Hail to the Queen of Heaven!
Ancient Ones of the Old Ways – Inanna – Goddess of Lust, Sex and War
Inanna is the most important Goddess of the Sumerian pantheon in ancient Mesopotamia.
Although she is called the Goddess of love, Inanna is really the goddess of lust. She is not associated with romance, marriage, fertility or child bearing.
She is so extreme in her emotions, so psychotic in her desires, and so relentless in getting what she wants, she thus symbolizes the violence of human passion. This is why she is also represents the destruction and carnage of war.
Inanna figures prominently in various myths, such as ‘Inanna’s descent to the underworld’. In this particular myth she travels to the realm of the dead and claims its ruling.
However, her sister Ereshkigal, who rules the place, sentences her to death. With Inanna’s death, however, nature died with her and nothing would grow anymore. Through the intervention of the God Enki she could be reborn if another person took her place. She chooses her beloved consort Dumuzi, who would from then on rule the underworld every half year.
Inanna is regarded as a daughter of the sky-god An, but also of the moon-god Nanna. A variation of her name is Ninnanna, which means ‘queen of the sky’. She is also called Ninsianna as the personification of the planet Venus.
Inanna is portrayed as a fickle Deity who first attracts men and then rejects them. She is depicted as richly dressed goddess or as a naked woman.
Her symbol is the eight-pointed star. Important sanctuaries of Inanna were in Uruk, Zabalam, and Babylon. The Akkadians called her Ishtar (Ištar).
The young Inanna/Ištar of Sumerian poetry, who says “Plough my vulva, man of my heart” is no less desirous than the Inanna/Ištar portrayed in Gilgameš: “Let us enjoy your strength, so put your hand and touch our vulva!”
Inanna/Ištar was also the patron goddess of prostitutes.
Inanna/Ištar is equally fond of making war as she is of making love: “Battle is a feast to her”. The warlike aspect of the goddess tends to be expressed in politically charged contexts in which the Goddess is praised in connection with royal power and military might.
Sources: http://www.pantheon.org/articles/i/inanna.html
http://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/amgg/listofdeities/inanaitar/
http://sumerianshakespeare.com/106901.html
Image: http://hekateslady.wordpress.com/2013/04/29/inanna/
~ Courtesy of “The Blyssful Witch: Dark Paganism and the Occult” Facebook group
Sable Aradia, Priestess & Witch 
Do you subscribe to the theory that Inanna/Ishtar is the forerunner of Aphrodite? That the Sumerian myths traveled along trade routes to the Mediterranean and came up out of the sea to be revealed as their own goddess of love and lust, passion, creation and violence? I think the theory makes a tremendous amount of sense, myself, and I wonder what others think of it.
Yes, I do. The etymology of the names is convincing in and of itself. Inanna becomes Ishtar; who becomes Astarte to the Canaanites and Isis to the Egyptians; Astarte becomes Aphrodite to the Cyprians and then the Greeks, and becomes Oester to the Germanic peoples; Aphrodite’s tales are integrated into those of Venus for the Romans (and keep in mind that the Morning and Evening Star – the planet Venus – were associated with Inanna first); and the Queen of Heaven is integrated into the legends of Mary through the Mystery cults of the Black Madonna (Isis) when the Byzantine church is founded, probably through the Gnostics and their beliefs of Mary Magdelene, which filters over to the Catholics whether they wanted it to or not. Religions, I think, are just like any other ideas; they don’t pop out of the ether, they evolve out of existing ideas. So I agree with you!