Story Mode
The Descent of Inanna
From the Great Above the goddess turned her ear to the Great Below. Inanna, Queen of Heaven, walks through the seven gates of the dead, is stripped of her powers one garment at a time, and is hung on a hook by her own sister.
Her rescue costs the underworld nothing — the dead must receive a head for a head. The full illustrated telling is in production.
The characters
Inanna
Queen of Heaven and Earth
Goddess of love and war, who turns her ear to the Great Below. At each of the seven gates a garment of her power is stripped away, until she stands before her sister naked, and is struck dead.
Ereshkigal
Queen of the Great Below
Inanna’s elder sister, sovereign of the land of no return. She hangs the Queen of Heaven on a hook — and is undone not by force, but by the first creatures who ever grieve with her.
Dumuzi
The shepherd king · her consort
While his queen hung dead in the underworld, he sat on her throne in fine clothes. The price of her return is a substitute — and her eye falls on him.
Enki
God of wisdom and sweet waters
The one god clever enough to cheat death’s arithmetic: from the dirt of his fingernails he makes two mourners who slip through the gates and win the corpse back.
Where in time this story sits
From the Sumerian poem "The Descent of Inanna", four thousand years old — the oldest written katabasis.
The chain of emanation
- An, father of the gods
- InannaQueen of the Great Above
- Dumuziher consort, her substitute
- EreshkigalQueen of the Great Below
- Enkiwho cheats the arithmetic
- InannaQueen of the Great Above