Ereshkigal- Mesopotamian GodDeity"Queen of the Underworld"

The Lady of the Great Below

When the cosmos was first divided among the gods, An took the heavens, Enlil took the earth, and the great below fell to Ereshkigal. An alternate tradition tells a darker origin: the primordial dragon Kur abducted the young goddess and carried her beneath the earth. Whether given or taken, Ereshkigal became sole sovereign of the dead, ruling in permanent exile below.

She sat enthroned in a lapis lazuli palace at the heart of Irkalla, the city of the dead. Her vizier Namtar kept sixty diseases at his command and carried out her decrees. The scribe Belit-Seri knelt before her, recording on a tablet the name of every soul who entered. The Anunnaki, the seven judges of the underworld, sat in her presence to render verdicts. No appeal existed from their judgment, and none from hers.

The Land of No Return

To reach Ereshkigal's city, the dead crossed the Hubur, the river of the underworld. Seven walls surrounded Irkalla, each pierced by a single gate, each gate attended by a keeper. Within, the dead dwelt in unremitting gloom. The Epic of Gilgamesh describes the House of Dust: "The one who enters it is stripped of his garments... they are clothed like birds with feathered garments, they see no light, they dwell in darkness. Dust is their food, clay their bread." King and commoner shared the same fate. Only those whose living descendants made regular offerings of food and water received some small comfort. The utterly forgotten and the unburied suffered worst: their ghosts wandered restlessly, eating scraps and drinking ditch water.

Inanna's Descent

Inanna, Queen of Heaven and Ereshkigal's sister, announced she would descend to the underworld to attend funeral rites for Gugalanna, the Bull of Heaven and Ereshkigal's husband. Before departing, she instructed her minister Ninshubur: if she did not return in three days, he should petition the gods for help.

Ereshkigal received the news with fury. She instructed her gatekeeper Neti to open the seven gates one by one, and at each gate to remove one piece of Inanna's divine regalia: her shugurra crown at the first, her lapis lazuli measuring rod at the second, and so on through every ornament of her power until, at the seventh gate, her royal garment was taken. Inanna protested at each gate. "What is this?" And each time the same answer: "Be satisfied, Inanna, the divine powers of the underworld are perfect. Do not question the rites of the underworld."

When Inanna reached the throne room, she was naked and powerless. The Anunnaki judges pronounced their verdict. Ereshkigal fixed upon her sister the eye of death, a gaze that turned the living to corpses. Inanna's body was hung on a hook on the wall.

The Queen's Grief

Three days passed. Above, Ninshubur made his appeals. Enlil and Nanna refused. No one who enters the underworld returns. But Enki devised a plan. He fashioned two creatures, the kurgarra and the galatur, beings small enough to slip through the cracks of the underworld gates like flies.

They found Ereshkigal in agony, moaning "Oh my inside! Oh my outside!" The creatures did not try to trick her or fight her. They echoed her cries. They mourned with her. Ereshkigal, moved, offered them gifts. When they asked for the corpse hanging on the wall, she granted it. They sprinkled the food of life and the water of life upon Inanna's body, and the Queen of Heaven rose.

The Price of Return

But the underworld's law held: no one departs without providing a substitute. The galla demons, eyeless and mouthless enforcers of Ereshkigal's decree, followed Inanna back to the world above, seizing anyone who might take her place. They passed Ninshubur, still mourning at Inanna's shrine, dressed in rags. Inanna would not give him up. They passed her beautician Shara, also in mourning. Again she refused.

Then they came to the city of Kullab, where Inanna's husband Dumuzi sat on a magnificent throne, dressed in splendid garments, feasting. He had not mourned. Inanna fixed upon him the eye of death, the same gaze her sister had turned on her, and told the demons: "Take him."

Dumuzi fled, and his sister Geshtinanna hid him, but the galla demons found him. A compromise was struck: Dumuzi would spend half the year in the underworld, and Geshtinanna would take his place for the other half. So began the cycle of the shepherd god's annual death and return.

Nergal and Ereshkigal

A separate myth, preserved in two distinct versions, tells how Ereshkigal gained a co-ruler. When the gods held a feast in heaven, Ereshkigal could not attend. She who rules the underworld does not leave it. She sent Namtar to receive her portion. All the gods stood to honor him except Nergal, the god of war and plague, who remained seated.

Ereshkigal was outraged and demanded Nergal be sent to her. In the earlier Amarna version, Nergal descended and spent six passionate days and nights with the queen. When he slipped away and returned to heaven, Ereshkigal was consumed with longing. She sent Namtar to the gods with a threat: return Nergal, or she would raise the dead until they outnumbered and devoured the living. The gods complied.

The later Sultantepe version is more violent. Nergal descended armed with fourteen demons. He smashed through each of the seven gates, overwhelmed Ereshkigal's guards, seized her by the hair, and dragged her from the throne. He raised his weapon to strike. Ereshkigal wept and made her offer: "Be my husband! I will be your wife! I will let you seize kingship over the wide underworld! I will place the tablet of wisdom in your hand! You shall be lord, I shall be lady!" Nergal lowered his weapon, kissed her, wiped her tears, and accepted.

Enkidu's Vision

The Epic of Gilgamesh provides the sharpest mortal glimpse of Ereshkigal's realm. In Tablet VII, Enkidu dreams of the underworld on the eve of his death. He sees the House of Dust, where crowns are piled in heaps, where kings work as kitchen servants and the once-mighty sit in darkness wearing feathers. He sees a figure enthroned, and Belit-Seri the recorder reading from her tablet.

In Tablet XII, Enkidu's shade returns briefly through a hole in the earth and describes the hierarchy of the dead to Gilgamesh. The man with one son weeps at the base of his wall. The man with seven sons sits enthroned among the lesser gods. The unburied find no rest at all.

The Queen Below

The living did not build grand temples to Ereshkigal. They invoked her in funerary rites, asking her to receive the newly dead with some measure of kindness, and in incantation texts designed to control restless ghosts. When a spirit escaped the underworld to haunt the living, it was because the proper rites had not been observed.

The kispu ritual, a regular offering of food and water poured into the earth for the dead, was performed partly to keep the queen satisfied. A neglected ancestor might petition her for release, and she might grant it. A terracotta plaque from the Old Babylonian period, known as the "Queen of the Night," depicts a winged nude goddess standing on the backs of lions, flanked by owls, holding the rod and ring of divine authority. Whether she is Ereshkigal or Inanna remains disputed. But the nocturnal iconography fits a goddess the living preferred not to contemplate: feared and propitiated, never celebrated.