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Sacred to Profane Marriage
Review "Sacred to Profane Marriage".
"Possibly, then, the "Sacred Marriage" rite was not originally concerned with king-making at all, but rather with "goddess-making"; perhaps it was a ritual for, as it were, "activating," making fertile a "Goddess on Earth." To that end, the ceremony entailed ritual mating between the entu-designate and, say, a temple priest, since, for the Mesopotamians, fertility on earth, as in heaven, resulted from the union of male and female.
Couple on terracotta bed, perhaps representing the "Sacred Marriage." Object could have been bought at the festival. Mesopotamia 3rd. millennium BCE.
© S. Beaulieu, after Teubal 1983: 117. |
The ritual would, I theorize, have confirmed the priestess as Inanna — permanently — and, for a short time, the priest would have incarnated a divine lover. However, to have embodied a deity, if only temporarily, would have set him apart: for a time he had been a god!
At some point, one priest might have seen the advantage of continuing to incarnate the goddess's lover, of using the role's charisma to achieve power in the community."
~ "Inanna and the "Sacred Marriage", by Johanna Stuckey. Read the article...
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