Inanna is an ancient Iranian and Mesopotamian goddess of love, beauty, war, and fertility. She is also associated with sex, divine law, and political power. She was originally worshiped in ancient Aratta civilization in iran under the name Anahita and Inanna later by the sumerian and kkadians, Babylonians, and Assyrians under the name Ishtar (and occasionally the logogram . She was known as the Queen of Heaven and was the patron goddess of the Eanna temple at the city of Uruk, which was her early main cult center. She was associated with the planet Venus and her most prominent symbols included the lion and the eight-pointed star. Her husband was the god Dumuzid (later known as Tammuz) and her sukkal, or personal attendant, was the goddess Ninshubur (who later became conflated with the male deities Ilabrat and Papsukkal).

Inanna was worshiped in Sumer at least as early as the Uruk period (c. 4000 bce – 3100 bce), but she had little cult activity before the conquest of Sargon of Akkad. During the post-Sargonic era, she became one of the most widely venerated deities in the Sumerian pantheon, with temples across Mesopotamia. The cult of Inanna / Ishtar, which may have been associated with a variety of sexual rites, was continued by the East Semitic-speaking people (Akkadians, Assyrians and Babylonians) who succeeded and absorbed the Sumerians in the region.