The Descent of Inana
The Descent of Inana is an ancient Sumerian poem that describes the journey to hell and back undertaken by the goddess Inana. Inana was a goddess of love, sex, and war, not unlike the more familiar Greco-Roman diety Venus/Aphrodite.
The tablets detailing Inana’s harrowing journey were unearthed alongside a trove of other Sumerian writings by the University of Pennsylvania’s Babylonian Expedition at the lost city of Nippur. The excavations at Nipur began in the 1880’s, and would make a significant contributions toward our understanding of the ancient Sumerians.
Before proceeding with Inana’s Descent, we should iron out some of the terminology for non-specialists like myself. Sumer is an ancient city located in modern Iraq, in the region one known as Mesopotamia; a region that anthropologists and historians refer to as the ‘cradle of civilization’. The Sumerian cultural and political hegemony was cemented by about 4,000 BC, with the Babylonian culture absorbing or displacing it by about 2,000 BC.
The Sumerians are recognized as the primogenitors of civilization, and the Descent of Inana is recognized as the worlds first epic poem. It was recorded on clay tablets in Sumerian Cuneiform sometime during the third millenium BC.
Sumerian Cuneiform is distinct from the Semitic language used by the Babylonians. The implication is that the Sumerians were either subjugated or overcome; even so, the Babylonians appear to have embraced Sumerian gods.
The first organized attempts to catalog the movements of the stars are attributed to the Assyro-Babylonians. These efforts are dated to about 1000 BC, two millenia after The Descent of Inana was recorded.
Despite this massive parallax in time, we might find embedded in the narrative of Inana’s Descent a detailed working knowledge of the machinery of the sky; for the story of Inana’s Descent into the Underworld is believed by some to describe the occultations of the planet Venus.
‘Occultation’ is a word which means ‘to hide’; twice a year, the star of Venus goes missing from the sky. During these periods of occultation, Venus is hidden; she stays gone for between one and two weeks at a time.
When she returns, it’s always on the opposite side of the sky.
A well-known but perpetually enigmatic aspect of Venus is that the planet has a morning-star and an evening-star aspect.
As the evening-star, she is seen for a few hours after sunset before setting into the west. In this form Venus is called ‘Hesperian’.
As the morning-star, she is seen rising boldly before the sun, heralding the dawn. The rising of the sun eventually consumes her light. This is venus in her ‘Luciferian’ aspect.
When Luciferian Venus goes into occultation, she will return as the evening star. When Hesperian Venus goes into occultation, she will return as the morning star.
This process must have seemed as magical to the ancients as it does to us. It is no wonder the Sumerians would write a beautiful poem about it.
This early understanding that the morning-star and the evening-star were in fact the same planet is truly remarkable; it suggests that Babylonian astronomy crystalized on a framework thousands of years older than itself.
HERE IS A FULL TRANSLATION OF INANA’S POEM
Summary of Inana's Descent
When Inana descends into the underworld, it’s because she lusts for power. The underworld is ruled by her sister Erishkergal, and Inana seeks to dethrone her.
Upon reaching the gates of hell, Inana is met by guardian deities who refuse her entry. She insists. The guardians relent, ultimately grating her access, but there is a price: at each of the seven gates she must shed a piece of her attire. When she finally stands before her sister Ereshkergal she is naked and humiliated, stripped of her divine status.
Ereshkigal sentences her petulant sister to death for her presumption. Inana is killed and suspended on a hook as a grim trophy, her body left to decay.
Inana’s absence causes distress and imbalance in the world above, so the other gods intervene on her behalf.
Inana’s faithful minister Nishubur, who accompanied her part of the way on her journey, enlists the help of Inana’s father Enki. The chief of the gods sends two androgynous spirits called galla to enter the dark realm of Erishkergal and lobby for Inana’s release.
The Queen of the Hell is having labor pains, and the galla offer her sympathy and help. In gratitude, Erishkergal promises them anything they might ask. They ask only for the corpse on the wall, which Erishkergal grants.
Inana is restored to life with the water and bread of life.
Upon returning to the world above, the galla become demons— they are tasked now with finding a soul to take Inana’s place in the underworld, for even a goddess cannot cheat death.
When Inana see’s her lover Tammuz reclining in his finery and untroubled by her absence, she chooses him to take her place in wrath.
The galla seize him for death’s satisfaction, but his sister Geshtianna volunteers to go in his stead.
Sort of like in the myth of Hades and Persephone, it is arranged that Geshtianna and Tammuz will spend half of every year in the underworld, each in their turn.
Thus brother and sister are forever divided, and the marriage of Inana and Tammuz is re-enacted around the same time every year.
The Occultations of Venus
Venus periodically goes missing from the night sky when the planet is obscured by its proximity to the Sun; these periods of invisibility are called occultations.
During inferior conjunction, when Venus passes between Earth and the Sun, it is ‘occulted’, or hidden, from view for a period of between one and two weeks.
Inferior conjunction occurs every 19 months and aligns with late winter— early spring.
Another period of occultation takes place during the superior conjunction of Venus, when the planet is on the far side of the Sun from Earth. Again, Venus disappears from the night sky for about 1 to 2 weeks.
The superior conjunction of Venus is typically observed from late summer — early autumn.
Inanna’s journey into the underworld is thought to parallel these phases of disappearance and re-appearance; Just as Inanna re-emerges from the underworld to reaffirm her divine status, so Venus reappears in our sky as either the morning or evening star after the period of occultation has elapsed.
This cyclical pattern highlights themes of renewal and transformation; the mythological narrative of Inana’s Descent into the Underworld finds its mirror in observable celestial cycles.
Venus describes an incredible geometric pattern when her movements through the sky are plotted from a geocentric perspective:
Venus and the Bull's Horns
Did you ever stop to be confused about why the zodiacal sign of Taurus is ruled by venus and considered feminine when horned cattle (bulls) are by definition the males of their species?
The answer may lay in the occultations of Venus. If you plot her movements from morning star to evening star and back, from a geocentric perspective across her 1.6 year synodic period you end up with this shape:
