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The Descent of Ishtar
Those who enter here have no more light.
Dust and clay is what they have to eat.
They are dressed like birds, clothed with wings.
Dust is spread over the doors and over the bolts
While the name Ishtar was not chosen as homage to a badly reviewed movie starring Warren Beatty and Dustin Hoffman (although WE love ‘ya) it was a deliberate choice. In ancient Mesopotamia, Ishtar was the goddess of not only love and beauty but also of war and death. She was a re-interpretation of the Earth Mother, much in the way Inanna was to the Semitic people, Isis to the ancient Egyptian and Eurydice to the Greek tale of Orpheus.
As a 21st Century band who wanted to celebrate all the music of the Middle East regardless of any bias according to region, time in history or religious preference it seemed natural for us to reference the oldest recorded culture and religion of the area. This area of ancient Mesopotamia was settled roughly 3500 BC by Semitic peoples and best known for the Sumerian and Babylonian empires. It included parts of modern-day Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Syria and Palestine.
Some of the more well-known myths of the area include a flood story similar to the one in the Old Testament * and the Epic of Gilgamesh (one of the oldest examples of written prose). Also is the Decent of Ishtar into the underworld (the land of no return). The myth is summarized as follows:
Ishtar the goddess of love confronted the gate-keeper of the underworld. The gate-keeper followed the orders of Ereshkigal, queen of the underworld to put her to the ancient tests. She was stripped of articles of her clothing at each of the eight gates and brought naked before the queen who tortured her with the “sixty miseries”- numerous diseases throughout her body… yuck. Because of her ties to the land the earth suffered the same afflictions as the goddess of beauty. Crops withered, children were stillborn, work animals died from disease and war permeated the land.
Enki the god of wisdom created a eunuch (a representation of infertility) to confront Ereshkigal and trade for Ishtar (a representation of fertility). As she passed in reverse back through the gates she is given back her accouterments and also returning the earth to its former normal beauty. Happy endings! Yay.
* My summary is greatly simplified and designed to give an overall feel for the era. History geeks are welcome to e-mail me if you would like to discuss any of this at length. : ) -Jeff
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