Their investigations are tainted by certain perceptions. Their primary problems concern their epistemological approaches and historical methodologies. First is the unproven assertion of this institution.
Sacral prostitution existed in Israel and Judah until the implementation of the religious reforms of the seventh and sixth centuries B. Contemporary scholarship uses the expression sacred prostitution to refer to a sexual rite practiced in the ancient Near East. In the temples of Ishtar, Astarte, Ma, AnShita, and Aphrodite, for example, women, often virgins, offered themselves sexually to strangers.
Such allegations first appear in the work of Herodotus The Histories , 1. Of the scholars cited above in note one, a majority have investigated this source and have realized it was the only source for claiming sacred prostitution, and discarded it on these grounds. When scholars discuss an institution without any attempt to define it, we must conclude that their methodology is questionable. It is obvious that a definition of terms is mandatory. None of the above scholarly definitions fits this definition with the exception of that originating with Herodotus!
For Mesopotamia, we have clear and explicit evidence of the profitable profession of the prostitute, the harimtu. Her place of work is usually the tavern. Inanna and Ishtar both act as patroness of the tavern and its inhabitants. However, in the city of Sippar in the Old Babylonian period, this status and its prerogatives are held by men as well as women, husbands as well as wives. These prerogatives are designated as those of a goddess; but whether it can be inferred from this statement that there is any relationship to the temple and its cult is impossible to determine from the evidence.
From economic texts, we could conclude that silver may have been exchanged during the fulfillment of these prerogatives or from the sale of these offices as any other office. We can try to learn something about that by looking at the earliest known poetic myth, The Epic of Gilgamesh. After Enkidu is discovered by a hunter and flees, the hunter seeks counsel as to how to tame him. He is told to get a harimtu. The hunter brings her to the woods, tells her what to do:.
