Inanna, Queen of Heaven and Earth: Her Stories and Hymns from Sumer [Paperback]

Diane Wolkstein (Author), Samuel Noah Kramer (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 3, 1983

A fresh retelling of the ancient texts about Ishtar, the world's first goddess. Illustrated with visual artifacts of the period. "A great masterpiece of universal literature."--Mircea Eliade

Editorial Reviews

Review

"A splendid mutual accomplishment and a great gift ot mythology....Inanna is a book to be cherished." -- --P.L. Travers

"This is an admirable translation, a great masterpiece of universal literature." -- --Mircea Eliade

Language Notes

Text: English (translation) --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 227 pages
• Publisher: Harper Perennial; 1st edition (August 3, 1983)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060908548
• ISBN-13: 978-0060908546
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 5.9 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (41 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #68,384 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #8 in Books > History > Ancient > Assyria, Babylonia & Sumer

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

145 of 148 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Inspiring window on the great Sumerian goddess, March 7, 2002

By 

Tom L. Waters (Tesuque, NM USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Inanna, Queen of Heaven and Earth: Her Stories and Hymns from Sumer (Paperback)

The result of a collaboration between Sumerian scholar Noah Kramer and folklorist Diane Wolkstein, this book is a thoughtfully annotated translation of the major Sumerian cuneiform texts devoted to the goddess Inanna-among the oldest religious texts in the world. It is illustrated with black-and-white reproductions of ancient Sumerian art, mostly on clay tablets.

Our understanding of Sumerian culture continues to grow as new texts are found and our perceptions change. This book was published in 1983, and included material unknown to the general public at the time. There are four major stories of Inanna told here: "The Huluppu Tree," "Inanna and the God Of Wisdom,"
"The Courtship of Inanna and Dumuzi," and the extended epic "The Descent of Inanna." Seven hymns to the goddess round out the collection.

In "The Huluppu Tree," we meet the adolescent Inanna, expectantly awaiting the attainment of her queenship. The Huluppu tree, which she has planted and tended as a symbol of her hopeful authority, becomes infested with evil creatures, like personal demons, that will not depart and bring her to despair. She eventually appeals to Gilgamesh to vanquish the demons, and they exchange gifts made from the wood of the tree, bringing them both to greater power.

In "Inanna and the God of Wisdom," Inanna, now sexually mature but still youthful and unproven, is welcomed by Enki, God of Wisdom, who acts the role of proud grandfather, giving a feast in her honor. Enki's magnamity increases as he drinks, and he ends up offering Inanna all the magical keys to human civilization. Inanna, with enthusiastic politeness, accepts the gifts, and then makes a quick exit, getting a head start before Enki thinks better of his generosity and sends his monsters in pursuit of the errant goddess. Inanna, with the help of her trusted companion goddess, gets passed the monsters and arrives in Uruk with
her magical cargo, where she comes into her full power. Enki, apparently wise enough to let go of his greed in the face of fate, acknowledges Inanna's victory and ascendance.

In "The Courtship of Inanna and Dumuzi," Inanna, after some initial resistance, enters into an erotic courtship with Dumuzi the shepherd. This text is strangely alluring, moving with untroubled ease from sexual frankness to touching detail. (The scene where Dumuzi knocks on the door of Inanna's house for the first time feels like it could have come straight from a modern teenager's diary). After the marriage is consummated, Dumuzi curtly informs Inanna that he's going to be very busy being king now-don't wait up, hon. This poignantly rapid slide from courtship to neglect sets the scene for events in the next narrative.

In "The Descent of Inanna," the goddess, now Queen of Heaven and Earth, finds herself drawn to enter the underworld, realm of the dead, ruled by her evil and somehow tragic sister-self, Ereshkigal. One by one, she is stripped of all the symbols of her power at seven gates, to be left naked and alone before the Queen
of the Underworld, who kills Inanna with a single blow and hangs her on a hook to dry. Inanna has planned her own rescue in advance, though, and escapes to the surface, thronged by demons intent on finding someone to take her place. Inanna will not surrender to them her loyal sons, but when she returns to find her husband Dumuzi, not in mourning, but proudly sitting on his thrown and dispensing authority, she strikes him down and sends the demons after him. The tale of Dumuzi's flight is nightmarish and filled with dream imagery. Thanks to the efforts of his compassionate and self-sacrificing sister, and the softening of Inanna's own anger, a Persephone-like bargain is reached, and Dumuzi is allowed to return to the living for half of each year.

The hymns that round out this book are an exciting glimpse of the actual religious practice of the Sumerians. Especially interesting for modern Pagans is the annual ritual wedding between goddess and king.

I'm someone who tends to be rather skeptical about the ancient precedents of modern goddess worship, but these texts caught me off my guard. They are amazingly modern (or is it timeless?) in their content. The goddess actually grows psychologically and spiritually through the series of narratives, and the
portrayal of the sexual dynamic between men and women rings uncannily true across four millennia. Inanna's story is the original heroine's journey. And, unlike most of her male counterparts, she doesn't need to kill anything to attain her spiritual victory. (Well, almost. Dumuzi gets a serious lesson in raw goddess power!). Her character seems to flow from woman to goddess and back again so smoothly, that it is impossible not to feel a living religion in these texts, one in which there was an intimate dialog between the powers of the goddess and the human experience of her priestesses.

These original texts are better than any modern retelling of Inanna's story I have come across, not just because they are more "authentic", but because they are hauntingly moving. Unlike the familiar mythology of the Greeks and Romans, which has come down to us in a more or less "literary" style, these works seem
more spiritual, even liturgical. Repetition is combined with a directness of wording, and the result is often very powerful; there is a primal intensity about them. They disarm you with their open, almost child-like language, and then leave you sitting, mute and amazed, in that timeless central cavern of the human experience.

81 of 90 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brings 4,000 Year Old Clay Tablets to Life, March 25, 2001

By 

Elderbear (Loma Linda, Aztlan) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Inanna, Queen of Heaven and Earth: Her Stories and Hymns from Sumer (Paperback)

Diane Wolkenstein revives ancient poetry that reminds us of a Goddess tradition, long lost to the Western world. In conjunction with Samuel Noah Kramer, a noted scholar on Sumer, she works with the subleties and ambiguities of the texts to reveal experiences long ago pressed into clay and forgotten.

This book is a collection of stories & hymns, translated from the cuneiform by Kramer. Wolkenstein, an expert in folktales, mythology, & storytelling, worked with his translations to craft an essence of the myths that reads coherently; confronting the reader with stories that are at once archaic and contemporary.

Numerous relief images from ancient Sumer enhance the "otherness" of the text. Rhythms and repetitive lineation loudly proclaim the exotic nature of this sacred poetry. And yet, at the heart of these stories, lie essential & archetypal material, which underlies the lives of each of us. I like this feature of the book best--I can read these ancient hymns and find a resonance within my modern soul. Wolkenstein and Kramer have well accomplished what they set out to do.

One notable feature of this poetry is the erotic content. Whether veiled in metaphor:

"At the king's lap stood the rising cedar."

or explicit:

"As for me, Inanna, / Who will plow my vulva? / Who will plow my high field? / Who will plow my wet ground?"

this erotic sacred literature of a vanished people stands in stark contrast to the purified verses of the canonical Judeo-Christian scriptures. Long before religion villified sexuality, we read--we experience in this poetry--that it was an honored sacrament, inseparable from spirituality.

The book concludes with chapters on Sumerian history, commentary on the material and translation, notes on the artwork, and a bibliography for further research. It contains an useful index.

This book is appropriate as a translated primary source for undergraduate work about the ancient Near East or mythology. It is a great source for those seeking to explore (and reclaim) the history of the Goddess, and for those who just can't get enough good Sumerian poetry! Five stars for an excellent balance of the literary with the scholarly, for breathing new life into a lost tradition.

(If you enjoyed this review, please leave positive feedback. My other reviews can be read by clicking on the "about me" link at the top of this review. Thanks!)

23 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Stunning, March 10, 2001

By 

J. French "93 93/93" (Oakland, California United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Inanna, Queen of Heaven and Earth: Her Stories and Hymns from Sumer (Paperback)

In the "White Goddess", Robert Graves speaks of true poetry as that which sends chills up your spine because it clearly has divine origins. While Graves' work does not meet that standard, "Innana" more than does so.

With the fist stanza, "In the first days, in the very first days, in the first weeks, in the very first weeks, in the first years, in the very first years", you enter a primal Dreamtime where the the Goddess exists as a real being made tangible by enchanting words. It takes a true poet to translate words from a dead language into a modern one and have them retain their effect. Wolkstein does this with grace and power.

The imagery of the tales and hymns themselves is lush, erotic, and real. I reccomend this book for anyone interested in finding a sacred text that opens up a living channel to the Goddess.