Inanna – the first winged goddess in antiquity

In the words of Pr. Maximillien de Lafayette “Humans or human figures with wings were known as guardians of the passage toward the next life. When Armenia was converted to Christianity, the early illustrators of the illuminated manuscripts paintings adopted this pagan iconography as a Christian symbol representing the Christian angels”.

Apparently the memory of Arattan Goddess Inanna was still strong among early Armenian Christians who transferred the concept of wings from paganism into Christianity. Armenia is the first country to officially adopt Christianity as a state religion.

We know from the Aratta-Erech epic tales that Inanna was the goddess of Aratta, as well as that of the city of Erech (Uruk) in Summer.

Aratta was under the special protection of the Sun god’s daughter, Inanna, the goddess of love and war. In “Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta”, the goddess and/or her statue were taken from Aratta to the Sumerian city of Uruk by the ruler of Uruk, Enmerkar.

The Sumerians that were of Armenic or Armenid extraction had established one of the first centers of civilization in the lower part of Mesopotamia. Many scholars agree that Sumerians initially inhabited Armenian Highland and gradually descended to first Northern Mesopotamia and eventually spread further south, establishing the cities of Ur, Uruk and Eridu [note the sacred variations — AR-UR-ER-OR prefix].

Aratta was a city, city-state, or country with which Sumerians had close trade and religious ties in the third millennium B.C.

Aratta- The Land of the Mountains Where the Gods Live of the great Epic of Gilgamesh. The Land where the Garden of Eden— the Tree of Life and the Tree of Wisdom is located…

English Egyptologist and former director of the Institute for the Study of Interdisciplinary Sciences David Rohl writes about Aratta which he places in Greater Armenia: “Despite such a long distance and very different geological and climatic features of these lands, two “Sumerian” States had close cultural and political ties. The inhabitants of these lands spoke the same language and worshiped the same gods, in the first place – the powerful goddess Inanna… In both states there was also the same administrative system and identical political titles.

Enmerkar was En of Uruk, Lord of Aratta also held the title of En(the king-priest). Assyriologist Henry Suggs suggested whether such a close cultural ties indicate the ancient ancestral land of inhabitants of Uruk, where they lived earlier and had to migrate to the plains of Sumer later on. In my view, as we shall see in later chapters of the book, Suggs is absolutely right”.

In Armenian language Aratta means ‘Ara’s house,’ ‘Ar’s place’ or ‘the city-land of the Ars’ where AR/A (Ararich) is Creator.

In a later Armenian Pantheon Inanna was known as Anahit.

Based on the works of Pr. David Rohl, Pr. Martiros Kavoukjian, Pr. Robert Bedrossian, Pr. Maximillien de Lafayette

1. Inanna – Goddess of Aratta, later on Sumer- Mesopotamia. Inanna

2. A. Armenian Queen Ashkhen from Maximillien de Lafayette’s book

B. Rich culture of Aratta. Belt decorations in a form of lions and stags. Aratta- Metsamor. Armenia. Second Millennium BCE.

3. An illumination (MS No. 197) from the Matenadaran Gospel.

4. The world’s first known map. Armenia is depicted on it.

5. Map of Aratta and Sumer from M. Kavoukjian’s book.