With the first cities also came extensive temple construction. The building of large areas solely for the worship of the gods has been a constant in Western Civilization from the Ziggurats of Mesopotamia to the grand cathedrals of Medieval Europe. What has changed has been the objects of worship and the imagery used to represent these deities
The role of the Goddess changed with the rise of the first great cities in Mesopotamia and the Near East. Goddesses took on more animalistic traits in some cases and, in others, animals were anthropomorphized into goddesses, but the similarities between goddesses of many different regions is very apparent. Many goddesses originated in one area only to be adopted and transformed by other regions to suit the needs of different cultures. The Syrian Goddess, Astarte, was adapted by the Egyptians and renamed Ashtoreth. Ashtoreth was also adopted by the Canaanites, who called her "Asherah" (Ann 321). As nations traded with and warred with other nations, many beliefs and objects of worship were absorbed into the religions of other cultures. By changing the forms and faces of the goddesses, societies could adopt any that appealed to them.
One of the most prevailing and constant themes in the rituals of goddess worship evolved from early fertility rites and from a need to understand the cycles of life and death. A mother goddess, usually shown as ripe, fertile and maternal 
, takes as her consort her own son or brother, who is sacrificed to be reborn at a later time (Todd 2). Often, a king or a priest would represent the dying god and would be ritually killed in times of great strife or change ("Slain" 1). The goddesses' roles ranged from offering her son/consort up for the good of the people to being the actual instrument of the sacrificial death. Goddesses such as Inanna and Geshtinanna were seen as representing regeneration, life and death, and change.
Another powerful theme was that of a goddess abducted and taken off to the netherworld to live for half a year. Geshtinanna "chose to become her brother's substitute in the underworld for six months" and was mourned by her sister, Inanna, much as Demeter would weep for her daughter, Persephone, in the later Greek tradition (Dexter 16). Such common traits may have had one original source, but contact with many socieies morphed the stories to fit different cultures, leaving some unrecognizable. These continued to be adapted to fit the needs of many growing socities. A look at a few of these goddesses will give a good overview of some characteristics and show some of the foundations for later deities, such as those of the Greek and Roman traditions (which will not be discussed on this website, but for which I have provided many links).
Inanna is one of the earliest goddesses to have hymns and rituals that were documented. A "literary source, Hymn to Inanna, translated from cuneiform...by Samuel Noah Kramer and Diane Wolkstein" (Gadon 115-116) in the 1980s, is available, so we know more about Inanna than most early deities. Inanna is a Sumerian goddess who was seen as the Queen of Heaven and Earth, as well as a goddess of love, common themes throughout the history of goddesses worship. The Sumerians believed in a vast number of gods and goddesses that ruled the universe and were responsible for every aspect of life, death and reality. Around 2300 BCE, Enheduanna, daughter of Sargon the Great, was a priestess at the temple of the Moon God at Ur. Considered to be "a brilliant poet, (Enheduanna's) influence on subsequent sacred literature contributed significantly to Mesopotamian theology" (Gadon 120).
The Babylonian Goddess, Ishtar, represents love and sexuality, war and creation, but her main incarnation is that of the Destroyer of Life (Ann 333). She is an incarnation of the earlier Inanna and is considered to be one of the most important deities of Babylonia. Although she never 
took a permanent spouse, she is one of the many goddesses who has a consort and is unltimately responsible for the death of that partner (sometimes Baal and sometimes Marduk) through annual "dying god" rituals. The Hebrews called her the "great whore of Babylon" and early Jewish writings reflect the influence Ishtar had on many people of that region. Worshippers of Yahweh in his earliest incarnation feared Ishtar's power over the people of the Near East and fought to destroy her temples and sacred sites. The famous Ishtar Gate from the time of King Nebuchadnezzar (ca. 600 BCE) is tribute to her influence and staying power.
The Mesopotamian goddesses reigned supreme for centuries, but finally started losing worshippers with the advent of Judaism and the concept of monotheism under a patriarchal, "father" god. Many of these goddesses had a firm hold on the people who worshipped them, and they were reluctant to let them go easily. The Old Testament of the Judeo-Christian bible, particularly the Pentateuch, has multiple references to Asherah, a Canannite goddess, and to her sacred groves. Goddess worship did not vanish entirely, and was particularly strong for most of the time of the Roman Empire, but the method of worship underwent significant alterations during the last few centuries BCE.
