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So you are of the opinion that there is no factual bases for this and it is completely a fabricated tale?
I am. Absolutely. Pretty much everything stated in the quoted text in the OP is 100% untrue, or at least there is zero scientific, textual or archaeological evidence for its truth.
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On one side of the coin is a representation of a sheaf of wheat, and on the other, Ishtar, the goddess of fertility.
Sorry, but no such artifacts exist. None. I'd love for such artifacts to actually exist, as they would clearly be "coins", and it would make coin collecting that much older, and more interesting. But they simply don't exist. If anyone believing in the existence of such objects could please find and post a picture of one, along with the museum catalogue reference identifying it as such? We'd all love to see it.
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The Sumerians called it the "Shekel" where "She" meant wheat, "Kel" was a measurement similar to a bushel, hence this coin was a symbol of a value of one bushel of wheat. (The word "shekel" survives in modern Hebrew as Israel's monetary unit.)
Entirely 100% not true. "Sheqel" or "shekel" is an entirely Hebrew-origin word, which simply means "weight". The Sumerian word for the equivalent weight was "gin". Which also, presumably, simply means "weight".
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The original shekel had as its purpose payment for sacred prostitution at the temple of Ishtar, which was the temple of life and death. The temple, as well as being a ritual center, was the storage place for the reserves of wheat that supported the priesthood, and also the community in lean times. So farmers fulfilled their religious and social obligations by bringing their contributions of wheat to the temple, and receiving in exchange a shekel coin, entitling them to a visit with the temple prostitutes at the festival time. All this also must be understood in its cultural context: The sacred prostitutes were representatives of the goddess, and intercourse with them was intercourse with the goddess of fertility herself, nothing to take lightly. At that time fertility was truly a matter of life and death. If the crops failed, there was no alternative, and everyone starved or at least went hungry until next year. And, of course, completing the magic ritual properly insured the fertility in crops, animals and children that was necessary for future prosperity.
As far as we have been able to ascertain, Ishtar basically didn't exist prior to around 2300 BC. Emperor Sargon of Akkad basically created the Ishtar cult singlehandedly by amalgamating the mythologies of two formerly unrelated minor goddesses; Ishtar gradually accumulated further myths and powers by assimilating the stories of other gods and goddesses in subsequent centuries. There is no evidence of organized temple prostitution with regular people, requiring a payment in grain or coin, in the early temples of Ishtar. As far as we can tell, in its earliest form from the time of Sargon, only the king participated in the ritual with the high priestess of the cult, as representatives of Ishtar and her husband Tammuz. Mass public prostitution did not enter the cult until the cult evolved into the Phoenician goddess Ashtoreth (Astarte).
Don't say "infinitely" when you mean "very"; otherwise, you'll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite. - C. S. Lewis
Posted 05/20/2020 10:18 am
