This book is a treasure. Poetry and myth from ancient Sumer, inspiring and beautiful. ( )

"Inanna" is a decent book but one that ultimately suffers from not knowing what it wants to be, wavering between history text and Z. Budapest-ish women's spirituality book. The bulk of the book is comprised of Wolkstein's "retelling" of her Sumerologist friend's translations of the ancient hymns and texts of the goddess Inanna. She states that she's rewritten these texts to be more listener- and reader-friendly; this apparently mainly consisted of removing the repetitive passages. Unfortunately, this also has the unintended consequence of removing the ambiance of the stories, which feel rather stripped due to this treatment so that I found myself wishing that the repetitious passages had been left intact. The second half of "Inanna" contains a brief history of Sumerian civilization and an academic history of the Inanna texts. It's well-written, but teasingly brief. The saving grace of the volume is its copious black and white photographs of Sumerian votive tablets, seal scripts, and texts. They've all been carefully selected to match scenes from the hymns and stories, and are provided with detailed explanations as to their provenance and what they are meant to depict. My end verdict is that while this book will not wholly satisfy someone looking for a retelling of Inanna's story or offer much new material to a hardcore historian, it's a good general introduction to both.

This is the first modern and poetic rendering of the Queen of Heaven materials recovered from 400 cuneiform lines on the clay tablets excavated from Nippur, Sumer's center. [127] Many have contributed to the deciphering. [201] Half of the book is Commentary by Samuel Noah Kramer.
Remarkably, the work is illustrated with photographic reproductions of contemporary artifacts and decoration.
"She called to her bridegroom: 'The bed is waiting!' He put his hand in her hand. He put his hand to her heart. Sweet is the sleep of hand-to-hand. Sweeter still the sleep of heart-to-heart." [42] Inanna, known as Lillith, the first wife of Adam in Hebrew mythology, was quite a love. When she wasn't coming back from the Dead! [67]
Make a mental note -- this is a Great poem to read aloud and terrify small children!

This was the most enjoyable book I've read concerning Ancient Mesopotamian myth and religion. With the assistance of Samuel Noah Kramer, Ms. Wolkstein (a translator and folklorist) has translated, pieced together, and rendered into modern English the myth-cycle of Inanna/Ishtar, the Mesopotamian goddess of fertility and love. These are beautifully rendered and without the gaps and translation notations of most of the translations of these Mesopotamian stories, myths, and hymns. If you are looking for a representation of Mesopotamian myth in a readable format, without all those intrusive translation notes and gaps in the text, this is a very good one.
What really made the book so enjoyable and enlightening to me were the additional essays after the Inanna myths. Wolkstein analyzes and interprets each story one by one - it is an analysis of the literature and poetry, but also of the history and archaeology of the works. I read all of the poems/stories straight through, then read them again one by one, followed by Wolkstein's analysis. That section is followed by Annotations of the Art, a plate by plate explanation of each of the photographs of ancient artifacts that accompany each story.
There are also two great essays by Samuel Noah Kramer, perhaps the most famous Assyriologist, and author of many notable books like History Begins at Sumer, From the Poetry of Sumer, and Sumerian Mythology. One is an excellent essay on the history of Sumer and its literature and culture. This is only 12 pages long, but was worth the price of the book all on its own. I think this essay is a compact summary of his book, The Sumerians: Their History, Culture, and Character (I have it, but haven't read it yet). Finally, there is his essay on the Discovery and Decipherment of The Descent of Inanna myth, also an interesting and enlightening read, especially for those interested in archaeology and language, or the decipherment of ancient texts. The cuneiform tablets that these ancient works of literature were "written" on were dug up (in many cases) 70 to 160 years ago. They were fragmented and not considered that important at first, and the fragments ended up scattered across the world in several museums or universities, or worse yet, in the hands of private collectors. It has only been the last 50 years that the scattered fragments of some of the Mesopotamian myths, epics, hymns, etc. have been pieced together, translated, and published. Its an inspiring and fascinating story, and here is Samuel Noah Kramer explaining it better than anyone, because he was one of a small number of people who did much of that work.
The stories of Inanna in this book are The Huluppu-Tree, Inanna and the God of Wisdom, The Courtship of Inanna and Dumuzi, and The Descent of Inanna (From the Great Above to the Great Below, The Dream of Dumuzi, and The Return). The seven hymns are known as the Iddin-Dagan Hymns - The Holy Priestess of Heaven, Loud Thundering Storm, The Holy One, The Lady of the Evening, The Lady of the Morning, The Lady Who Ascends into the Heavens, The Joy of Sumer: The Sacred Marriage Rite. ( )