ISHTAR or ISTAR, the name of the chief goddess of Baby lonia and Assyria, the counterpart of the Phoenician Astarte (q.v.). The earliest written form of the name is Asli-dar, an Accadian rendering of the older Sumerian Innini, "Lady of Hea ven." Ishtar was the Semitic deity identified with the Sumerian virgin mother-goddess, who was always associated with the planet Venus. For this reason Ashdar, Ishtar, is undoubtedly the same deity as the. south Arabian Athtar, god of the planet Venus. At all events it is now generally recognized that the name is Semitic in its origin. Where the name originated is likewise uncertain, but the indications point to Erech, where we find the worship of a great Sumerian mother-goddess having no association with a male counterpart flourishing in the oldest period of Babylonian his tory. She appears under various names, among which are Nana,
Innanna, Nina and Anunit. As early as the days of Khammurabi we find these various names which represented originally different goddesses, though all manifest as the chief trait the life-giving power united in Ishtar. Even when the older names are employed it is always the great mother-goddess who is meant. Ishtar is the one goddess in the pantheon who retains her independent position despite and throughout all changes that the Babylonian-Assyrian religion undergoes.
See S. Langdon, Tammuz and Ishtar (Oxford, 1914) ; Joseph Plessis, Etude sur les textes concernant Ishtar–Astarte (1921) .