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| descent_ishtar_netherworld [2013/04/09 06:21] – al-rashid | descent_ishtar_netherworld [2017/04/27 23:03] (current) – dahl |
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| //Provenience//: Nineveh\\ | //Provenience//: Nineveh\\ |
| //Period//: Neo-Assyrian (ca. 911-612 BC)\\ | //Period//: Neo-Assyrian (ca. 911-612 BC)\\ |
| //Current location//: British Museum, London ()\\ | //Current location//: British Museum, London\\ |
| //Text genre, language//: Literary; Akkadian\\ | //Text genre, language//: Literary; Akkadian\\ |
| [[http://cdli.ucla.edu/pnnnnnn|CDLI page]]\\ | [[http://cdli.ucla.edu/P345482|CDLI page]], and [[http://cdli.ucla.edu/P497322|CDLI composite with translation]]\\ |
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| //Description//: This Akkadian poem tells the myth of the descent of Ishtar, goddess of love, fertility, and war, into the Netherworld and her resurrection. The poem begin's with Ishtar's descent to the Netherworld and a stock literary description of this mythical place. She passes through the seven gates of the Netherworld, and at each gate, she is required to relinquish a garment or piece of jewellery. Stripped of her clothing and jewellery -- and thus symbolically stripped of power -- she faces a furious queen Ereshkigal, the queen of the Netherworld, who refuses to let Ishtar leave this land of no return. With the intervention of the god Ea, Ereshkigal finally allows the goddess Ishtar to leave on the condition that she find a replacement for her in the Netherworld, which Ishtar finds in her husband Dumuzi. Ishtar is then allowed to leave through the seven gates, at each of which the gatekeeper restores her clothing and finery to her. The poem is related to an earlier Sumerian poem that tells of the descent of Inana to the Netherworld in a much more elaborate account of the descent and resurrection, and the Akkadian version of the story omits much of the detail that appears in the Sumerian work. B. Foster's analysis of Late Akkadian literature provides a window onto the context for the abbreviated character of the later poem: the shortening of the //Descent of Isthar// as compared with //Inana's Descent// reflects a continued process of "modernisation, simplification, expansion, and corruption of texts throughout the second millennium BCE (Foster 2007: 100). The myth may have also served to explain the periodic disappearance and reappearance in the evening sky of Venus, with which Ishtar is also associated. | //Description//: This Akkadian poem tells the myth of the descent of Ishtar, goddess of love, fertility, and war, into the Netherworld and her resurrection. The poem begin's with Ishtar's descent to the Netherworld and a stock literary description of this mythical place. She passes through the seven gates of the Netherworld, and at each gate, she is required to relinquish a garment or piece of jewellery. Stripped of her clothing and jewellery -- and thus symbolically stripped of power -- she faces a furious queen Ereshkigal, the queen of the Netherworld, who refuses to let Ishtar leave this land of no return. With the intervention of the god Ea, Ereshkigal finally allows the goddess Ishtar to leave on the condition that she find a replacement for her in the Netherworld, which Ishtar finds in her husband Dumuzi. Ishtar is then allowed to leave through the seven gates, at each of which the gatekeeper restores her clothing and finery to her. The poem is related to an earlier Sumerian poem that tells of the descent of Inana to the Netherworld in a much more elaborate account of the descent and resurrection, and the Akkadian version of the story omits much of the detail that appears in the Sumerian work. B. Foster's analysis of Late Akkadian literature provides a window onto the context for the abbreviated character of the later poem: the shortening of the //Descent of Isthar// as compared with //Inana's Descent// reflects a continued process of "modernisation, simplification, expansion, and corruption of texts throughout the second millennium BCE (Foster 2007: 100). The myth may have also served to explain the periodic disappearance and reappearance in the evening sky of Venus, with which Ishtar is also associated. |
