Something I always found rather curious in my study and following of Lilith, is the mythology surrounding the hand of Inanna, and being a prostitute as a form of recruitment.
It never seemed to line up with anything. For starters, the only piece of writing definitely featuring both Lilith and Inanna shows that they have an extremely negative relationship. Secondly, Lilith is, by her nature, disobedient towards men, and intercourse with her is typically quite unpleasant or harmful for them. For her to be in the service of men makes little sense. It also doesn’t make much sense in the context of Inanna worship, which was normal and mainstream at the time. Why would a man need to be “led astray” to follow one of the most popular goddesses of the era?
But this idea is quite popular in both Abrahamic and occultist narratives. The reasons why are obvious in both cases. In the former, prostitution is seen as sinful, and often used as a way of slandering a woman. And in the esoteric world, plagued with sex abuse cults as it is, having a narrative that provides an easy excuse for “initiating” young girls by coercing them into sex has typically been something that certain orders are quite interested in latching onto.
But after all these years, I became curious exactly where this idea came from, and decided to chase it down. Lo and behold, upon actual inspection, the sourcing starts to fall apart almost immediately.
Most places that state Lilith as the hand of Inanna and/or a prostitute, if they give any source at all, generally refer either to the New World Encyclopedia, or to Hurwitz. Let’s start there.
The New World Encyclopedia says the following:
“Babylonian texts depict Lilith as the prostitute of the goddess Ishtar [no source given]. Similarly, older Sumerian accounts state that Lilitu is called the handmaiden of Inanna or ‘hand of Inanna’. The texts say that “Inanna has sent the beautiful, unmarried, and seductive prostitute Lilitu out into the fields and streets in order to lead men astray.”[4]”
Reference [4] is “Semitic Mythology,” Langdon, pg. 74, which says… nothing whatsoever. There is no mention of Lilith until page 353, and it says nothing about her being a maiden of Inanna, or a prostitute. The source is completely misattributed.
This quote actually comes from “Lilith: the First Eve” by Hurwitz. Let’s see what he has to say, sourcing-wise.
“This particular characteristic is already to be found in older, Sumerian texts, in which it says[80] that Inanna – who corresponds to the Babylonian Ishtar – has sent the beautiful, unmarried and seductive prostitute Lilitû out into the streets and fields in order to lead men astray. This is why Lilith is also called ‘the hand of Inanna.’”
Ah, there’s that misattributed quote. Well, carrying swiftly on then. Hurwitz’s source [80] is “Tammuz and Ishtar,” Langdon, pg 74. Onwards…
After a good amount of overt moralizing about how much he despises pagan Inanna worshippers, we finally get to the point:
“The text describes minutely the demon sent by Inanni, a beautiful and licentious unmarried harlot, who seduces men in the streets and fields.[2] And in a grammatical text she is explained as the ‘hand of Inanni.’[3]”
Ok, but it doesn’t say it names Lilith. It goes on in the next page…
“In the liturgies, as well as in the incantations, both Innini [sic] and the divine harlot Lilith are expressly described as virgins [1], and both are constantly referred to as maidens.”
This makes no sense of course. But, no matter. Moving forward, the source [1] is Babyloniaca, iv. 188, 4f, while the source for [3] is Babyloniaca, ii. 188 i. The footnote for [2] reads:
“This demon was called lilitu by the Semites, a word derived from the Sumerian root lil, and passed into Aramaic and Hebrew… erroneously derived from ‘night.’ For a discussions of the word see Babylonian Liturgies, p. 15.”
So at this point we have abandoned all pretense of any direct mention of Lilith in any of these supposed Sumerian texts, or even whether they are Sumerian at all. None the less, onwards to the last three sources in this so far underwhelming chain, and let’s see if they can convince us as to why this interpretation is correct…
The relevant segment of Babyloniaca ii is unfortunately in German, of which I know a little, but certainly not an academic amount. However, I have done my best with a combination of GTranslate and eyeballing it, and as far as I can tell, this makes no mention of Inanna, Lilith, or any of their cognates at all. It appears to discuss umsatu and the complimentary term for affected children halu, which is Akkadian for “distress,” and was apparently the name for some sort of venereal disease, likely herpes.
While it would not shock me to learn these illnesses were associated with Lilith, the fact is that it is yet another complete misattribution which makes no mention of Lilith at all. I also translated the pages immediately surrounding it and found nothing. My attempts to OCR search the document also rendered nothing. Well, on to the next one.
Babyloniaca iv gives us the following table of translation, which mentions Ardat Lili, but the projections of prostitution are quite a stretch, and they seem to be inserting a lot of assumptions into the sizable hole in the text. It is a known part of edimmu lore (which is Ardat Lili’s origin) that they start out as the spirits of young, unmarried women who then haunt men in their sleep. It is also known that Inanna and her servants were invoked to protect against them. This seems to fit much better with the text provided, if we insist on drawing conclusions based on incomplete information. It is hard to academically justify concocting an entirely new narrative of Sumerian demonology based on an assumption inserted into a singular text which already has a pre-existing and well-supported mythological explanation.
So far not compelling. But let’s see if Babylonian Liturgies changes that.
It turns out the piece actually starts on the next page, but I suppose it was hard to correct an error back then. Anyway, on to the piece. And it is… well, a rather early attempt at a half-translated hymn, which doesn’t mention Lilith or a hand of Inanna at all. It does supposedly mention a lilu demon, which is a male incubus. Here is the line.
Even with my limited Sumerian skills, I doubt this translation would stand up to criticism using today’s knowledge of the language. But either way, it is clear that this source does not, in fact, mention Lilith, or any of her cognates, anywhere whatsoever. Even if we’re going to assume their translation is good, only a male demon would be mentioned, and there is no mention of the hand of Inanna, or a prostitute.
And that’s it. That’s the entire chain followed to its original source, ending in essentially nothing whatsoever.
It is worth mentioning most of the original source translations are somewhere between 100 to 150 years old. That means two things: that this concept of Lilith as hand of Inanna/prostitute is actually very modern and seems to have no connection whatsoever to ancient Inanna worship. But it also means that ancient Sumerian scholarship back then was much poorer than it is now. Partly that was lack of knowledge — we have learned so much just in the last couple decades. But partly, let’s be honest, it was because it was a lot harder for people to source-check a claim back then than it is now, and that creates more leeway. It would not be the first time an academic with a chip on their shoulder, as Langdon clearly has, decided to shoe-horned something into their thesis, whether it fit the facts or not.
It is also worth mentioning that accusations of “impropriety” had been used as a way of slandering Inanna worshippers for a very, very long time. Despite the persistence of these stories, no certain evidence for them has ever been produced, and most accounts of the practice were written by outsiders in a clearly negative fashion, who were likely motivated by religious competition. It is reasonably well-supported that some priestesses were sexually active in Sumer, but the claims of temple prostitution and pimping carry the same tone to them as today’s QAnon accusing Hollywood of having sacrificial orgies.
In all likelihood, Lilith is simply incidental in this story: she was feared by both Sumerians and Semites, and so connecting her to Inanna was simply an efficient way of accomplishing the goal of smearing the temple.
And of course, if these narratives are benefitting the establishment of the mainstream and the occult world alike, why would they stop? What weird little book worm is going to actually take the time to find all these old tomes and check, anyway? Cough.
But before I wrap this up, I’d like to end of an interesting note that may actually offer something new to the conversation, rather than the frustrating business of simply debunking things.
Babyloniaca’s liturgy mentions that Ardat Lili seems to be a wanderer. Perhaps this is where they initially found their opening for the prostitute story. But it actually has a far more interesting origin.
In Sumerian lore, the temples to deities were quite literally their home. They required humans to provide for them, and in return, they granted assistance to humans.
But not every deity had a temple.
Lamashtu, the goddess and demon of the deaths of the young and the balancing of the human population, and the only deity in the Sumerian pantheon who did not answer to any other divine authority, did not have a temple. She subsisted on her own work, without human provision, and without granting a promise of assistance. Therefore, she had no abode on the mortal plane. Because of this, she was sometimes called, “goddess of the streets.”
Ardat Lili, now called Lilith, likely originated as a name or aspect of Lamashtu, which is attested to in the link above. Perhaps, like her matron, she wandered without a temple, independent of the larger cosmic order.
At any rate, food for thought.
[Updated 8/23/2022: Thank you to a reader for pointing out some oversights to me.]