Babylonian Woman # 4 (illustrated by John Carmine)

Tiffany and Ishtar meet Nancy outside the strip, Suffragette City, where they work as dancers. They get into a conversation about dancing versus prostitution.

Nancy tells them about temple prostitution. Every Babylonian woman went into the Temple Of Ishtar and waited for a man to come to them. They would give them a coin and the women would go into one of the temple rooms and make love to them. Once they had made love, they were free to leave the temple and begin their lives.

Ishtar commented that that after awhile this ritual began to decay and fall to the wayside. She considered this ritual to be one of the most important and terrifying rituals of the civilization for both men and women because they were to give themselves up to lust and previously unknown pleasures.

This woman is one of the Babylonian women waiting in the temple courtyard.

This Babylonian Woman appears in Sandman # 44, page 12, panel 6.

I love this portrait from John. I enjoy how John draws women and this is no exception. I like the sideways glance that this character is doing and I like the colors used in this portrait. I can’t quite make out the expression on her face and perhaps that is one of the things that really draws me into this portrait.

Here is a beautiful portrait of one of the Babylonian Women…