ERESHKIGAL

author: High Priest Zevios Metathronos
co-author: Novice Priest Karnonnos

The Names of Ereshkigal in the Aeons

Ereshkigal

Mesopotamian

Ereshkigal descended to the underworld, fashioning seven gates for the soul's proper entry. She resided within the dark realm and received the heroic. The god of death, Nergal, came to reign next to her.

Persephone

Hellenistic

Kore is the Goddess shrouded in total mystery, abducted by the god of the depths, bringer of spring. She became the Queen of Hades with powers over life and death, the great queen Persephone.

Persipnei

Etruscan

Persipnei was portrayed on Etruscan tombs in a distinctive way akin to Isis and Osiris receiving the dead directly.

Libera

Roman

Libera or Proserpina is the Roman equivalent of Persephone, her funerary cult having distinctive Latin elements to those of the Greeks and Etruscans. She is often tied to Liber, the Roman form of Dionysus.

Isis

Egyptian

Like her mother, Persephone was conflated with the great goddess Isis for her mastery of the dead and the doleful groom over them being her portion. In this guise, she was worshipped in the Roman Empire.

Hieratic Information about Ereshkigal

Divine Names
Ereshkigal (𒀭𒊩𒌆𒆠𒃲)	"Queen of the Great Earth"
Ninkigal (𒀭𒊩𒌆𒆠𒃲)	"Lady of the Great Earth," a variant reading
Irkalla	the underworld itself, used of its queen as Hades is used of his realm
The name divides into ereš, "queen," ki, "earth," and gal, "great." The "great earth" is a euphemism for the land of the dead. The Hurrians called the same office Allani, the Hittites and Luwians the Sun Goddess of the Earth, the Hattians Lelwani.
Divine Symbols
The Seven Gates The Throne of Ganzir The Hook of the Wall The Eye of Death
Divine Forces
Death and the Land of No Return Judgement of the Dead Plague through Namtar The Fixing of Fates Below
Important Titles
Queen of the Great Below Lady of the Great Place Queen of Irkalla Mistress of the Land of No Return
Names Across Civilizations
Sumerian	Ereshkigal (𒀭𒊩𒌆𒆠𒃲)
Akkadian	Ereshkigal, Allatu
Hurrian	Allani
Hittite / Luwian	Sun Goddess of the Earth
Hattian	Lelwani
Greek (magical)	Ereschigal (Ερεσχιγαλ), joined to Hecate

I. The Name

Ereshkigal is written 𒀭𒊩𒌆𒆠𒃲 and splits cleanly into three Sumerian elements eresh meaning "queen," ki meaning "earth," and gal meaning "great", so the literal translation is "Queen of Great Earth." Great Earth here refers not to the surface world but to the land below it which is the realm of the dead. Gwendolyn Leick records another reading as "Lady of Great Place" and interprets this euphemistically as referring to the underworld. Variant Ninkigal which means "Lady of Great Earth" carries the same sense using nin instead of eresh.^1,2

Her name is sometimes given simply as Irkalla, the underworld itself, in the manner that the Greeks used Hades for both the realm and its lord. The land she rules bears a scatter of Sumerian names that were later borrowed wholesale into Akkadian: Kur, Irkalla, Kukku, Arali, Kigal, and Ganzir, the last of these being also the name of her palace at the entrance to the dead country. When a term meaning merely "earth" or "sand" was wanted, Kur and ki served in Sumerian and erṣetu in Akkadian.³

The underworld queen's office was known as different titles to neighboring people, but the equation has been secured. Death goddesses were conflated across cultures. For example, Allani (the Hurrian death goddess) became associated with the Mesopotamian goddess Ereshkigal, and was referred to by the name Allatum in the reign of Shulgi, receiving offerings at Ur along with other foreign gods/deities. Over time, Allani became virtually synonymous with the term Ereshkigal. As a Sun Goddess of the Earth, this same figure appears in the mythology of the Hittite/Luwian peoples. The Hattian death god, who was originally a male king, Lelwani, became female due to association with Allani/Ereshkigal.^4,5

No personal names are known that use Ereshkigal as a theophoric element. Nergal and Inanna filled the naming of children but no Mesopotamian was called after the queen of the dead perhaps reflecting the taboo of the Persephone name.⁶

Language / Culture	Name of Ereshkigal	Attestation
Sumerian	Ereshkigal / Ninkigal (𒀭𒊩𒌆𒆠𒃲)	Inanna's Descent and god-lists (early 2nd millennium BCE)
Akkadian	Ereshkigal, Allatu	Descent of Ishtar; Nergal and Ereshkigal
Hurrian	Allani (Allatum)	Offering lists at Ur under Shulgi (Ur III period)
Hittite / Luwian	Sun Goddess of the Earth	Second-millennium Anatolian ritual texts
Hattian	Lelwani	Hittite-period cult of Lelwani
Greek (magical)	Ερεσχιγαλ (Ereschigal)	Michigan Magical Papyrus (late 3rd–4th century CE)

Sources: Leick, A Dictionary of Ancient Near Eastern Mythology (1998); Wiggermann, Reallexikon der Assyriologie 9 (1998–2001); Black and Green, Gods, Demons and Symbols (1992); Taracha, Religions of Second Millennium Anatolia (2009).^1,2,3,4

II. Aspects of Mythology

Ereshkigal is obscure in practice but prominent in stories. Most vivid features of her come from two myths. In the first Inanna, her sister descends into her realm and is reborn there; in the second Nergal, a god, descends, insults her and becomes her husband and co ruler. One story fixes her as implacable keeper of the dead while the other story portrays her as queen who will tear open the gates of the world rather than be slighted.⁷

In Inanna's Descent, the older of the two, the queen of heaven, opens her ear to the great below and comes down to the land of no return. Ereshkigal told her gatekeeper, Neti, to close all seven of the gates and for him to open each of them in succession, causing Inanna to lose an item from her body with each, until when she arrived at Ereshkigal's throne she had lost everything; she was powerless and naked. Inanna was hung from a hook.⁸

The rescue was undertaken by Enki; he created two sexless beings out of mud taken from beneath his fingernails. He then sent them into the earth below with the "food for life" and the "water for life". The two sexless beings found the Queen moaning as if she were giving birth and sympathetic to the pain of the Queen, they won from her the body on the hook. Inanna was returned to life. However, there had to be an exchange for the corpse that was required by the laws of the underworld. Thus, when Inanna ascended back into the land of the living the galla demons followed her to take one.⁸

The Burney Relief, often identified with Ereshkigal or Inanna, Old Babylonian, c. 1800 BCE

The Akkadian Descent of Ishtar has a different variation of the same tale and adds a chilling detail. When Ishtar is trapped below, all coupling ceases on the earth above, bull refusing cow and man refusing woman, so that the gods are forced to act to free her. Here Ereshkigal is no passive gaoler but the fulcrum on which the fertility of the whole world turns, since to hold the goddess of love in the land of no return is to still the generation of every living thing.⁹

In addition to her marriage to Nergal (the subject of the next section), both stories have an aspect of a woman ruling through unbreakable law and threatening to unleash death on the living if anyone breaks the law. When she finds out that Nergal has deserted her bed, she threatens to bring back the dead to eat the living until he returns. This is the same kind of power she uses against the higher powers. The ruler of the dead can hold the living ransom for the dead.¹⁰

III. Epithets of Ereshkigal

Although Ereshkigal's epithets are limited when compared with the number of names which cluster about a god such as Nergal, it is for the very same reasons (of limitation) that she does not appear within the theophoric records. Unlike the gods who functioned within a liturgical framework and were worshipped within temples where offerings and prayers were made to them, Ereshkigal functioned within an entirely literary and magical type of context, hence, her titles reflect her status as a sovereign and source of fear, whereas those of the local cult would have reflected her localised authority. The following table represents the title of Ereshkigal arranged according to their significance or weight within the available literature, starting with her most significant title, the one that identified her position, down to the foreign terms used to identify her position outside of Mesopotamia.^6,7

Epithet	Meaning	Domain
Ninkigal	Lady of the Great Earth	Variant royal title with nin for ereš
Irkalla	The Underworld	Queen named for her realm, as Hades for his
Allatu	The Akkadian form of Allani	The underworld queen in Semitic and Hurrian usage
Mistress of the Land of No Return	Queen of Kurnugia	The country from which none ascend
Lady of Ganzir	Queen of the Palace at the Gate	Her throne-hall
Allani	"The Lady" (Hurrian)	The Hurrian underworld goddess conflated with her
Sun Goddess of the Earth	The Anatolian underworld queen	Hittite and Luwian equivalent office

A word of restraint belongs here. Later devotional literature attached to Ereshkigal such items as lightning-weapons and spear-cages, but these embellishments come from modern and popular retellings rather than from the cuneiform record, and they should not be read back into the ancient goddess. What the tablets give her is starker and more terrible than any weapon: the eye of death, the word of wrath, the hook on the wall. Her power needs no armoury, for she is the destination itself.^7,8

IV. Temples of Ereshkigal

Kutha

The cult of Ereshkigal was limited in scope. Her most prominent temple was located at Kutha, which was also the location of Nergal's city. As such it appears that her main religious center would be situated in his city, rather than the other way around. This relationship illustrates one aspect of the theology associated with the marriage mythology (the union of a northern king and the queen of all the Underworld), in which two entities were joined together to create a single ruling couple.^7,11

The Reach Beyond Kutha

Outside Kutha, there is hardly anything left for researchers to trace about her. No great temple of Ereshkigal, independent of Nergal like his E-meslam, has yet appeared. Instead, she is primarily treated in the texts as a witness or as an agent of the underworld to whom the principal rituals are made. In late Uruk records, it appears that oaths have been sworn by priests of Nergal. As divine witnesses, Nergal and Ereshkigal appear together; with this pairing (the queen invoked with the king) we can usually recognize her form in the texts.^7,12

Nonetheless, her foreign cult is better attested than one would think because offices of underworld queens were needed everywhere. Under Shulgi Allatum was part of offerings at Ur; Allani held a place in Hurrian world; as Sun Goddess of Earth, she ruled the dead of Anatolia. Worship moved along with ideas. Wherever people buried their dead and feared the return of the dead, the great queen was recognized by some local name..^4,5

The greatest difference in mythology for Ereshkigal's stature in comparison to the size of her "footprint" can help one better understand how people worshipped her. As a goddess that presides over all of the afterlife and one from which even a powerful goddess such as Inanna can be stripped naked and killed, there are very few temples dedicated to her name; there were virtually no children named after her. While the Mesopotamians were certainly telling stories about her with great reverence; the number of times they went to an altar to make offerings to her was small.^6,11

V. Ereshkigal and Rulership

The power of the ruler of Ereshkigal was based on the right of inheritance. This fact is stated with clarity within a passage which has been misunderstood. A segment from the work entitled Gilgamesh, Enkidu & the Underworld describes how the underworld was transferred to Ereshkigal. Samuel Noah Kramer had interpreted the above described transfer of the underworld to be a seizure by a monstrous creature named Kur; therefore, Kramer considered the event to have occurred against her will. He then proceeded to draw parallels between this action and the mythological story of the rape of Persephone. Modern scholarship has established that Kramer's reading of the passage as an abduction is no longer valid. If anything, the relationship is inverted.¹³

Alhena Gadotti has demonstrated that the description provided in the above passage is not an abduction (the carrying away of the goddess Ereshkigal) but rather the transfer of a dowry. In the context of ancient Sumerian society and law, Anu and Enlil assign Ereshkigal's share of their property (her dowry) as her portion of the family estate (inheritance). As such, Ereshkigal is given control of the underworld as her dowry when she marries.^13,14

If Persephone is abducted and becomes queen, Ereshkigal is invested and also becomes queen and her realm belongs to her before a husband ever appears. When Nergal shows up he is careful about this point. He enters her house and jurisdiction and the throne he comes to share was hers first. The dowry passage supplies legal footing on which later couple stand. Greek and Mesopotamian myths diverge almost diametrically.^13,14

Although the power of the gods in these stories is usually balanced equally, a violent rescension shows that Nergal drags Queen Ereshkigal off her throne and holds up his battle-axe until she offers him marriage for her life. On the milder version of this myth, however, the couple settle their differences peacefully and do not exchange blows. Gadotti suggests that the way many have read the story as an example of how goddesses were marginalized is not accurate and therefore today's scholars look at the story as a combination of two separate underworlds and not as one being forced into submission by the queen (who still owns the kingdom) but with a male ruler who also lives there.^10,14

Cylinder seal impression of an underworld enthronement scene, Old Babylonian period

The ranking of Ereshkigal within the organized pantheon signifies how important she is to the other powers of the dead. In addition, in the latter Babylonian god lists, Ereshkigal also has the highest rank of all underworld gods; however, in those same lists, it is noted that she is at the head of "the transtigridian snake gods" which will be discussed further on. It is clear from these listings that while Ereshkigal is instead the power upon whose authority they operate.¹⁵

VI. The Abyss of Ereshkigal

Ereshkigal's realm is also known by names like Kur, Irkalla and Kurnugia. It is a gloomy land below ground, a dark pit where the living dead continue a shadowed version of life above. Souls drink muddy puddles and eat dust. Everyone goes there regardless of how they lived their lives. At the entrance stands the palace of Ganzir and seven adamantine gates guarded by keeper Neti. Architecture for descent is similar in great myths. Seven thresholds where at each one a descending power surrenders something until visitors stand naked and stripped before a throne. Inanna gives up a garment at each gate while Nergal also strips as he goes down. Gates are a step by step undoing: reduction of living to dead and also reduction of dead to living.^3,16

At the entrance is her palace Ganzir, and before it the seven adamantine gates kept by the gatekeeper Neti. The queen governs this country through real administration that is royal in nature. Her deity Namtar is Fate and her vizier and messenger commands sixty diseases as demons that can enter every part of the human body. Through him the abyss enters the world of the living as plague so that the queen who keeps the dead is also, at a remove, source of sickness that afflicts them. Nungal is the goddess of prison and Galla demons are her bailiffs hunting escaped souls and dragging them back.^8,10

The queen governs this country with a real administration, a royal one. Her vizier and messenger, Namtar ("Fate") commands sixty diseases as demons that can enter every part of human bodies. Through him the abyss enters the living world as plague so that the queen who keeps dead people is also, at a distance, the source of sickness that afflicts them. Her daughter Nungal is the goddess of the prison and the galla demons are her jailers hunting souls that escape and dragging them back, paralleling the Roman variation of Prosperine commanding the Furies.^15,17

"She fastened upon her the eye of death; she spoke against her the word of wrath; she uttered against her the cry of guilt. The woman was turned to a corpse, and the corpse was hung from a hook."
, after Inanna's Descent to the Underworld, paraphrased

One feature that distinguishes the abyss from being a machine of punishment is that when messengers of Enki descend to ransom Inanna, they find her as queen writhing in labor pains. They win favor by imitating her cries and sharing her distress. The keeper of the dead can be moved by like action. Things that seemed completely closed can be opened by appealing to them. Souls rarely return according to Mesopotamian thinking because the land of return is ruled by a queen who herself suffers.^8,10

VII. The Contending of Ereshkigal and Inanna

The confrontation of the two sisters is the most ancient and supreme of all of the Ereshkigal stories. However, this confrontation does ultimately take place as an equality. By far the most direct interpreters of the story have placed this contention at its most extreme: Inanna is the queen of heaven and Ereshkigal is the queen of Irkalla. As such they are polarized rulers of the world on earth and the world under (the underworld).^8,18

Inanna-Ishtar with her weapons, terracotta relief, Old Babylonian period

On orders from Ereshkigal, the gate keeper Neti removed an emblem of Inanna’s power at each of the seven gates; first the crown of heaven, then the rod of lapis, next the beads around her neck, after that the breast plate and more, until Inanna stood bare before the throne. The seven Anunnaki judges handed down their judgment. The queen of the dead fastened upon Inanna's head the eye of death. Thus, Inanna became a corpse hanging from a hook.⁸

Foresight saves Inanna true to the motto named after her. She instructed her sukkal Ninshubur to raise a lament and to appeal to great gods if she failed to return. It is Enki alone who devises the rescue of her. Two creatures without sex sneak into the underworld like flies and find Ereshkigal wracked with labor pains and win her sympathy by taking the corpse. Inanna rises but the land of the dead does not cheat her of her due.⁸

The cruelty of the ending belongs to the law of the realm, as the malice of the queen is tempered. Souls do not leave the land of no return without another replacing them. Galla demons ascend Inanna to collect this replacement. Inanna refuses faithful Ninshubur and loyal sons who had mourned her and finally settles on her husband Dumuzid who sits regally and is untouched by sorrow. Ereshkigal is content. Conflict among sisters ends at a price, the price being the shepherd who is sent down in place of the risen goddess..⁸

VIII. Ereshkigal as Decider of Heroes and Fates

Ereshkigal is an impartial judge. Her judgement does not discriminate; both gods and heroes are subject to her judgment. There are seven Anunnaki who serve as judges in her Underworld hall. It is their verdict, ratified with the "eye of death" of Ereshkigal, which condemns the goddess of all other goddesses Inanna. She is the queen of the tribunal where they appear.^8,16

Her dealings with great heroes show she alone decides which belongings are to be allowed for the dead, and which must be relinquished. Throughout the larger body of underworld literature (e.g., Gilgamesh, Etana), both Gilgamesh and Etana were deified and shown as judges of the dead under her authority, though instead of being exempted from her judicial process, each was brought into its operation. Not even the great hero Gilgamesh, who in his own epos struggled against Death with every ounce of energy at his disposal, escaped the status of an officer of the queen who had proven so unescapable.¹⁶

TAs Enlil decrees the destinies of the living from Nippur, so the powers of the underworld decree the destinies of the dead, and Ereshkigal is the judge. To be summoned by Namtar is to have one's fate cut. He answers to Ereshkigal.^15,17

Yet the queen who controls destinies can also suspend them on rare and costly terms and myths preserve mercy alongside severity as the general machinery for Inanna's return relies on Ereshkigal's capacity to be moved: corpses go to those who share her pain. Grim accounting of the land of no return admits only one exit and this exit opens only when the queen consents and someone is substituted. Justice is total but there is a door as well.^8,10

IX. Ereshkigal and the Serpent Gods

The "god lists" provide Ereshkigal with both a retinue of a family of serpents. Frans Wiggermann has identified a group of gods who were called the Transtigridian Snake Gods, they are gods of the Underworld, Justice, Vegetation, Snakes and their temple centers lie on the border of the Sumer-Akkad and Elamite world to the East of the Tigris River. This group includes Ninazu of Enegi/Eshnuna, Ninazu's Son Ningishzida of Girsu/Lagash, Tishpak of Eshnuna, Ishtaran of Der and Inshushinak of Susa (Elam). In the Great God List, these gods occur one by one immediately after Ereshkigal.^15,19

The serpent represents a type of unifying force for this group far from being just an ornament. Ninazu is associated with both the snake and the snake/dragon hybrid known as the mushhussu. From Ninazu comes the association between Ningishzida/Tishpak and the mushhussu. In addition, the serpent Nirah is as a messenger to Ishtaran. Both are subterranean creatures, therefore, the God who wears the snake is also God of the earth (ground) and of whatever lies beneath. As chamberlain of the dead in the underworld, Ningishzida was said to spend a portion of every year there. The serpent Gods are the officials and relatives of Ereshkigal's kingdom.^19,20

The familial ties bind her to these figures as well. In the most widely accepted tradition, Ninazu is the offspring of Ereshkigal and her mate, Gugalanna; he was known as the "lord great" in the Enegi texts. In an alternate tradition she is his spouse prior to when the position of spouse for Nergal. Through this lineage (Ninazu), Ningishzida becomes her grandson.^20,21

Libation vase of Gudea with the serpent-dragon of Ningishzida, c. 2100 BCE

The category for Wiggermann is an academic construct based on common imagery and the order in which the gods appear in lists of deities; while it has been broadly accepted as such it is a framework superimposed upon the prehistoric evidence by scholars, and therefore did not represent a term employed by the Mesopotamians to describe their own people. In addition, there are conflicting opinions regarding who was first to claim dominion over the netherworld. Many scholars believe that Ninazu was not the ruler of the dead in the Sumerian mind before Ereshkigal came into power, but that she may have eventually come to rule over the serpent gods.^15,19,22

X. Ereshkigal in Greek Literature

Ereshkigal survived the earliest cuneiform script which mentioned her name when she appeared at the close of Antiquity (circa 300 BCE) in a Greek Magical Papyrus. The Michigan Magical Papyrus contains spells invoking the Goddess Hecate as "Hecate Ereschigal" approximately 600 years after the last person was able to read cuneiform writing, although by this time no one could still read cuneiform. The spell is for lifting the fear of being punished in the next world with magical words and gestures; also, it invokes the ancient Queen of the Dead, using her old name against the fear of dying.^23,24

Worship of Hecate like this did not come wholesale from Mesopotamia. Rather parallels are seen in rites and chants: influence and syncretism are indicated by the papyri. The name Ereshkigal came as a powerful word into the Greek magical world. It was a string of strange and terrible syllables attached to a Greek goddess of crossroads and the dead.^24,25

The parallels between Ereshkigal and Persephone are also obvious.^13,25

XI. Seasonal Emphasis

The Descent of Inanna appears to have had a place in the seasonal round, its plot of dying and rising read against the turn of the year, and where that rite was enacted Ereshkigal stood at its centre as the power that holds the goddess below. The mourning rites for the dying shepherd Dumuzid, who is sent down in Inanna's place, likewise touch the edge of her realm, for it is into Ereshkigal's country that the lamented god descends. Her festival, so far as she has one, is the festival of the descent itself.^8,9

The offerings to the dead fit into this category as well, and represent the closest to an ongoing cult of the Queen. The Mesopotamians provided for the dead in her care by means of the kispu and similar rituals. The rite included feeding the shades of the dead, reciting spells intended to improve their condition below, and beneath each of these acts was the desire to maintain the dead in their place. Providing for the dead was therefore, at some level removed, to be making a request to their Queen; and it was the same fear which inspired the rite of providing for the dead that is expressed in the mythological accounts, the fear that if permitted to rise again, the dead would eventually outnumber the living.¹⁶

There is no reconstructed independent festival of Ereshkigal to set beside the akitu of Marduk or the lament-cycle of Tammuz.^6,11

Terracotta funerary offering stand, southern Mesopotamia, early 2nd millennium BCE

Sources and Bibliography

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