The Mesopotamian Temple of Ištar in Aššur

by P. Browne, A. Sollee and C. Tsouparopoulou

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The goddess Ištar (Sumerian Inana) is one of the most complex deities in the Mesopotamian pantheon (Figure 1). She is considered the goddess of love and sex, but also of warfare. Her main city was Uruk in Southern Mesopotamia, albeit she became a very important national deity in the Assyrian pantheon, especially in the 1st millennium BCE (Heffron 2016).

Figure 1: Baked clay figurine of Ištar, possibly from the site of Tell Asmar, dating to the Isin-Larsa period, early 2nd millennium BCE (the Louvre Museum, AO 12456).

The Sumerian goddess Inana was worshipped in several temples around Mesopotamia, with the most famous ones being at Uruk and Nippur. The Semitic/Assyrian Ištar, who it is now believed was originally an independent goddess and only later became identified with the Sumerian Inana (Abusch 2000), was also worshipped in a number of Central and Northern Mesopotamian sanctuaries, with the most famous being those at Nineveh, Aššur, and Arbela (Wilcke 1976-80; George 1993). Ištar is attested in Aššur since the 3rd millennium BCE (Ititi-inscription, RIMA 1, A.0.1001.1), but it needs to be pointed out that several forms of Ištar were revered in Aššur, with Ištar-Aššurītu, a local representation of Ištar, being the most prominent. Ištar-Aššurītu is particularly well attested from the 2nd millennium BCE onwards and was generally perceived to be very similar to the general Ištar, but may have been associated with specific traits of her character (Meinhold 2009: 115). Other forms of Ištar venerated in Aššur were Belat-ekallim, Šarrat-niphi, and Ištar of Nineveh (Meinhold 2009).

The City of Aššur

The ancient city of Aššur (modern name Qalat Sherqat) is located 110 km south of Mosul, on a bank of the Tigris river in Northern Iraq (35°28′ N, 43°14′ E) (Figure 2). Austen Henry Layard, the British archaeologist famous for his excavations at the sites of Nineveh and Kalhu, was aware of the site of Qalat Sherqat in the mid-1800s, as was his Iraqi-Assyrian colleague Hormuzd Rassam (Harper et al. 1995: 17). Following limited exploration of the site by German archaeologists at the end of the century, Friedrich Delitzsch began digging in 1900. However, the main excavations at Aššur took place between 1903 and 1914, initially led by German archaeologist Robert Koldewey, and then by Walter Andrae (Andrae 1922; 1977²).

Figure 2. The site of Qalat Sherqat (UNESCO; Véronique Dauge, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO, via Wikimedia Commons).

During this time, Andrae was able to discern the overall layout of the city with its principal structures, including the Ištar temple complex located in the ‘Inner City’ area (Figure 3). Although a long period of inactivity at the site followed, Iraqi teams under the auspices of the State Board of Antiquities and Heritage continued excavating at the site during the 1970s and 1980s. A new German excavation began in 1989 directed by Barthel Hrouda and then by Reinhard Dittmann in 1989-1990, yet this work came to a halt due to the political situation (Harper et al. 1995: 20; Dittmann 1990; Hrouda 1991). An Iraqi team directed by Hafidt al-Hayani under the supervision of the Department for Antiquities and Heritage continued excavating at Aššur in 1999 and 2000 (al-Hayani 2000), while Peter Miglus led renewed excavations at the site in 2000 and 2001 (Miglus 2000; 2002; see also Miglus 2006-2008 for a general overview of excavations at Aššur). Starting in 1997, several studies aimed at making unpublished data available and re-assessing the development of the site were conducted in the scope of the Assur-Project, headed by Johannes Renger and carried out by the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft) and the German Oriental Society (Deutsche Orient-Gesellschaft). In 2003, Aššur was added to UNESCO’s List of World Heritage in Danger.

Thanks to the work of many scholars, the development of Aššur is well understood (for a concise summary, see Miglus 2006-2008). The settlement was established some time during the first half of the 3rd millennium BCE and grew to become an important town, which was mostly governed by local rulers and succeeded in establishing highly profitable trade relations with central Anatolia during the Old Assyrian period (also referred to as the ‘kārum’ period). Around 1500 BCE, the otherwise fairly unknown ruler Puzur-Aššur III expanded the size of the city considerably by adding the so-called ‘Southern’ or ‘New Town’, located south of the ‘Old’ or ‘Inner Town’ (Figure 3; see Miglus 2010). With the beginning of the Middle Assyrian period (c. 14th-11th centuries BCE), Aššur acquired a new status as it now represented both the cultural and political capital of a large territorial state. This development is also manifested in the foundation or renovation of many monumental buildings located along the city’s northern edge by rulers such as Shalmaneser I, Tukulti-Ninurta I, and Tiglath-Pileser I. From this point on, the settlement was intrinsically connected to the Assyrian state. The temple of the city god Aššur, located at the northeastern tip of the settlement (cf. Haller and Andrae 1955; Gries 2017), served as Assyria’s main sanctuary and ideological axis connecting the various spheres of existence (Maul 1997). The city of Aššur maintained this status until the beginning of the Neo-Assyrian period (934-612 BCE), when Aššurnaṣirpal II (r. 883-859 BCE) moved the political centre northwards to the city of Kalhu. The city did not lose its status as the empire’s religious and cultural centre and the Assyrian kings continued to build and maintain resplendent buildings there. In 614 BCE, Aššur was sacked and destroyed by Babylonian-Median coalition forces in the course of their military campaign that sealed the fate of the Assyrian state. Following this event, Aššur remained occupied and even flourished again under Parthian rule, but it never regained its previous status.

Figure 3: Plan of the city of Aššur showing the position of the Ištar temples in orange
(modified from Sollee 2020: Fig. 7; original plan: Andrae 1913: Pls. 2-4).

A webmap version of the plan of the Ištar-Temples is available at the following link https://www2.arch.cam.ac.uk/projects/ct272/qgis2web/

The Ištar temples at Aššur

The Ištar temples at Aššur represent a lengthy building sequence of various sanctuaries, some of which are known to have been dedicated to the goddess Ištar. Andrae described and evaluated this archaeological complex in two volumes (Andrae 1922; 1935), in which he distinguished between the younger (Middle to Neo Assyrian, i.e. mid-2nd and 1st millennia BCE) and older or ‘archaic’ (Early Dynastic to early Middle Assyrian, i.e. mid-3rd to mid-2nd millennia BCE) temples. This distinction has also been maintained in more recent reassessments of the building’s stratigraphy (Bär 2003; Schmitt 2012).

The Archaic Temples

The first sanctuary (‘Temple H’), which is believed to have already been dedicated to Ištar due to the attestations associated with its later phases (for critical remarks on this, see Palmero Fernández 2019: 151-53), was founded on virgin soil probably not at the beginning of the 3rd millennium BCE, as Andrae had originally assumed, but during the late Early Dynastic period (ED III, c. 2500/2400 BCE; Bär 2003). Temple H consisted of the temple building as well as an adjoining area featuring a number of rooms and at least one large courtyard. The inner temple’s main element was the cella. It was arranged in a so-called bent-axis scheme, i.e. a rectangular room equipped at one of its small sides with a large niche (also referred to as an adyton), reserved for the placement of a representation of the deity to which the temple was dedicated, and a main entrance at the opposite end of one of the long sides. This architectural layout forced people entering the room to perform a 90° turn in order to view the cult idol. Additional side chambers, perhaps serving as storage areas or areas of non-ritual activities, surrounded the cella. This layout, which finds many parallels in Mesopotamian religious architecture, was also applied to all of the later stages of the Ištar temple - even those of the 1st millennium BCE, when Neo-Assyrian sanctuaries typically featured cellae that were entered through a gate in the centre of the small side located opposite of the adyton (so-called ‘long room’ temples; Heinrich 1982).

Sometime during the late Early Dynastic period, a new temple (‘G’) was founded upon the initial building. The plan of Temple G is very similar to that of its predecessor. More importantly, however, Temple G was destroyed by a fire, thanks to which many of the items that had stood in its cella were discovered in situ upon excavation. This does not only allow us to date this event to the late Early Dynastic to Akkadian period (24th-23rd centuries BCE), but it also presents a rare case providing a detailed picture of the items that were stored and/or exhibited in sanctuaries at that time. It includes statues of worshippers, incense burners, and stands, as well as stepped terracotta altars, all of which are believed to have served cultic and/or commemorative practices associated with the sanctuary (see below and Figure 5). Similar objects have been found in other contemporary sanctuaries that have been uncovered at many other sites in the region (e.g. Mari or Tutub), thus indicating cultural connections with other Mesopotamian communities.

Following the violent destruction of Temple G, the cause of which remains unclear, the temple was renovated several times (‘Temple GF’) before being completely reconstructed during the Ur III period at the end of the 3rd millennium BCE (Bär 2003). This new edifice, referred to as ‘Temple E’, was more monumental than its predecessors. While maintaining the general concept of a bent-axis temple with an adjacent courtyard, the actual sanctuary of Temple E was now set in place more prominently by elevating it over the courtyard, enlarging its dimensions, and adding more side chambers. Furthermore, the entrance to the cella was redesigned: instead of having to pass through a small room located between the courtyard and the main room of the sanctuary, visitors now ascended a monumental staircase that connected the courtyard and the cella directly and that was flanked by two tower-like projections. Still within the Old Assyrian period, at the beginning of the 2nd millennium BCE (20th-18th centuries BCE), Temple E was replaced by the even larger ‘Temple D’. Despite the poor state of preservation of its remains, Temple D is believed to have been even larger than Temple E and it must have remained in use over a considerable period of time. Inscriptions inform us that it was renovated repeatedly by various Assyrian rulers, including Puzur-Aššur III (c. 1500 BCE), Shalmaneser I (r. 1263-1234 BCE), and Adad-nerari I (r. 1295-1264 BCE). Andrae (1922) named these levels ‘Temples B and C’, respectively.

The Younger Temples

In the late 13th century BCE, Tukulti-Ninurta I (r. 1233-1197 BCE), allegedly following Ištar’s request (RIMA 1, A.0.78.11: 82-84; Meinhold 2009: 56), replaced the old Ištar temple with a new building (originally referred to as ‘Temple A’), thus marking a significant step in the sanctuary’s development. Tukulti-Ninurta I’s temple represents the best-preserved phase of the sanctuary (Andrae 1935; Schmitt 2012). A new site, located just south of the original edifice, was chosen for the temple, which still featured the bent-axis layout, but was rotated 90° clockwise in comparison to the older constructions. Also, the position of the adyton changed: people entering the cella, having passed through a large gate flanked by projecting towers as well as the rectangular vestibule, now had to turn right instead of left to view the adyton and the statue of the goddess that various fragments indicate may have been located there (Andrae 1977²: 156). The cella featured some remarkable installations: four pierced stones arranged in a square suggest that a canopy, supported by wooden poles, stood in the middle of the cella. The podium reserved for the representation of the goddess was located in the adyton and would have been approached via a monumental staircase. In addition to its monumental architectural appearance, Tukulti-Ninurta I’s Ištar temple also yielded significant amounts of dedicatory objects that were stored in the chambers located southwest of the cella (Rooms 5a, 5b, and 6) (see below). Many of these objects were uninscribed, so one can only speculate who dedicated them, while many of those that were inscribed were dedicated by Tukulti-Ninurta I himself, thus indicating a significant change compared to the practices exhibited by the Temple G assemblage, as the king now played a much more central role than he had during the 3rd millennium BCE.

The Ištar-Aššurītu temple constructed by Tukulti-Ninurta I featured another significant element: a second cella located in the western corner of the building. This second sanctuary, which is known to have been dedicated to the goddess Dinītu, a separate manifestation of Ištar (Meinhold 2009; Zsolnay 2009; see also Spencer 2015: 25), was accessible through a separate entrance flanked by projecting towers that were noticeably smaller than those located at the main temple’s entrance. The cella of the Dinītu-sanctuary also featured a bent-axis layout, but contrary to the main temple, the approach to the adyton was mirrored, i.e. visitors needed to turn left after entering, and there were no side-chambers adjoining the main room.

Remarkably, a new temple dedicated to Ištar-Aššurītu had already been founded by Aššur-reša-iši I (r. 1132-1115 BCE), who ruled approximately one century after Tukulti-Ninurta I. This new edifice was located just east of the site where the archaic Ištar temples had stood and was considerably smaller than the older structures. Its functional relation to Tukulti-Ninurta I’s temple remains an unresolved issue, but it is generally assumed that the two sanctuaries existed side by side for a considerable period of time before Tukulti-Ninurta I’s sanctuary was abandoned and covered by Neo-Assyrian houses sometime during the 9th or 8th centuries BCE (Miglus 1996: 128-139). From then onwards, Aššur-reša-iši I’s temple was the only Ištar sanctuary in the area, since Bär (2003: 73-75) convincingly demonstrated that the Šarrat-niphi temple Andrae had believed to have been founded by Shalmaneser III (r. 858-824 BCE) never existed. Instead, a shrine dedicated to Šarrat-niphi may have been located within the premises of the Ištar-Aššurītu temple (Meinhold 2009: 167-68; Schmitt 2012: 81). Despite its poor state of preservation, a number of objects found in the immediate surroundings of the remains of the sanctuary constructed by Aššur-reša-iši I are believed to have belonged to the sanctuary’s inventory (Schmitt 2012: 71-72). They date to various periods ranging from the late 3rd to late 2nd millennia BCE, hence indicating that antique commemorative objects were also stored in this temple. Contrary to Andrae’s proposal (1935; 1977²), scholars assume that Aššur-reša-iši I’s temple was not abandoned in the late 7th century BCE when Sîn‐šarru‐iškun (r. 626?-612 BCE) erected the adjoining Nabû-temple, but rather that it was maintained until the city of Aššur was sacked by the Medes in 614 BCE (Schmitt 2012: 99).

Object assemblages from the Ištar Temples

There are two particular themes of interest regarding object collections that stand out when examining the objects discovered in the Ištar Temple at Aššur: 1) which social groups had access to the various areas of the temple, and who was dedicating the objects discovered there; and 2) the display and storage of the objects, especially as some assemblages were concealed from view. These two themes form the basis for the discussion below, which focuses on Temple G (late Early Dynastic Period, mid-3rd millennium BCE) and Tukulti-Ninurta I’s temple (Middle Assyrian Period, mid-2nd millennium BCE).

The late Early Dynastic Temple G and the Middle Assyrian Tukulti-Ninurta I’s temple yielded large amounts of objects that inform us about dedicatory practices at Aššur during the late Early Dynastic/Akkadian and the Middle Assyrian Periods, respectively. The two assemblages may be viewed as representative for the respective periods, as their elements and compositions find many parallels across Mesopotamia. Furthermore, differences between the inventories indicate that the social dimensions of religious practices at Aššur changed significantly over the c. 1000 years that separate the two temples in question - despite an apparent continuity in overall religious views.

As mentioned above, the fire that destroyed Temple G resulted in the in situ preservation of many objects. This inspired Andrae to form a reconstruction of the layout of the Cult Room (Fig. 4), although objects from both levels H, G and GF are represented in the image and scholars have critiqued its accuracy (see Palmero Fernández 2019: 226, especially the caption of Fig 7.5; 230-31). Notably, Jürgen Bär (2003: 96) has demonstrated that the votive statues were most certainly not arranged on the benches along the room’s interior walls, but probably stood facing the adyton. Nevertheless, the collection of finds preserved in the Cult Room and its environs have allowed scholars to investigate not only the display and storage of the ritual objects within (for a detailed discussion see Evans 2012: 81-88), but also related socio-political questions.

Figure 4. Hypothetical reconstruction of the Cult Room in the Ištar Temple, level G
(Andrae 1922: Pl. IIA).

In general, the range of items kept in Temple G finds many parallels across Mesopotamia (a detailed catalogue on the objects is provided in Bär 2003). In particular, the votive statues depicting devotees in a praying position (seated or standing) are common in late Early Dynastic temples and have been found at sites from southern Iraq to Northeast Syria. Such statues were dedicated by rulers and wealthy private persons alike, as attested by inscriptions engraved on some of these statues. Similar to other sites, the sculptures discovered in Aššur are believed to have been produced by a local workshop, as their style is unique. Further objects typical for mid-3rd millennium BCE sacred contexts in Mesopotamia are smaller figurines, stone vessels, tall decorated stands, and stepped altars, which have often been termed “house models” (on this point, see Bär 2003: 239). Due to their size and the skilled craftsmanship that their production is assumed to have required, some scholars have proposed that most of the objects were dedicated by members of the social elite. Palmero Fernández suggests that as the construction of new temples became prevalent in the Early Dynastic Period alongside socio-political developments, the types of objects appearing in these sacred spaces reflect the religious and ritual practices crystallizing at the time (2019: 61). She further notes that the objects were made either from materials that were not produced or available locally, or from a mixture of locally and externally sourced materials. Van De Mieroop connects such ‘luxury’ items with the rise of an elite in the Early Dynastic Period (2002). J. Evans takes a different stance, arguing that social status was not communicated through the craftsmanship and materiality of the sculptures, but by the fact that the donors were allowed to set them up in the temple, thus indicating privileged access to the temple (2012: 130). In either case, the commemorative objects that were put on display in Temple G strongly suggest that at that time, the city of Aššur had already established itself as a local political entity whose members had fully adopted Mesopotamian religious practices and where a social elite with access to the temple had already emerged and consolidated itself. It is furthermore worth noting that more than half of the anthropomorphic statues discovered in Temple G represent women. This is not unusual: similar situations have been observed at Nippur, Girsu, and Mari (Highcock/Tsouparopoulou 2020: 190). Therefore, women did not only have access to the temple; they also participated in the dedicatory practices that took place there.

The assemblage of objects discovered in Tukulti Ninurta I’s temple (for a comprehensive catalogue, see Schmitt 2012) differs greatly from that of Temple G, indicating significant changes in religious practices. Concerning the spatial distribution of objects, it may be noted that in this temple most of the dedicatory objects were stored in two side chambers and not the cella. A plethora of objects was found in Rooms 5a, 5b, and 6, including human and animal statuettes, vessels, plates, beads, rosettes, shells, cylinder seals, and figurines depicting human genitals (Andrae 1935; Schmitt 2012: 33-46, 67-68). The most prominent artefacts found here were the stone podia, one of which featured an image showing the King Tukulti-Ninurta I twice - standing and kneeling - in front of an altar, carrying a stylus, the symbol of the god of writing, Nabû (Fig. 5). Remains of food sacrifices and dedicatory objects discovered in the immediate vicinity of these podia suggest that these were related and used in ritual acts. It is also fair to assume that rituals were carried out during their placement in the room, as they were found to have been erected upon accumulations of small artefacts (‘Streugaben’) serving as foundation deposits (Andrae 1935; 1977²). Interestingly, these rooms were later sealed and thus made inaccessible while the temple was still in use, and it is believed that they served to store elements of the temple’s inventory that were no longer needed (Andrae 1977; Schmitt 2012).

Figure 5. Podium of Tukulti-Ninurta I (Harpur et al. 1995: Pl. 14, catalogue no. 75).

It must be kept in mind, however, that the Middle Assyrian assemblage was not an active one. It represents objects deliberately deposited in sealed-off sections of the building, i.e. they were no longer required in religious activities. On the other hand, the artefacts from Temple G were still in use when the sanctuary was destroyed. On the other hand, the practice of removing items from the active temple and storing them in a specific area with no intention of accessing them again is a new feature of the Middle Assyrian temple compared to its predecessors. This indicates a growing significance of ‘hidden’ items in Mesopotamian religion, which is also evidenced by the rising number of building inscriptions installed in the Ištar Temple. Most of them would not have been visible while the temple was still in use, as they were laid into the sanctuary’s foundations or walls. Tukulti-Ninurta commissioned a great number of objects carrying variations of the inscription commemorating his achievement of erecting the new temple (RIMA 1, A.0.78.11). Many of them were found on the elements that made up the podium located in the adyton. This impressive feature, upon which a cult idol may have stood, consisted of multiple parts: alternating rows made of lead and stone blocks with small gold and silver tablets in between were emplaced successively in a sequence of steps accompanied by various rituals (Andrae 1977²: 160). The practice of depositing inscriptions directed at the gods as well as future generations had become a central element of the temple building process since the Early Dynastic Period, and was employed to immortalize the ruler by eternally associating his name with a monumental building such as the Ištar temple - a process that also transformed a sanctuary into a votive object dedicated to a deity (cf. Radner 2005: 134-36, 141). Connected to this, the issue of establishing a connection to the past appears to have become of particular importance. Such practices are common and often serve to contribute to efforts to form social identities and to legitimize rulers (Assmann 2018: 70-71). The Middle Assyrian temple’s inventory in fact included a number of items that already represented antiquities during the Middle Assyrian Period, such as the votive plaques of Ititi and Zarriqum (Schmitt 2012: 45, 109). Moreover, a large stone statue from the late 3rd or very early 2nd millennium BCE was put on display in a small room adjoining the temple’s main entrance. Further, Tukulti-Ninurta I salvaged older documents, such as the five stone tablets carrying building inscriptions by Adad-nerari I (RIMA 1, A.0.76.15), which he installed in a capsule built into the wall behind the podium in the adyton (Andrae 1977: 160). Additionally, a stone tablet of Shalmaneser I, also featuring a building inscription relating to the Ištar temple, was found in Room 7; although its archaeological context is uncertain, this too might have originally been deposited in the masonry of the temple (Schmitt 2012: 67).

Furthermore, the Middle Assyrian assemblage shows that different kinds of objects were now presented to the gods. Looking at the objects discovered especially in room 5b, we notice that instead of fairly large statues and stands, many people now dedicated smaller items such as miniature figurines made of lead or ‘Quarzkeramik’ (faience) pottery, only a very few of which were inscribed. This may indicate that larger segments of society now dedicated items in the temple, which may be connected to the decline in control of access to the divine that temples had in Mesopotamian society after the Early Dynastic Period (cf. Evans 2012: 119-120 with references). However, since the vast majority of objects were not inscribed, it is impossible to prove this hypothesis as it cannot be said who the devotees were. It must also be kept in mind that there is only very little information concerning the details of how common people were involved in ritual activities performed in large temples at that time. Access to the inner parts of the temple may well have been restricted, with priests possibly acting as mediators, taking the dedications from the people and presenting them to the relevant deities in their stead, thus adding these objects to the temple inventory.

The Ištar Temples are an excellent example of how Mesopotamian sanctuaries developed over several centuries and their study provides important insights into how commemorative and ritual practices changed over time and reflected social developments like privileges of access. Today, the two major stages of the Ištar Temples that were uncovered by Walther Andrae and his team at the beginning of the 20th century can be compared side by side in the Vorderasiatisches Museum Berlin, where objects from ‘Temple G’ and Tukultī-Ninurta I’s temple are displayed alongside each other in the museum’s permanent exhibition.

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