Childlike Goddess
The Derivation of Toy and Game Imagery in “The Elevation of Ištar
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 3958522 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Shane M Thompson (0000-0003-3229-515X, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2024 |
| Volume | 144 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Publication date | 2024-06-16 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of the American Oriental Society (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0003-0279 • E-ISSN: 2169-2289 |
| Publisher | American Oriental Society (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.7817/jaos.144.2.2024.ar015 |
| OpenAlex | W4399717579 |
| Language | EN |
This article examines the derivation of toy and game imagery in "The Elevation of Ištar." I argue that the presence of these metaphors in a first-millennium text represents a late stage in the development of Ištar's characterization as a childlike goddess. Tracing this development from Sumerian mythological and lexical texts into the Sumero-Akkadian and Akkadian traditions reveals Inanna/Ištar's well-known attribute of violent rage in a different manner. This suggests that the characterization of the goddess as childlike existed over a significant period of Mesopotamian history as shown by the inclusion of toy and game language in a variety of texts
Akkadian · Art · Literature · Mythology · Sumerian · tar (computing) · Variety (cybernetics) · Ancient Near East History · Families in Therapy and Culture · History · Linguistics and language evolution · Mathematics
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |