When Inanna arrives in the Underworld, her sister Ereshkegal orders all seven gates to be bolted. She then instructs the gatekeeper to open them one by one, each one no more than crack, to let Inanna through. “As she enters,…
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The Sumerian Underworld is ruled by Inanna’s older sister Ereshkegal whose husband, Gugalanna (aka the Bull of Heaven) has died. When, at the start of the poem, Inanna opened her ear to the Great Below, I imagined her hearing her…
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In this second woodcut, I imagine Inanna on the edge of a downward spiral to the Underworld. It is a journey from which no one has ever returned and as she hesitates on the first steps, she sets up a…
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