It was this youth who was symbolized by the male role in the sacred annual sexual union with the Goddess, through her Priestesses. Known in various languages as Damuzi, Tammuz (reference in the Old Testament), Attis, Adonis, Osiris or Baal, this consort died (was sacrificed) in his youth, causing an annual period of grief and lamentation among those (women) who paid homage to the Goddess.43
By 3000 BCE this ritual was known in Egypt, and it occurred in Sumer, Babylon, Anatolia and Canaan. Classical Greece knew it as Aphrodite and Adonis. The Roman Empire recognized it as Cybele and Attis.
Robert Smith in a work dated 1894, Religion of the Semites, wrote about female divinity in Semites, which include Arab and Hebrew peoples saying:
Recent researches into the history of the family render it improbable that the physical kinship between god and his worshippers, of which traces were found all over the Semitic area, was originally conceived as fatherhood. It was the mother’s, not the father’s blood which formed the original bond of kinship among Semites as among other early people and in this stage of society, if the tribal deity was thought of as the parent of the stock (the people of the tribe) a goddess, not a god, would necessarily have been the object of worship.44
Old Europe, Iraq, Iran (Persia), India, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel, Palestine, Egypt, Sinai, Libya (formerly all of North Africa), Syria, Turkey, Greece, Italy and the Mediterranean cultures on Crete, Cyprus, Malta, Sicily, Sardinia and the Greek islands … all worshipped the Goddess for thousands of years.
ONE GODDESS: With Many Names, From Many Lands.
These images and personifications of the ever-present Goddess gave women many choices and role models. The manifestations or role models were not a pantheon of different Goddesses: They were the same Great Mother Goddess Creatrix in different modes of teaching for the people to emulate. For cultures that did not rely on written text, these teachings were parables; they were the time-honored oral Herstory of generations of elders; they were the backbone of the culture.
The women were not limited in anyway from achieving their maximum potential because the Goddess manifested Herself in myriad facets and with varied personality traits. She was hearth keeper, worker bee, mystic, healer, meter of justice, agriculturalist, maker of cloth, trader, potter, artist, priestess, birthgiver, mother, midwife, administrator, breadmaker, scribe, elder, maiden, warrior woman, brewer, diviner, dancer, Queen. From the tediously mundane to the publicly spectacular, females could find their niche, and all were welcomed as a diverse necessity.
Contrary to much written opinion, this was not polytheistic. The Goddess was one; Her manifestations were seen as universal so the people could understand that She was with them everywhere: on earth, in the sky, as the moon, under the sea, through life and death, in the trees and in the animals and plants as well as in the ground energy, in the sacred sexual energy and in the birth-death-rebirth energy. She is water and blood and joy and death. All of it rolled into life itself.
Here is a sample of Her many aspects in different cultures. Only the most widely recognized examples are included. (Unless otherwise credited, the following information is adapted from Ancient Mirrors of Womanhood by Merlin Stone and The Women’s Encyclopedia by Barbara G. Walker.)
SUMER 7500 TO 3500 BCE
In the declining days of the Sumerian period, clay tablets, fragments anyway, of the Temple of the Goddess Bau, Lagash, c. 2350 BCE show that this temple was administered by Queen Sagshag, the high Priestess, who had both legal and economic authority and employed between 1,000 and 1,200 persons year round. These same tablets tell us that the staff consisted of 150 women (some free, some slave), who were spinners, woolworkers, brewers, millers, and kitchen workers. There was one female singer, several musicians, six women who ground grain for feeding pigs, fifteen cooks, twenty-seven other slaves doing household and garden chores. In the brewery there were six women and forty men. There was also one wet nurse and one nursemaid. Some personal servants for Her and her children and one hairdresser completed the staff.38 The following are the identities by which She was known:
Nammu – This is the earliest recorded name of a universal creating deity, described as “the mother who gave birth to heaven and earth.” Her name ideogram is identical to that to designate the Ocean. Ama or Amu is the Sumerian name for Mother. She is also the one who decided that human beings should be made. Her Daughter Ninmah carried out that directive. Descriptions of the Sumerian Paradise known as “Dilmun” may be the source of the later Hebrew Eden.
Inanna – She is the most widely known Goddess name among later Sumerians. Erech became the center of culture and government; Inanna’s popularity incorporated aspects and rituals previously associated with other towns’ Goddess images. Her name was accompanied by a serpent coiling around a staff. She is called Mistress of the Heavens, Sovereign Lady of the Land, Queen of The Assembly of Deities. She held full power of judgment and decision and control of the law of Heaven and Earth. In the form of Her High Priestess, She was called upon to regulate divine order, to fix destinies at the time of each new Moon. People saw Her holy light as the Morning Star, and as the Evening Star, as the planet Venus, Inanna watching over all.
She sat upon a lion throne or stood upon a lion’s back with heifer horns crowning Her head. A gatepost knot and loop were tied around each storehouse filled with wheat and barley as a symbol of Her ability to give food to the people. Shrines and Temples to Inanna were built along the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, all the way to the Persian Gulf. Her eight-petalled star/rosette and symbols of the Eye of the Goddess were everywhere. Her Priestesses presided over Temple lands, over communities of people dispensing food to all. These women lived together in the Goddess Temple apartments, watched over fields, fisheries, poultry, cattle, orchards. They recorded what had been brought into the granary and what was given out.
At Erech, these activities are recorded for thousands of years by the Priestesses on clay tablets. Not far from the Tablets was found an alabaster base, three to four feet tall; its ringed carvings preserved details of the Inanna rituals:
At each New Year, the Priestesses of Inanna prepared for the yearly Sacred mating – an ancient agricultural year god ceremony. Each year in the spring, the High Priestess chose for Her bed, the most handsome and accomplished youth with whom she would mate and appoint him as Shepherd for one year, but always spoken of with the same name: Damuzi, the Son, Consort of the Goddess. She bathed, made her face glow as amber and traced her eyes with kohl. (As they did in Egypt.) Then she invited the new Damuzi to prove his fitness in Her bed. He promised to perform Inanna’s rites, provided gifts of fruit, wheat, fish and animals to Her and promised to follow the ancient Goddess rites of the New Moon.
Inanna calls to Her “honey man,” and he went to the Priestess of Heaven. Inanna says
He shaped my loins with his fair hands,
The sheperd Dumuzi filled my lap with cream and milk,
He stroked my pubic hair,
He watered my womb.
He laid his hands on my holy vulva
He smoothed my black boat with cream,
He quickened my narrow boat with milk,
He caressed me on the bed.
Now I will caress my high priest on the bed,
I will caress the faithful sheperd Dumuzi,
I will caress his loins, the shepherdship of the land,
I will degree a sweet fate for him.45
Later kings, who claimed the thrones of Mesopotamia, called themselves Damuzi, beloved of Inanna, because they had been chosen for Her holy lap. Only by being chosen did they have the right to rule. The Damuzi lived only one year as Sheherd king. He died as a sacrifice. It was said that His death was caused by Inanna. She was required to journey to the Underworld, and in Her absence Damuzi usurped Her throne, even rejoicing, claiming Her position. Upon Her return, he was banished to the Land of No Return. The lesson to the people of Sumer in the legend of Damuzi is that this man allowed his personal ambi
tion to overpower his love and loyalty to his Mother, his Lover, his Goddess, and that behavior was punishable by death.
The women of Inanna wept in mourning with the Goddess Inanna, because they grieved together for the death of Her beloved son/lover/consort.
In the enormous Temple of Inanna, called Her House of Heaven, the priestesses lived, carried out Her rituals and made love to men who came to pray for sacred union with the Goddess. They initiated those who wished to gain knowledge and wisdom into the sanctity of life’s creative processes to personally touch divinity, through intercourse with Inanna’s holy women.
EGYPT 4000 BCE through Roman Empire
Hathor – As the great Cow Mother Goddess of the Heavens, She is so named by the people worshipping Horus, because “Hat Hor” means House of Horus. The uraeus cobra often depicted on the forehead of Hathor associates Her with the Goddess AuZit. She is seen with lioness of Nubia. Whether fierce lioness or gentle Cow of Heaven, Goddess Hathor is the sacred cow who provides humans the milk of life.
Original occupants of the Nile Valley drew Her image on rocks 7,000 years ago. She taught the sound of song, the movements of dance, the skills of mining malachite, the ways of love, and gave lovers to the lonely.
She was the Egyptian Great Mother, giving life, joy, happiness, all that was good. She was called the Lady of the Stars, One Who Shines as Gold, Mistress of the Desert, Lady of Heaven. Hathor heals, gives the breath of life, sends wind for sailors, appears as the Sacred Seven who come to the birth of each infant to prophesy their destiny. Every year, Hathor’s Feast was celebrated with the music of the Sistrum lyre and all of Egypt danced to please their Goddess.
The first day of the New Year was a feast at which the drinking of the red barley beer was consumed. Two legends relate different options as to why. But in both, Hathor becomes so angry that She threatens to destroy the world. Men beg Her to reconsider, one set plying her with sad stories of the land She has left, the other putting red ochre in the barley beer so that Hathor would think it was blood and be satisfied. Both stories end happily, and Hathor returns to the land of Egypt to be with her people again.
Isis (AuSet) – Egyptian scriptures say, “In the beginning there was Isis, Oldest of the Old. She was the Goddess from whom all becoming arose.”46 Her title, Giver of Life was also applied to the Queen Mother of Egypt. To be initiated in Her Mysteries brought a privileged status after death.
Isis was the Throne of Egypt. Pharaoh sat on Her lap, protected by Her arms or wings, the Wings of Isis. The symbol She carried on Her crown was the “mu’at” foundation of the throne, which also represented the mother-principle called Right, Justice, Truth or the All-Seeing Eye.47 Horus was the sun – RA or Osiris in the form of Isis baby. Isis stopped the waters on Her way to Byblos. She stopped the Sun while bringing Horus back to life.
There was a twin sister, Nepthus, with whom Isis created the life/death/regeneration dyad, brought forward from Neolithic times. In Her life destroying self, She was known in The Book of the Dead as the terrible one, destroyer of the souls of men, orderer, producer and maker of slaughter, conqueror of hearts, slayer of those who approach thy flame.
Isis is the most well known image of the Goddesses of Egypt. Her name literally means “Ancient Ancient” and was the Greek interpretation of the Goddess Egyptians called AuSet or AuSept, who was identified with the star Sirius. A seven-star constellation which includes Sirius appeared in Canus Major on the horizon at sunrise during mid June, the same time the Nile River begins to swell, and gave rise to the idea of the Seven Hathors or the seven-headed serpent, or the seven who appear at childbirth. The sacred Horns on Isis crown come from Hathor, and the sun disc between the horns say, “Isis is Mother of the Sun.” The Uraneus Cobra shown on the forehead of the images of Isis/AuSet is also associated with birth-giving.
She was known as Mistress of the Cosmos, Ruler of the House of Life, Owner of the Throne. (Note: All the Goddesses owned their thrones by divine right throughout the regions and by whatever name they were known.) Isis was also revered as Magistra of Fate, The one who Separated Heaven and Earth, Roadmaker of the Paths through the Stars, Controller of Wind and Thunder, Restorer of Life, She who Makes the Universe Spin Round.
In the legend of Osiris, Isis swallowed Her brother then brought him back to life reincarnated as Her child Horus. “He who impregnates his Mother” was annually torn to pieces and reassembled except for his lost penis. Isis made him a new penis out of clay and gave it to him, invoking Her holy names as life-giver and death-giver. And so Osiris mated with his Goddess.
Isis was revered throughout the entire Greco-Roman world from France to Egypt, to the Sahara, into Britain and the Balkans of Old Europe. Her Temples had carved stone Moon-boats with Her figure sitting in the boat. Her Holiday was March 5, the Blessing of the Vessel of Isis.
Isis as a Goddess concept arrived in Rome about 80 BCE, gained popularity and continued to be revered until approximately 400 CE. Some early Christians in Rome called themselves “pastophori” – sheperds or servants of Isis, a word which later evolved into the word “pastor.” Pictures in Rome of Isis suckling Her child Horus became the prototype for later Christian representations of the Virgin Mary with Jesus.
Isis promises those who have been initiated into Her Mysteries: “Thou shalt live in blessedness; thou shalt live glorious under my protection. And when thou hast finished thy life-course and goest down to the underworld, even there in that lower world thou shalt see me shedding light in the gloom of Acheron and reigning in the inmost regions of Styx; thou thyself shalt inhabit the Elysian Fields and shalt continually offer worship to me, ever gracious (from Aristides).”
BABYLON – The Great Goddess of the Middle East
Ishtar – She is the Babylonian Star, the Great Goddess who appears in the Bible as Ashtoreth, Anath, Asherah, or Esther, the Queen of Heaven (Jer. 44:19, Revelation 17:5). She was called Babylon the Great, the Mother of Harlots. Ishtar was the same Great Goddess revered all throughout the Near East as Dea Syria, Astarte, Cybele, Aphrodite, Kore, Mari.
A long Babylonian prayer presents metaphors and phrases which would later be copied by Hebrews and Christians, reappearing with only slight reconfiguration in their own texts:
I beseech thee, Lady of ladies, Goddess of goddesses, Ishtar, queen of all cities, leader of all men. Thou art the light of the world, thou art the light of heaven … supreme is thy might, O lady, exalted art thou above all gods. Thou renderest judgment and thy decision is righteous; unto thee are subject the laws of the earth and the laws of heaven, the laws of the temple and of the shrine, and the laws of the private apartment and of the secret chamber. Where is the place where they name is not, and where is the spot where thy commandments are not known? At thy name the earth and the heavens shake, and the gods they tremble; the spirits of heaven tremble at thy name and the men hold it in awe. Thou art great, thou art exalted; all the men of Sumer, and all creatures and all mankind glorify thy name. With righteousness dost thou judge the deeds of men, even thou; thou lookest upon the oppressed and to the downtrodded thy bringest justice every day. How long, Queen of Heaven and Earth, how long, how long Shepherdess of pale-faced men, wilt thou tarry? How long O Queen whose feet are not weary and whose knees make haste? How long, Lady of Hosts, Lady of Battles? Glorious one whom all the spirits of heaven fear, who subduest all angry gods; mighty above all rulers, who holdest the reins of kings. Opener of the womb of all women, great is thy light. Shining light of heaven, light of the world, enlightener of all the places where men dwell, who gatherest together the hosts of the nations. Goddess of men, divinity of women, thy counsel passeth understanding. Where thou glances the dead come to life, and the sick rise and walk; and the mind that is distressed is healed when it looks upon thy face. How long, O Lady shall mine enemy triumph over me? Command and at thy command the angry god will turn back. Ishtar is great! Ishtar is Queen! My Lady exalted, my Lady is Queen.48
In stunning similarity with Her earlier
Sumerian counterpart Inanna, Ishtar had to journey to the underworld to rescue Her son/lover Tammuz, as Inanna retrieved her son/lover Damuzi. Her absence caused temporary sterility and suspension of sexual activities everywhere on earth among humans and animals alike! The descent into the underworld was a dangerous but vital part of the sacred drama of the Mystery. It lasted three days, culminating in the Day of Joy when Tammuz was restored to life. New Years Day each spring was the sacred union of the Goddess and Tammuz on Her bed in Her Temple.
Ishtar had a dark twin sister also, named Eresh-kigal, the Death Goddess. In this way, the people were taught to understand the many facets of reality, not so straight-forward as “yes and no” nor as easy as “black or white.” These double aspects were still the one Goddess, but many sided, more complex, and requiring greater depth of contemplation.
The Goddess Ishtar had eunuch priests in Her service. These men were castrated voluntarily, a practice called self-emasculation, practiced in honor of serving Ishtar, perhaps so they (the eunuchs) were able to live in close contact with the Goddess priestesses and not be confused with Tammuz!
This is the one area where sacred sexuality seems to have been consciously omitted from human interaction between Goddess women and community males. There was a law which stated that ordinary men were not permitted to have sex with other women if they had sacred union with one of the High Priestesses. However, sacred union with the Temple holy women who were not Priestess was encouraged, and carried with it no future prohibitions.
In later years, bulls were sacrificed and the blood spilled or poured over the land, instead of a human male shedding his blood. However, the animal was castrated and the testicles given to the Goddess on Her altar. This was practiced every year in the Temple of Jerusalem, among other places. Then as the Virgin aspect of the Goddess, Priestesses called Mari, Mari-Anna or Miriam, with the holy women of the Goddess waited to mourn the death of Tammuz.
ANATOLIA – Turkey
Daughters of the Inquisition Page 10