Ancient peoples had over 300 names for the goddess Ishtar, whom they worshipped variously as Isis, Hera, Artemis, Aphrodite, Venus, and so on. Out of these, I have chosen Ishtar as the subject of this exhibition, since she has managed to inhabit the human unconscious and leave within it an urge that always yearns to reproduce and multiply, to go on. I was also captivated by Isis’ words about herself in one of the Roman texts: “I am the mother of all things, the Lady of the Elements, Initiator of Worlds, Ruler of all in the Heavens above and in Hell below, the center of divine power. I am the truth behind the gods and goddesses; in me they come together in one form and one shape.” In the interpretation of these inspired texts, this is Ishtar, in history and in ancient human memory: she was a smaller secret connected to a larger secret, a secret that lay behind all the manifestations of nature and creation. Behind all that exists lies a great cosmic Woman, the source and echo of all things; all that is comes from her, and into her womb everything must return. Although all the male deities worshipped in the subsequent patriarchal cultures sprang from the worshipped Son, then took on independent personalities and rose skyward in repudiation of their earthly origins, their essence was a god who remained a son of Ishtar, retaining his ancient status as a shade of the Great Mother, complementing her as husband or son, sharing part of her attributes and capacities. He is Dumuzid in Sumer; Tamuz of Babylon; Adonis for the Phoenicians; Osiris here in Egypt; Atis in Phrygia and Rome; Dionysus for the Greeks. Temples and shrines have been built in the image of maleness, sanctifying the belief in his role as a contributor to fertility and growth.