Tašmetu Embodied Wisdom and Sexual Attractiveness in Ancient Mesopotamia

Tašmetu was the wife of Nabu, the divine scribe of destinies. This made Nabu the god of wisdom because knowledge was transmitted in written form. As his consort, Tašmetu was also linked to wisdom. But she was also associated with sexual attractiveness, an aspect she shared with the goddess Inanna/Ishtar.

The Marriage of Nabu and Tašmetu

A poem from Assurbanipal’s royal library at Nineveh, dating to the 7^th century BC, celebrates their relationship. The text probably relates to a ritual in which the cult statues of the pair were brought together in a ceremonial marriage. Several surviving letters describe such ceremonies in Kalhu. One says that Nabu and Tašmetu spent six days and seven nights in their wedding bedroom during which they were served a royal banquet. The poem is partly written in the voice of the two gods who rejoice in their relationship. It also describes a playful sexual encounter in a garden.

Wisdom and Sex

Tašmetu is mentioned in association with both sexual attractiveness and wisdom in prayers from the city of Kalhu. She is called “queen and lady of the fates,” and “goddess of sex appeal and sensuality,” plus the “mistress of the livers in the inhabited world.”

Tašmetu was the daughter of Uras, the patron deity of the northern Babylonian city of Dilbat. She was worshipped from at least the early 2^nd millennium BC and had become one of the supreme gods alongside Marduk by the 1^st millennium BC.

Cult Centers

She had cult centers across Mesopotamia linked with Nabu.

As early as the 19^th century BC, she had a shrine in Ashur and Istar-Assuritu. She also seems to have enjoyed personal devotion, with a letter found in Kanesh mentioning a votive offering made to her by a trader.

A few centuries later, in the Old Babylonian period, she had cut centers at Sippar, Borsippa, and Dilbat. Sources from the final years of Hammurabi’s reign (1792-1750 BC) indicate that she had a shrine in Babylon. In the 41^st year of his reign, he dedicated red gold and a precious stone to her.

Around 800 BC, the Assyrian king Adad-nirari III built twin temples for Nabu and Tašmetu in the Kalhu temple complex of Ezida.