By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
Doves are well-known symbols of peace. Although such symbolism is strongly associated with Christianity, the associations between doves and peace go back much further than this: in ancient Mesopotamia, doves were symbols of Inanna-Ishtar, the goddess of love, sexuality, and (perhaps surprisingly) war.
Indeed, the ancient Greek word for ‘dove’, peristerá, may be derived from the Semitic peraḥ Ištar, meaning ‘bird of Ishtar’. We’ve written about Inanna, the subject of the oldest known epic poem, here.