so I could go back and kick the butt of Constantine.
8o)
Happy Ishtar to you my fellow sexually charged friends. I hope you are all enjoying your family and friends today, but I think that many chocolate Easter bunny eaters and egg decorators, have never really looked at the historical roots of Easter. I am a Celt, and very in touch with the historical delights of many Pagan holidays. When christianity came into Ireland, and many other countries, the church did not smudge out the pagan customs or holidays, they simply renamed them and pulled them into christian theme. This is the way to end the pagan belief systems of various cultures. By giving an alternative spin off to what they already knew. So, while we enjoy the modern holiday events, let us also give an appreciative nod to the true history of this day. Ishtar was a very sexual goddess and sexual freedom and sacred prostitution were celebrated in her name. Even Easter Eggs & the Bunny are symbols of the fertility of spring. And under this full moon, it is a most lovely and sexually starry night..
I've put on my blog more information about the history of Ishtar.
I had always thought the name Easter derived from the Anglo-Saxton goddess: Eostre, as is mentioned in the Wikipedia entry I linked to below.
I read through the very interesting links on Ishtar in your blog site, but don't see any direct connection to the holiday of Easter, but the common themes do at least call for some study of this. Even the Wikipedia entry mentions that the etymology from Eostre is a bit controvertial.
If you do find any authoritative references, please do send them to Wikipedia for others to learn from and comment on.
Thanks for the info in any case.
"Thus at Babylon every woman, whether rich or poor, had once in her life to submit to the embraces of a stranger at the temple of Mylitta, that is, of Ishtar or Astarte, and to dedicate to the goddess the wages earned by this sanctified harlotry. The sacred precinct was crowded with women waiting to observe the custom. Some of them had to wait there for years.
At Heliopolis or Baalbec in Syria, famous for the imposing grandeur of its ruined temples, the custom of the country required that every maiden should prostitute herself to a stranger at the temple of Astarte, and matrons as well as maids testified their devotion to the goddess in the same manner. The emperor Constantine abolished the custom, destroyed the temple, and built a church in its stead.
In Phoenician temples women prostituted themselves for hire in the service of religion, believing that by this conduct they propitiated the goddess and won her favour. It was a law of the Amorites. that she who was about to marry should sit in fornication seven days by the gate.
At Byblus the people shaved their heads in the annual mourning for Adonis. Women who refused to sacrifice their hair had to give themselves up to strangers on a certain day of the festival, and the money they thus earned was devoted to the goddess.
A Greek inscription found at Tralles in Lydia proves that the practice of religious prostitution survived in that country as late as the second century of our era. It records of a certain woman, Aurelia Aemilia by name, not only that she herself served the god in the capacity of a harlot at his express command, but that her mother and other female ancestors had done the same before her; and the publicity of the record, engraved on a marble column which supported a votive offering, shows that no stain attached to such a life and such a parentage.
In Armenia the noblest families dedicated their daughters to the service of the goddess Anaitis in her temple at Acilisena, where the damsels acted as prostitutes for a long time before they were given in marriage. Nobody scrupled to take one of these girls to wife when her period of service was over.
Again the goddess Ma was served by a multitude of sacred harlots at Comana in Pontus, and crowds of men and women flocked to her sanctuary from the neighbouring cities and country to attend the biennial festivals or to pay their vows to the goddess."
-The Golden Bough, Sir James Frazer, chapter 31
-- Modified on 5/30/2013 8:45:49 AM
It was supposed to read, "While it's not "erotic" literature, this is a book I think you might both appreciate."
so I could go back and kick the butt of Constantine.
8o)