The Story of Sumerian Goddess Inanna and the Beginning of Civilization

By: Ranilo Abando (Manila, October 29, 2020) ***

Around 10,000 B.C., wheat was first domesticated in what is today southeastern Turkey according to modern genetics and archaeological studies.  Incidentally, that is the region near the archaeological site of Gobekli Tepe, where ancient sophisticated megalithic monuments with sculptures (dated around 10,000 B.C.) were first built in a community of uncivilized hunter-gatherers.  The area is part of the Levant region of the Fertile Crescent.

The main differences between the wild forms of wheat and domesticated wheat are that domesticated forms have larger seeds and a non-shattering stem (rachis).  When wild wheat is ripe, the stem that keeps the wheat shafts together shatters so that the seeds can disperse themselves. But that naturally useful brittleness doesn’t suit humans, as it is not worth their time and energy to collect individually the shattered pieces of wheat grains from the ground. 

Fortunately, somebody wise enough at that time had this brilliant mind to get the wheat grains that remain on the stem and plant them, and in the process, progressively better wheat with stems that didn’t become brittle were harvested.  Other traits apparently selected include plant height and grain size.  The person/s who thought about this artificial selection of wheat specimen – involving long-term (many years) harvesting and planting until specimen that have larger grains and do not shatter can be planted and harvested in bigger fields.  This scale of foresight and long-term planning required deep knowledge that appears to be incompatible with a hunting and gathering mindset at that time, because you cannot get the right wheat genetics if you do it in just one or even ten planting cycles.

That is the invention of agriculture and the start of production of bread as staple food of humans.  That is also the start of permanent human settlements and the formation of small villages.  After that, people had the time to do other activities that engage the mind instead of just looking for food during most of their waking hours.

The Sumerian Goddess Inanna

The Sumerian goddess Inanna, is called the “queen of heaven and earth”.  She is apparently the personification of the caring “gods” who introduced the arts of civilization to the Levant region that led to the rise of Sumer as humanity’s first large center of civilization.  I theorize that the so-called “gods” are actually beings with highly-evolved minds who were born in human physical bodies on earth thousands of years ago.   These beings retained their memories of celestial knowledge even after physical birth, which they then used to introduce to humanity the basic crafts, agriculture, animal domestication, arts, laws, and appropriate organizational  systems to start and advance human civilization.


Sumerian civilization started around 4,000 B.C. but the rise of agriculture and pastoral farming date back to thousands of years in the Fertile Crescent that includes regions in Turkey such as the location of Gobekli Tepe, where megalithic structures were first built on a site still inhabited by hunter-gatherers around 10,000 B.C.  Therefore, small human settlements with agriculture and pastoral farming as source of livelihood could have been introduced as early as 10,000 B.C. I theorize here that the civilizing “gods”, as those mentally advanced beings were called during those times, began being born en masse on earth starting around 10,000 B.C. That is why the ancient Egyptians called that starting time as the “First Time” — the first time that the “gods” were born simultaneously in different places on various continents of this physical world. Their minds were the source of the enigmatic information explosion that changed forever the course of the previously very slow process of human evolution.

Inanna is the daughter of the god Enki.  Enki is the Sumerian god of knowledge and crafts, and he is obviously a personification of the higher mind. Enki lives in Absu, which is the Sumerian name for fresh water from underground aquifers which was given a life-giving and fertilising quality in the Sumerian belief system.  Therefore, Absu represents the spirit matter which is the majority composition of the higher mind that builds rules-based celestial realities.  

In the story of Inanna, you can say that Abzu is the heavenly realm built by the higher mind, and Erech was a physical city in Sumer.  So those civilizing “gods” apparently came from the rules-based virtual celestial realities, which is off-limits to ordinary human seats of consciousness (spirits) with relatively lowly-evolved minds.  Their sets of knowledge in the arts of civilization were apparently preserved from the previous mega-cycle of evolution where they had the opportunity to mentally evolve for long periods of time.  That preceding mega-cycle had long ended before our present mega-cycle of evolution started.  The following is lifted from the Sumerian tablets:

As Inanna approaches the Abzu of Eridu, Enki, no doubt taken in by her charms, calls his messenger Isimud and thus addresses him:

“Inanna, all alone, has directed her step to the Abzu,
Have Inanna enter the Abzu of Eridu,
Give her to eat barley cake with butter,
Pour for her cold water that freshens the heart,
Give her to drink date-wine in the ‘face of the lion,’
. . . for her . . . . make for her . . .,
At the pure table, the table of heaven,
Speak to Inanna words of greeting.”

Isimud does exactly as bidden by his master, and Inanna and Enki sit down to feast and banquet.   After their hearts had become happy with drink, Enki exclaims:

“O name of my power, O name of my power,
To the bright Inanna, my daughter, I shall present . . .
The arts of woodworking, metalworking, writing, toolmaking, leatherworking…
building, basketweaving.”

Pure Inanna took them.

To the pure Inanna, my daughter, I shall present . . . .
The exalted scepter, staffs, the exalted shrine, shepherdship, kingship.”

Pure Inanna took them.

Inanna is only too happy to accept the gifts offered her by the drunken Enki.  She takes them, loads them on her “boat of heaven,” and makes off for Erech with her precious cargo.

But after the effects of the banquet had worn off, Enki noticed that the divine decrees were gone from their usual place.  He turns to Isimud and the latter informs him that he, Enki himself, had presented them to his daughter Inanna.

The upset Enki greatly rues his munificence and decides to prevent the “boat of heaven” from reaching Erech at all costs.

He sends Isimud accompanied by various sea monsters to seize the “boat of heaven” at each of the seven stopping points between Eridu and Erech. And each time Ninshubur comes to Inanna’s rescue.

Finally Inanna and her boat arrive safe and sound at Erech, where amidst jubilation and feasting on the part of its delighted inhabitants, she unloads the divine decrees one at a time.

The Sumerian story above is obviously an allegory about the introduction of knowledge from the celestial realities above the mind column to the uncivilized humanity at that time.  As mentioned in the story, those included shepherdship (pastoral farming).

As in the photo above, Mesopotamian tablets and cylinder seals show the goddess Inanna stepping over lions, symbolizing the strong spiritual will of those “gods”.  In cylinder seals, she is often depicted as having stalks of wheat or barley and other implements over her shoulders symbolizing those advanced beings’ gifts of agriculture and arts of civilization to humanity.  In the tablet shown above, she holds the Shen Ring symbols.  The Shen’s ring part (circular time) symbolizes heaven, where those advanced beings came from, while the straight line part represents the physical world (line is the unidirectional arrow of physical time), where they were physically born. Her nakedness is meant to emphasize that those advanced beings were born with physical human bodies. Her wings and bird feet symbolize their highly evolved higher mind. They were celestial spirits. The owls symbolize their deep higher knowledge. Like owls that can see in the dark, they can see spiritual knowledge despite the darkness of this virtual physical world.

(Thanks to for all the photos above)

Published by rabando


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