenny, Albert M., 2011) are not written by linguists, and do not even mention the etymology of Ishtar, but simply discredit Hislop. Further, your cited sources numbers 39 (Haupt, P., 1885), 40 (Barton, George A., 1911), and 41 (Pinker, A., 2005) have the following major issues: numbers 39 and 40 are both well over 100 years old, and we'll just say that the field of linguistics has come some ways since then. Number 41, once again, does not even mention the etymology of the word Ishtar (it discusses the translations of several verbs in the story of her descent to the underworld, and mentions that Ishtar is "identified" with the dawn star/Venus (Pinker, A., 2005, p. 92), but nothing about the etymology of her actual name). In short, your sources do not satisfactorily (in the case of 39 and 40) or at all (in the case of 41) support your claim that the word Ishtar has nothing to do with the word Easter.
I am not vouching for Hislop here per se, but the facts are thus:
1. There is no definitive linguistic consensus on the meaning of Ishtar, and the topic does not seem to have been published on in any reputable journals (or any journals at all, that I can find) recently... meaning, in the past 30 years or less... or even the past 50. The field of linguistics is quite young (and was in its infancy when Haupt and Barton wrote their works), and works from over 100 years ago, especially on topics that are only discussed by (as far as I can find) two people, are hardly definitive. 2. Ishtar is associated with the dawn star ( Pinker, A. (2005). Descent of the Goddess Ishtar to the Netherworld and Nahum II 8. Vetus Testamentum, 55(1), p. 92) 3. The nameEsther is also associated with the dawn star as well as with the word Ishtar (Yahuda, A. (1946). The Meaning of the name Esther. Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 78(3-4), 174-178. doi:10.1017/S0035869X00100413), also attested in the far out-dated work of Barton (1911, p. 356) 4. The name Eostre, from which it is well-agreed that the word Easter derives (and your own sources agree), is also associated with the dawn, and of course, the east. 5. Aphrodite, in one of your sources (which didn't mention the etymology of Ishtar) is claimed to be "the Greek counterpart of Ishtar" and "is also often associated with doves, which are her symbol" (Pinker, A. 2005, p. 98), and she (Aphrodite) is also claimed linguistically to be related to the Indo-European dawn goddess *Haéusōs, whose etymology you argue for in the final paragraph in question (that being the one titled "Alleged associations with Easter"). This also argues against your claim that the Greek adoption of the word "Pascha" for "Easter" is significant, since "Pascha" is clearly a loan word from Hebrew, and so all it really means is that they decided to call Easter by the Hebrew word instead of by a clearly Pagan-origin word such as "Aphrodite Day" or some such, as the Greek have historically often chosen not to do when it comes to Christianity (but it does not stop non-Greeks from doing it with their own similar dawn goddesses).
As someone with a masters degree in linguistics, I can tell you that it is not much of a stretch, especially given the phonological similarities, to see how there might be some linguistic connections here, and the mythological similarities strengthen these possibilities.
Of course, the most direct etymology for the term Easter must be to Eostre and east, and so I would argue that this should be made the main crux of the argument against Easter being based on Ishtar. However, the fact that the word Easter is based on Eostre does not preclude Easter per se from also having a more distant linguistic (and/or mythological) relationship with Ishtar, insofar as the word and Goddess Ishtar is probably related to the word and Goddess Eostre. An elementary understanding of historical linguistics would encourage you not to make such strong claims in the absence of thorough research on the topic (which, from a purely linguistic standpoint, there does not appear to be much research, as most papers published about Ishtar are in relation to anthropology or her mythologies, not the linguistics of ancient Akkadian), ESPECIALLY in the presence of so much probably-not-so-circumstantial evidence both phonologically and thematically between the two Goddesses of Eostre and Ishtar.
Thank you. 68.134.216.244 ( talk) 07:28, 7 July 2017 (UTC)
A user recently attempted to change the main image for this article to this image, which is a late representation of Ishtar from the third century AD. (Although in my edit summary, I incorrectly stated that it was from the second century AD, which was wrong.) The iconography does not match the typical representation found in Akkadian, Old Babylonian, and Assyrian art at all and presents a version of Ishtar that more closely resembles Cybele than the Akkadian Ishtar. In the typical iconography, Ishtar is usually represented wearing a horned cone-shaped crown and a flounced skirt, often holding either some manner of weapons or a rod-and-ring symbol. In most representations, she is usually standing. In the new image that user added, she is shown with none of the above. Furthermore, her style of dress and the context in which she is shown seems, to me at least, to be very similar to the iconography of Cybele: seated, wearing Graeco-Roman style dress with elaborate jewelry and a cylindrical crown rather than a conical one. The original image, which I have now restored, was much more representative depiction of Ishtar the Akkadian and Babylonian goddess. -- Katolophyromai ( talk) 15:24, 17 July 2017 (UTC)
I have come to a bit of a dilemma: I am hoping to eventually bring this article up to GA status, but I think that the section on "Alleged associations with Easter" might be a major obstacle in doing so. Quite simply, no respectable encyclopedia would ever mention Alexander Hislop or the whole "Easter is Ishtar" nonsense because it is so far off from the views of mainstream scholarship, but, judging from the fact that look-ups to this article skyrocketed on Easter Sunday this year, far above their usual levels, coupled with the fact that we have had multiple people come forth with crazy conspiracy theories about how Ishtar and Easter could be related clearly indicates that a very large number of people are coming to this article to look for answers to precisely that question. I do not want to have a section about it since I would much rather devote the whole article to description of Ishtar, but I feel that the section is necessary simply due to public ignorance. AnonMoos, what do you think? Should I delete the section or leave it in? -- Katolophyromai ( talk) 20:10, 15 August 2017 (UTC)
I went to the local university library and looked up Ištar in the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary, but it had nothing about the wider Semitic etymology, and I'm not sure where else to find a quasi-modern source on that... AnonMoos ( talk) 17:38, 25 August 2017 (UTC)
The modern uses of the Star of Ishtar symbol aren't important for this article, but they are relevant (if prominent). If we had an article on "Mesopotamian divine symbols" or similar, they could go there, but I don't think we do... AnonMoos ( talk) 17:38, 25 August 2017 (UTC)
@ I3R0K3N7FEET: We have been through this same cycle many times before. People keep adding their own conspiracy theories in effort to "prove" that Easter and Ishtar could somehow be related. Apart from being clear cases of original research and synthesis, these arguments also go against the mainstream academic consensus, which holds that the names Ishtar and Easter are unrelated. They sound similar, sure, but if you trace the name Easter back to its origins, the further back you go, the less it sounds like Ishtar. That, combined with the fact that the cult of Ishtar could not have been spontaneously transported across the entire European continent from the Middle East to England without leaving any trace of an intermediary, the fact that Ishtar and Eostre's cults do not even remotely resemble each other, as well as dozens of other obvious problems, have led scholars to conclude that the names cannot be connected; it is not even etymologically plausible. -- Katolophyromai ( talk) 14:43, 26 December 2017 (UTC)
There are intermediaries, and it is etymologically plausible. Many of the included sources do not give any clear indication and the written conclusions in the articles are synthesis themselves. I included sources to recent information that suggests a genealogical and historical connections between peoples of the north, and peoples of the mid-east, along with evidence to suggest that there is a link (stronger than the current article has against it). There is also no mention of the link between Ishtar, Astarte, Artemis/Diana, Ishtar was twin with UTU as Artemis is with apollo ( technically triplets with Ereshkigal, though that may actually be a duality of ishtar), Asherah, Tārā, and various other syncretisms as Ishtar absorbed pretty every other role of the 'lady of heaven' or 'lady of the night/hunt'. The fact you dismiss it as 'cannot be linked' and broadly suggest 'mainstream academics' have said ' it cannot' be connected, is absolute nonsense. Throwing around the words such as 'conspiracy theories' with the intentional aim to withhold actual viable information on the subject with no solid support of that actual position. Wikipedia is a record of what is and what may be, and doesn't always present facts, and and situations where there is on-going debate, the debate must be represented for either side of the discussion, and not just one side which says 'no, I don't think that is true'. This isn't a 'fringe theory', especially when you can DIRECTLY connect Ishtar to Hausos (Hittite Sawska was rendered as Ishtar in Cuneiform), and the Caucasus connection can link Astghik directly to ÁSTRÍÐR (Astrid) = Freyja = Ostara Eostre. I appreciate you wishing to protect the information people will come to read, but that information should be informative, accurate and well represented. If the page is going to address the 'Easter connection', it should represent both sides with all current information, rather than have a nonsense synthesized conclusion of 'it is not connected' based on bad sources that say nothing of the sort, while intentionally trying to discredit the entire notion again based on nothing. You stated as a reason for taking what I put up down that 'it damages the article', when in actuality, the only thing the connection actually damages is all modern religions. I3R0K3N7FEET ( talk) 12:15, 29 December 2017 (UTC)
I just read a few paragraphs up. You have made some good points previously, but I still feel that the discussion should be equally represented, or the sub-article should simply be removed. I3R0K3N7FEET ( talk) 12:52, 29 December 2017 (UTC)
Hello! Some of you may recall that, when I first came along, there was a proposal to merge this article into the article Inanna. I opposed that merge and removed the tag suggesting it. I am now going back on that decision, for several reasons, which include the following:
I have already moved all of the material from this article into the article Inanna, which means that all we need to do to complete the merge is turn this article into a redirect. -- Katolophyromai ( talk) 21:34, 9 January 2018 (UTC)
Why did you do this unilaterally? The articles were fine separate. I liked that article and I don't think this really helps anything by deleting everything. Thanks a lot. 216.80.118.27 ( talk) 07:51, 11 January 2018 (UTC)
I concur with the above user; the two articles were fine as separate entries, much like the entities of Ishtar and Inanna seemed to have been quite distinct before the discovery of the Sumerian mythology in the 19th Century. Moreover any such grave actions as deletion or merging of major Wikipedia articles should have been undertaken only after extensive debate and reaching of a community consensus; not unilaterally by a single user, however well-meaning.
Thus the two articles should be restored as separate encyclopedic entries; at least until such time as an aforementioned discussion and community consensus is reached. Jove ( talk) 07:48, 12 January 2018 (UTC)
As it stands it would seem, noticing both the talk page for Ishtar, as well as the talk page for Inanna, if anything the community consensus currently seem to favor a restoration of Ishtar and Inanna as separate articles.
Indeed I can only agree that there should have been a notice of a proposed merger, and a community discussion and consensus prior to merging the two articles of the Sumerian Inanna and Akkadian/ Babylonian Ishtar.
What would be the next step in a merge spree? Merging Aphrodite, Venus, Astarte and every goddess associated with planet Venus? Or perhaps a single page for ALL goddesses?
Jove (
talk) 11:50, 24 January 2018 (UTC)
The author of this highly respected page should be held accountable for his or her misinterpretation of history. And, possibly be banned from further injections of historical phallisies based on their lack of true historical facts and research. I agree we should only share truth on this page and ask for a legitimate examination on this author for the good of all that are truth seeking. I thank this page and all those who contribute to the truth. God bless you all— Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.235.164.168 ( talk • contribs)
There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Inanna which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. — RMCD bot 21:46, 18 August 2020 (UTC)