This lecture looks at a series of divine female figures in the ancient world from the Middle East to Western Europe: Inanna, Ishtar, Astarte, Aphrodite and Venus.
What they have in common, is that to varying degrees they all combined the personae of deities of sexual love and of war. It brings out the special characteristics of each, traces the relationships between them, and shows how each in the sequence, influenced the development of the next.
A lecture by Professor Ronald Hutton recorded on 20 September 2023 at Barnard's Inn Hall, London
The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/ancient-goddesses
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