Moving Inland
     Inanna's Mythology
Inanna's Descent
The Huluppu Tree
     Temple Life
     Sacred to Profane Marriage

Ongoing Research


All photos, maps and other images can be clicked on to take you to the site where we found the image. If you own the copyright to any such image and do not want us to publicise it for you in this way, please contact the webmaster and it will be removed.

  The Devolution of the Goddess


Inanna’s Mythology | The Huluppu Tree

Review "Inanna and the Huluppu Tree"

Queen of Heaven
Queen of Heaven, Earth, and the Underworld, almost certainly the Goddess Inanna/Ishtar. Terracotta relief. Dated around 2000 B.C.E.
© S. Beaulieu, after Neumann Plate 126.
Inanna, Gilgamesh and the Huluppu Tree A translation of the Huluppu Tree story by Diane Wolkstein & Samuel Noah Kramer exists online.
Read the translation.


"As a result of her control of fecundity and her centrality in the "Sacred Marriage," Inanna kept her high standing among the Sumerian deities even as society increased in male-dominance (Wakeman 1985: 8). The poem "Inanna and the Huluppu Tree" gives a mythic explanation of how the throne and the bed used in the "Sacred Marriage" came into existence and, in the process, records a drastic demotion in Inanna's status."
~ from "Inanna and the Huluppu Tree": One Way of Demoting a Great Goddess" by Johanna Stuckey, MatriFocus 2005.
Read the Article...