Inanna, later known as Ishtar, did not stay in her lane. This episode follows her chronological rise from a local patron of the Sumerian city of Uruk, symbolized by a humble reed post, to the supreme Queen of Heaven, goddess of both erotic love and brutal warfare. It covers the Huluppu tree story, the drinking contest in which she takes the mes, the blueprints of civilization, from the god Enki, and the political merger under Sargon of Akkad's daughter Enheduanna that fused Inanna with the Semitic Ishtar.

The second half examines her descent into the underworld ruled by her sister Ereshkigal, where she is stripped at seven gates and hung on a hook before being resurrected, and how that story maps onto the astronomical cycle of Venus. It also debunks the Victorian-era myth of sacred temple prostitution and considers why she handed her husban ...