Pryke Louise M. Ishtar

London: Routledge, 2017. — 240 p., 17 b/w illus. — (Gods and Heroes of the Ancient World series).“Ishtar is, without doubt, one of the most complex and baffling of the many gods of antiquity. Yet Louise Pryke has achieved something quite remarkable here in synthesising the multivalence of the goddess’s deeds and personas into a coherent and manageable whole. Full of good sense, yet written with flair, this study of the goddess of all goddesses is an important and infinitely useful contribution to the study of ancient myth and religion. The many sources in translation bring alive the world of Mesopotamian thought and forefront Ishtar as the most supreme of deities.”
Professor Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones, Chair of Ancient History, Cardiff University, UKIshtar is the first book dedicated to providing an accessible analysis of the mythology and image of this complex goddess. The polarity of her nature is reflected in her role as goddess of sexual love and war, and has made her difficult to characterise in modern scholarship. By exploring this complexity, Ishtar offers insight into Mesopotamian culture and thought, and elucidates a goddess who transcended the limits of gender, divinity and nature. It gives an accessible introduction to the Near Eastern pantheon, while also opening up a pathway for comparison with the later Near Eastern and Mediterranean deities who followed her.Louise M. Pryke is a lecturer in Macquarie University’s Ancient History Department. She holds a Ph.D. in Ancient Near Eastern History from the University of Sydney, where she is a Research Associate.