This is one of my favorite artifacts in the BM. It has been dubbed, "The Queen of the Night." I'm not really sure why, no one knows what it is. I think that perhaps it is similar to the bird creatures that constantly drink people's blood in the afterlife. In the Sumerian afterlife, everyone goes to hell where they are forced to eat dirt for eternity and be attacked by such creatures.

However, one theory is much more interesting. It has been suggested that she is actually the Sumerian version of Ishtar (called Inanna by them), the Akkadian (ancient Semites) goddess of love. The Akkadians (and the Neo Babylonians and Assyrians after them) apparently adopted the Sumerian gods much as the Romans adopted the Greek ones. This forms the basis of Kramer's idea that Western Civ started at Sumer (I really should read his book someday).

I kind of like the idea that she is Ishtar. Aphrodite/Venus is all softness and pleasure, this goddess has the darts of Eros embedded in her very nature. The Sumerian face of love is ready to rend the flesh of all who approach her. She is more like a harpy, chasing after men and tormenting all who are weak enough to look upon her. It certainly fits in with the Mesopotamian worldview

According to their stories, Ishtar descended into the underworld. At each of the seven gates of Hell, she was forced to remove some of her clothing. But in this story, love doesn't conquer death. The Queen of Hell, Ereshkigal, gives her the death stare and puts her on a meat hook. Unfortunately, the Promethian god Enki (who saved mankind from the deluge in this mythology) decides that mankind also needs love, and summons Ishtar back. It wouldn't be Mesopotamia if someone didn't have to propitiate death, and so Ishtar has to find a replacement.

So she goes to Tammuz (yeah the same guy mentioned in the Bible... I'm not sure about the Koran, but the Arabic month is named after him) the king, and reveals herself to him. Unable to resist he is totally taken in by her. And then she unleashes the demons of hell on him and they drag him down to hell.

THIS could be the Queen of the Night... not nights of sensuality... night of inescapable darkness... and there she is, revealing herself with her demons ready to pull him clawing and screaming into perdition.

The picture doesn't really do it justice; you have to go see it for yourself. It is just a small terracotta plaque, but it is impossible not to gaze it, both in admiration and revulsion.

??/??/? 0rz