Queen of Heaven (antiquity)

Queen of Heaven was a title given to a number of ancient sky goddesses worshipped throughout the ancient Mediterranean and the ancient Near East. Goddesses known to have been referred to by the title include Inanna, Anat, Isis, Nut, Astarte, and possibly Asherah (by the prophet Jeremiah). In Greco-Roman times, Hera and Juno bore this title. Forms and content of worship varied.

Inanna[]

Ancient Akkadian cylinder seal depicting the goddess Inanna resting her foot on the back of a lion while Ninshubur stands in front of her paying obeisance, c. 2334-2154 BC

Inanna was the Sumerian goddess of love and war. Despite her association with mating and fertility of humans and animals, Inanna was not a mother goddess and is rarely associated with childbirth.^[1] Inanna was also associated with rain and storms and with the planet Venus.^[2] The Venus tablet of Ammisaduqa, believed to have been compiled around the mid-seventeenth century BCE,^[3] referred to the planet Venus in the tablet as the "bright queen of the sky" or "bright Queen of Heaven".^{[4][5][6][7][8][9]}

Although the title of Queen of Heaven was often applied to many different goddesses throughout antiquity, Inanna is the one to whom the title is given the most number of times. In fact, Inanna's name is commonly derived from Nin-anna which literally means "Queen of Heaven" in ancient Sumerian (It comes from the words NIN meaning "lady" and AN meaning "sky"),^[10] although the cuneiform sign for her name (Borger 2003 nr. 153, U+12239