Story Mode
The Descent of Inanna
From the Great Above the goddess turned her ear to the Great Below. Inanna, Queen of Heaven, dresses in her seven powers and walks into the land of the dead, leaving one instruction with her minister Ninshubur: if I am not back in three days, mourn me, and go from god to god until one of them acts.
At each of the seven gates a garment of her power is stripped away — "Quiet, Inanna. The ways of the underworld are perfect. They may not be questioned." — until she stands naked before her sister Ereshkigal, who fastens on her the eye of death and hangs her corpse on a hook.
Two great gods refuse the rescue; Enki, god of wisdom, cheats instead: from the dirt under his fingernails he makes two tiny mourners who slip through the gates, grieve with the aching Queen of the Dead until she softens, and ask for nothing but the corpse. Inanna rises — but no one ascends unmarked. The dead must receive a head for a head, and the collectors walk up with her.
She spares everyone she finds in mourning. Then she reaches her own palace and finds Dumuzi, her consort, in fine clothes on her throne — and fastens on him the eye she learned below. His sister splits the sentence: half the year below, half in the light. It is the oldest descent story ever written, and the first calendar.
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.
Ninshubur
The faithful minister
Given one instruction before the descent — if I do not return, mourn me, and go from god to god. She carries it out exactly, and it is why her queen comes back at all.
Where in time this story sits
From the Sumerian poem "The Descent of Inanna", four thousand years old — the oldest written katabasis.