Among the oldest texts telling of a journey into the world of the dead is a Sumerian poem known as Inanna's Descent to the Netherworld. Inanna, goddess of love and war, queen of heaven, decides to go down into the realm of her sister Ereshkigal, mistress of the underworld. What happens during the descent is one of the most powerful symbolic narratives of stripping and rebirth that humanity has preserved. The goddess is also known by her Akkadian name Ishtar, heroine of a later version of the same myth.
Who Inanna is
Inanna was one of the most important deities of Mesopotamia. Her character is surprisingly complex: she is a passionate lover and a fearsome warrior, goddess of fertility and of battle, associated with the planet Venus, the morning and evening star. In the myths she is ambitious, eager to extend her power, never entirely predictable. It is precisely this richness that makes her journey so interesting: the most radiant and powerful of goddesses must descend into the darkest place.
The preparation
Before setting out, Inanna carefully adorns herself with the signs of her sovereignty: the crown, the lapis lazuli necklaces, the royal robe, the breastplate, the gold ring, the measuring rod. They are her powers made visible. She also leaves precise instructions with her faithful minister Ninshubur: if she has not returned within three days, Ninshubur must ask the gods for help.
This detail is precious. Anyone undertaking an inner descent needs someone or something that stays on the surface, a link with ordinary life that can call them back.
The seven gates
Ereshkigal's realm is protected by seven gates. The gatekeeper, on the queen's orders, opens them one at a time. At each gate Inanna must leave one of her adornments:
- the crown;
- the lapis lazuli necklaces;
- the double strand of beads on her breast;
- the breastplate;
- the gold ring;
- the measuring rod and line;
- the royal robe.
At each demand Inanna asks why, and the answer is always the same: the ways of the underworld are perfect and must not be questioned. When she arrives before Ereshkigal, she is naked.
The death of Inanna
Before her sister's throne, the judges of the underworld pronounce their sentence. Inanna is turned into a corpse and hung on a hook. She remains there for three days and three nights. It is a harsh image, which the poem does not soften: the goddess of heaven is reduced to inert matter.
Enki's rescue
When the three days have passed, Ninshubur does what she was asked. She turns first to Enlil and then to Nanna, who refuse: whoever goes down into the underworld must accept its laws. Only Enki, god of wisdom and of fresh waters, agrees to help.
Enki fashions two small creatures from the dirt under his fingernails and sends them into the underworld. There they find Ereshkigal groaning, tormented by pain. The two creatures neither fight nor deceive: they simply lament with her, mirroring her pain. Moved, the queen offers them a gift, and they ask for Inanna's body. They sprinkle it with the food and water of life, and the goddess rises.
This is one of the deepest passages of the myth. What frees Inanna is not force but compassion towards the Shadow, represented by Ereshkigal.
The price of return
No one may leave the underworld without leaving a substitute. Inanna rises accompanied by demons who must take someone in her place. She spares those who mourned her, like Ninshubur, but when she finds her husband Dumuzi seated on the throne, dressed in finery and indifferent to her disappearance, she hands him over to the demons. In the end it is settled that Dumuzi and his sister Geshtinanna will each spend half the year in the underworld.
The symbolic reading
Inanna's descent has been read in many ways, and each offers something:
- The stripping of identity. The seven adornments are roles, powers, self-images. In certain phases of life we must let them go one at a time, even when we do not understand why.
- The meeting with the Shadow. Ereshkigal is no alien monster: she is Inanna's sister. The dark side we encounter in the descent belongs to us.
- Symbolic death. The hook and the three days represent the moment when nothing seems to move, the lowest point before the ascent.
- Compassion that saves. Enki's creatures show that pain is not overcome by denying it but by receiving it.
- A return that changes the balance. Whoever comes back up does not return to the old life: certain things and certain bonds must be left behind.
In short
- The Sumerian poem tells of Inanna's descent into the realm of her sister Ereshkigal.
- At each of the seven gates the goddess must leave an adornment, until she stands naked before the queen.
- Killed and hung for three days, she is saved by Enki's creatures, who receive Ereshkigal's pain.
- The return requires a substitute: Dumuzi and Geshtinanna will take turns in the underworld.
- In initiatory terms the myth describes stripping, meeting the Shadow, symbolic death and rebirth.
