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On the footsteps of Lajja Gauri in the ancient kingdoms of the Near East.

During the Uruk period (4500-3100 bc), the influence of the Mesopotamian civilization spreads in the various cultures developed in the Near East and Caspian sea area : From Anatolia to the Nile valley, from the Caspian sea to the Balutchistan plateau, from the Persian gulf to the Mediterranean shores and islands. The Civilization of the goddess brings together the various settlements in the worship of the Great mother. At Uruk, the fertility cult is existant. The worshippers venerate the goddess of love : Inanna, daughter of the moon god Nanna and the great lady Ningal.

Uruk trough.3300-3000 bc.Bristish museum. Inannas token : a bundle of reeds.

Uruk alabaster.

At Ur, the Fertility cult becomes dominant from 3100 bc. to Sargon of Akkads reign, in 2270 bc., who extends an empire on all the Near East with Akkad for capital. Inanna becomes Ishtar with the Akkadians, venerated by the daughter of Sargon the Great, Enheduanna, great priestess of the Fertility cult, whose hymns are the exaltation of love and intercourse.
Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature .

The prostitution temples devoted to the goddess Inanna, are animated by the priestesses who manage the religious rites. The female sex, source of the life, is worshipped with an obsessional veneration as bear witness the artistic representations of the period. The pubic area is represented out of proportion and until the pots, looking like the female body, are decorated with female sex and handles figuring the breasts.

Terracotas from Larsa. Late 3 mill.-early 2 mill.bc.

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The sexual intercourse is divine and the gods are represented in sacred marriage (note 1). What is now pornographic representations are sacred decorations for the ritual practices in the fertility cult temples.

Sacred marriage of Nanna and Ningal. Sacred marriage.Tello.early 2 mill.bc. Ur. 1940-1700 bc. Larsa excavations. Louvre museum. Sir Leonard Woolley. Ur excavations.

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. . Seal impression.Ur excavations.vol III .Leon Legrain 1936.

The Sumerian Inanna/Akkadian Ishtar is represented nude to symbolize the beauty of the female body and the great priestress of Love and Fertility, in passive and hieratic attitude.

Ishtar from Larsa grave.

Clay figurine fromSusa

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