Ishtar
Mesopotamian goddess of fertility, sexual love, wedlock, maternity, and war, worshipped by the Babylonians and Assyrians, and personified as the legendary queen Semiramis. She was the equivalent of the Canaanite and Syrian Astarte.
In Babylonian mythology the god Tammuz, the personification of natural growth and decay, was her husband and brother. Ishtar rescued him annually from the underworld, dying herself for a time, during which the Earth's fertility waned. She is associated with the planet Venus in its characterization as the morning or evening star.
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