Ancient World Review

Sacred Prostitution In The Near East & Israel

"In the Ancient Near East, temple women, of whom one class was called qadištu, probably served as sacred prostitutes. Sometimes dedicated by their fathers to the deity, they had special statutes, and provisions were made for them by law (Code of Hammurapi). Customs connected with them are likely to underlie Herodotus' lurid and misleading statement that in Babylon every woman was to serve once as a sacred prostitute before getting married, thus sacrificing her virginity to the goddess Mylitta (Ishtar) ... In Israel the sacred prostitutes were condemned for their connection with idolatry. Deuteronomy 23:18–19 forbids Israelites, men and women alike, to become sacred prostitutes, and states that their wages must not be used for paying vows." Source: Jewish Virtual Library.

Astarte is the Greek name of the very ancient Mesopotamian goddess, Ishtar. According to the Oxford Classical Dictionary (OCD, 3rd ed. revised), Ishtar was the "goddess of love and war, variously described as [the] daughter of Sin (moon god) or of Anu (sky god) with various attributes according to different city traditions." All of Ishtar's temples, according to the OCD, were probably "centers for cult prostitution of various kinds."

Some modern scholars believe that sacred prostitution, as an institution, never actually existed, but it seems like it must have occurred in one form or another or it wouldn't have been mentioned in all the various sources.  If it did exist, however, it probably wasn't as widespread as previously believed. Herodotus' account, for instance, must be an exaggeration. It's hard to believe that every woman in Babylon had to serve once as a temple prostitute before getting married. If that was true, then the temples would have been swarming with them.

According to the Oxford Classical Dictionary (3rd ed. revised), "sacred prostitution is a strictly modern, not ancient, term and misleading in that it transfers to the institution, or rather a variety of institutions, an adjective [sacred] which in ancient sources denotes only the status of the personnel involved (sometimes also their earnings, which likewise became sacred on dedication.)." I've read this two or three times now and I'm still not sure what it means. If a prostitute is considered sacred and her earnings are dedicated to a god, then isn't she a "sacred prostitute" by definition? The term may be modern, but how is it misleading?

Sacred prostitution is apparently still practiced in parts of India.

Report from 1998.

A History Of The Masoretic Hebrew Texts

"Masoretic text, (from Hebrew masoreth, 'tradition' [1]), traditional Hebrew text of the Jewish Bible, meticulously assembled and codified, and supplied with diacritical marks to enable correct pronunciation [2]. This monumental work was begun around the 6th century ad and completed in the 10th by scholars at Talmudic academies in Babylonia and Palestine, in an effort to reproduce, as far as possible, the original text of the Hebrew Old Testament. Their intention was not to interpret the meaning of the Scriptures but to transmit to future generations the authentic Word of God. To this end they gathered manuscripts and whatever oral traditions were available to them." Source: Encyclopedia Britannica.

[1]: "The Masoretes ... were groups of Jewish scribe-scholars who worked between the 6th and 10th centuries CE, based primarily in early medieval Palestine in the cities of Tiberias and Jerusalem, as well as in Iraq (Babylonia). Each group compiled a system of pronunciation and grammatical guides in the form of diacritical notes (niqqud) on the external form of the biblical text in an attempt to standardize the pronunciation, paragraph and verse divisions and cantillation of the Jewish Bible, the Tanakh, for the worldwide Jewish community." Source: Wikipedia.

[2] "Hebrew had no vowels in its alphabet. Vowel sounds were for the most part handed down by tradition. Certain consonants were used to express some long vowels, these consonants were called Matres lectionis, because they determined the pronunciation. The efforts of copyists would seem to have become more and more minute and detailed in the perpetuation of the consonantal text. These copyists (grammateis) were at first called Sopherim (from the Hebrew meaning 'to count'), because, as the Talmud says, 'they counted all the letters in the Torah' (Kiddushin, 30a). It was not till later on that the name Massoretes, was given to the preservers of Massorah." Source: New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia.

ISIS Only Destroyed Duplicate Artifacts In Mosul

"[The National Museum of Iraq in Baghdad] just re-opened at the end of February, only few days after the terrorist group Islamic State (IS) had posted a video on the Internet in which militants are seen using hammers to destroy Assyrian statues and artifacts in the Mosul Museum." Source: Deutsche Welle.

Now it appears that IS only destroyed duplicates of the original artifacts. "'They didn't destroy the originals in Mosul; those were just copies,' according to one of the Baghdad museum attendants." Apparently the Iraqis have taken steps to protect many of their archaeological treasures from destruction by occupying forces (including the US military):

Baghdad Museum Reopens 12 Yrs After Looting

"Iraq’s national museum officially reopened Saturday after 12 years of painstaking efforts during which close to a third of 15,000 pieces looted during the U.S.-led invasion were recovered." Source: The Lebanon Daily Star

"The reopening was brought forward in what officials said was a response to the destruction of priceless artifacts by ISIS in the northern city of Mosul."

Comment: The hidden message here is that after "12 years of painstaking efforts" to recover them, almost two-thirds of the artifacts looted from the museum are still missing. The Iraqis should worry less about restoring their national pride and more about ensuring the safety of the relics they still control. At this point, the best thing to do would probably be to get them out of the country altogether.

The Cult Of Venus, Astarte & Aphrodite In Sicily

Note: Astarte is the Greek name of the very ancient Mesopotamian goddess, Ishtar. According to the Oxford Classical Dictionary (OCD, 3rd ed. revised), Ishtar was the "goddess of love and war, variously described as [the] daughter of Sin (moon god) or of Anu (sky god) with various attributes according to different city traditions." All of Ishtar's temples, according to the OCD, were probably "centers for cult prostitution of various kinds."

Sex In The Service Of Aphrodite

"'Holy harlots' in Jerusalem, temple sex in the service of Aphrodite? Many ancient authors describe sacred prostitution in drastic terms. Are the accounts nothing but legends? Historians are searching for the kernel of truth behind the reports." Source: Der Spiegel (2010)

World's Earliest Civilization In Iraq

Notes: "Sumer was the southernmost region of ancient Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq and Kuwait) which is generally considered the cradle of civilization," according to the Ancient History Encyclopedia.  "The region of Sumer was long thought to have been first inhabited around 4500 BCE. This date has been contested in recent years, however, and it now thought that human activity in the area began much earlier."

Tablets Reveal Details Of Assyrian Empire

Partially decoded clay tablets discovered in 2009 during the excavation of an Assyrian governor's palace in what is now southeastern Turkey are revealing the inner workings of the Assyrian Empire, one of the greatest and bloodiest tyrannies in ancient Babylonia.

"Meticulous ancient notetakers have given archaeologists a glimpse of what life was like 3,000 years ago in the Assyrian Empire, which controlled much of the region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Persian Gulf," according to National Geographic News."Palace scribes jotted down seemingly mundane state affairs on the tablets during the Late Iron Age—which lasted from roughly the end of the ninth century B.C. until the mid-seventh century B.C."