Inana’s Descent

Author: Traditional Sumerian

Time Period: 2499 BCE–1000 BCE

Country or Culture: Mesopotamia

Genre: Myth

PLOT SUMMARY

Before she descends to the underworld, the goddess Inana (Inanna) tells her servant Ninšubur (Ninshubur) to lament for her by the ruins and mourn her both in public and in private if she does not return. Ninšubur is also instructed to go and weep first before Enlil (god of air), then Nanna (moon god), and lastly Enki (god of wisdom) in the hope that one of them will bring Inana back from the underworld if she does not return. Inana then journeys to the outer gate of the underworld. At the gate, she sternly calls out for the gatekeeper, Neti, to open the doors.

In all, there are seven gates that Inana must go through. When she goes through the first gate, her šugurra (or shugurra, “crown of the steppe”) is taken from her. At each gate, she must give up another of her powerful possessions: her necklace of lapis beads, the double strand of beads from her breast, her breastplate, her gold bracelet, her lapis measuring tools, and, finally, her royal robe. Each time, she questions the loss of the item and is then rebuked for questioning the ways of the underworld.

Naked, Inana enters the throne room of Ereškigala (Ereshkigal), her older sister and the goddess of the underworld. The judges of the underworld, the Anuna, come up to Inana and pass judgment against her. Their deadly gaze and their shouts of anger and guilt strike her dead, and her body is then hung from a hook like rotting meat.

Three days and three nights go by, and Inana still has not returned from the underworld. Her servant Ninšubur laments at the ruins, beats the drum in the temples, ritually cuts herself, dresses in sackcloth, and visits the gods. Because Inana chose to go to the underworld, from which no one can return, and sought power she should not have, Enlil and Nanna both refuse to help her. However, Enki agrees to release Inana from the underworld. Concerned for the goddess, he creates servants out of dust and commands them to sneak into the underworld. There, they commiserate with the labor-panged Ereškigala and persuade her to release Inana.

As Inana is ascending back to the Great Above, the Anuna seize her and tell her she cannot return without supplying someone to take her place. Then the galla, the demons of the underworld, also seize her. These beings know no joy except bringing misery to others. The galla tell Inana they will travel with her to the Great Above and try to take Ninšubur in her place. Inana pleads with them not to take her servant, so the galla state that they will take her sons, Šara (Shara) and Lulal. Inana begs them not to take her sons.

With the galla seizing her, Inana travels to the big apple tree in the city of Uruk (also known as Erech or Unug). There, Inana’s husband, Dumuzid, is sitting on his throne, lavishly dressed. Displeased that he is not mourning her, Inana allows the demons to take him. The demons grab him by the thighs and cause a ruckus. Inana freely opens up Dumuzid to the galla. She gives him “the eye of death” and speaks “the word of death” and “the cry of guilt” (Wolkstein and Kramer 71). The galla begin beating Dumuzid and cutting him with axes. Although he tries to escape the galla, the tale ultimately ends with Dumuzid residing in the underworld for six months out of the year and his sister, Ĝeštinana (Geshtinanna), taking his place the other six months.

SIGNIFICANCE

Inana, known as Ištar (Ishtar) in Babylonian mythology, is the most prominent female deity in Sumerian mythology and, as a goddess, represents a range of concepts, from war to love and fertility to healing. Called the Queen of Heaven, she was considered the patron of Uruk, where her most important temple was built.

The story of Inana’s descent into the underworld has been interpreted in many different ways. Popular contemporary interpretations have frequently used a feminist lens. These interpretations read the story as empowering for women, particularly in Inana’s willful decision to descend to the underworld, knowing that she might not be able to return. In this way, she has become an archetype of feminine transformation and experience. While the text hints at but does not specifically state a reason or purpose for her descent, the feminist interpretation typically views it as a personal journey that she knows she must endure in order to acquire further strength and wisdom. Enlil and Nanna’s disapproval of her descent supports this idea and implies that they consider desire for this knowledge hubristic. Some have read the removal of her expensive clothes and jewelry at the gates as Inana stripping away the symbols of who she is.

When Inana does return, feminist interpretations have said that she chooses her husband, Dumuzid, to descend with the galla in order to prove perhaps that he possesses the same feminine strength and wisdom that she has. The annual death and rebirth of Dumuzid has been taken as a representation of the growth and harvest cycle of crops. Along the same lines, Inana’s descent and return can be read as a metaphor for the revival of life in the spring. In later, Babylonian versions, Ištar descends to the underworld in order to retrieve Tammuz (the Babylonian Dumuzid), who has already died, and thereby initiates this annual cycle.

The descent to the underworld is a recurring element found in mythologies throughout the world and specifically in the traditional hero’s journey. The reasons mythological characters travel to the underworld vary, but some common motifs include searching for one’s destiny or retrieving a lost loved one. Metaphorically, the descent usually represents a transformation for the character. When the character returns, he or she is fundamentally changed by the travel and is thereafter a different person, typically with more wisdom and strength. In these cases, the underworld itself is a place of revelation rather than a place of eternal fire and suffering, a concept revisited in many modernist depictions.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Black, Jeremy A., et al. “Inana’s Descent to the Underworld.” The Literature of Ancient Sumer. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2004. 65–76. Print.

Deagon, Andrea. “Inanna’s Descent: An Archetype of Feminine Self-Discovery and Transformation.” University of North Carolina Wilmington. UNC Wilmington, n.d. Web. 30 May 2013.

Murdock, Maureen. The Heroine’s Journey. Boston: Shambhala, 1990. Print.

Perera, Sylvia Brinton. Descent to the Goddess: A Way of Initiation for Women. Toronto: Inner City, 1981. Print.

Smith, Evans Lansing. “Modernism.” The Hero Journey in Literature: Parables of Poesis. Lanham: UP of America, 1997. 341–452. Print.

Wolkstein, Diane, and Samuel Noah Kramer. “The Descent of Inanna.” Inanna, Queen of Heaven and Earth: Her Stories and Hymns from Sumer. New York: Harper, 1983. 51–90. Print.