Bull of Heaven

The story of the Bull of Heaven is known from two different versions: one recorded in an earlier Sumerian poem and a later episode in the Standard Babylonian (a literary dialect of Akkadian) Epic of Gilgamesh.

The Bull was identified with the constellation Taurus and the myth of its slaying may have held astronomical significance to the ancient Mesopotamians.

[8] She demands that Anu give her the Bull of Heaven[9][10] and threatens that, if he refuses, she will smash the gates of the Underworld and raise the dead to eat the living.

[11] Anu at first objects to Ishtar's demand, insisting that the Bull of Heaven is so destructive that its release would result in seven years of famine.

[18] Numerous depictions of the slaying of the Bull of Heaven occur in extant works of ancient Mesopotamian art.

Assyriologists Jeremy Black and Anthony Green observe that the Bull of Heaven is identified with the constellation Taurus[9] and argue that the reason why Enkidu hurls the bull's thigh at Ishtar in the Epic of Gilgamesh after defeating it may be an effort to explain why the constellation seems to be missing its hind quarters.

[19] Cyrus H. Gordon and Gary A. Rendsburg note that the Near Eastern motif of seven years of famine following the death of a hero is attested in the Ugaritic myth of the death of Aqhat[10] and that the theme of someone predicting seven years of famine in advance and storing up supplies is also found in the Hebrew story of Joseph from the Book of Genesis,[10] and in verses 47-48 of Surah Yusuf in the Quran.

[21] She flees to Mount Olympus, where she cries to her mother Dione, is mocked by her sister Athena, and is mildly rebuked by her father Zeus.

[21] British classical scholar Graham Anderson notes that, in the Odyssey, Odysseus's men kill the sacred cattle of Helios and are condemned to death by the gods for this reason, much like Enkidu in the Epic of Gilgamesh.

[22] M. L. West states that the similarities run deeper than the mere fact that, in both cases, the creatures slain are bovines exempt from natural death.