Ishtar (properly pronounced as Easter) Also known as Inanna by the Sumerians. Mother Goddess. Akkadian Queen of Heaven. Goddess of Love and War. Daughter or Granddaughter of Enki, God of Wisdom. Sister of Ereshkigal, Goddess of the Underworld. Consort of Tammuz, the dying and reborn God of Harvest. I have already written a lot of Ishtar so what I will say here is my favorite theme: that all the major western religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam owe much of their fundamental beliefs to the stories of the Akkadian/Sumerian Goddess Ishtar/Inanna. These stories were originally recorded some 5000 years B.P. For instance the story of the resurrection of Christ is based firmly in the story of Ishtar in the underworld where she goes to rescue her husband the Grain God Tammuz, who was killed by a boar. The death of Tammuz and his resurrection by Ishtar set the foundation for all western based resurrection stories. Even her name was taken, for Ishtar is not properly pronounced Ish-tar but rather it is Eas-ter. The original pronunciation has been masked by Christian theists to hide the true origins of the story. Similarly, the story of the Biblical Flood is a revision of an Ishtar Legend. It was taken from a Babylonian moon Goddess, Nuah, a form of Ishtar, whose masculinized name is an obvious root of Noah. In Nuah's story there is no particular reason given for the flood, but it is the Goddess herself who built the ark in anticipation of the flood. It is interesting that there is archeological finds of an ancient great flood around the Red Sea. Perhaps the original telling of the flood was simply an historical account, with no moralistic reasoning to justify it. Anyways I hope you will forgive a reposting of Ishtar so soon. I dedicate this to RodS who said he was using the three Goddess wallpapers as screen savers. I noted that after seeing how well Erishkigal turned out I wanted to make Ishtar look more real and Mesopotamian. I wanted her to show her personality, like Ereshkigal and Ninshubar. So here I gave Ishtar a stronger nose; lightened her eyes for dramatic effect and to give them much more structural detail to match the other two Goddesses. I also fixed her hair. Like the other two, I also now gave her a distinctive prop. The previous version I think looks more like someone's kid sister who is merely watching events unfold. Here Ishtar looks like a grown woman and one who is actively engaged in events. She could pass for many of the beautiful women I have met in my travels in Turkey. The background is to show her as Queen of Heaven. Fittingly, New Years is the day of the Festival of Ishtar.