Deity · Mesopotamian · c. 2000 BCE
Ereshkigal
Also called Göttin Ereschkigal (per Wikidata)
Sovereign of the underworld who strips Ishtar of a garment at each of the seven gates and hangs her on a hook.
Deep source base
Ereshkigal is the underworld's sovereign rather than its jailer, and the distinction matters for everything downstream. Her realm is not a punishment: the dead go there regardless of conduct, eat dust, and stay, which is a claim about mortality rather than about justice. When Ishtar comes down demanding entry she is stripped at each of the seven gates and hung on a hook — not for wickedness but because the rules of the place apply to gods too. Later she acquires a consort in Nergal and, much later, a substantial afterlife in Greek magical texts, where her name is invoked as a word of power by people with no idea who she was.
Identity
Where does the name come from?
Where it was actually worshipped
No temple of her own that survives naming her. She is invoked in the underworld literature rather than housed, and Kutha belongs to Nergal.
A figure with temples and a figure that only ever existed on a page are different kinds of thing, and the difference is easy to lose once both are entries in a list.
At a glance
Vitals
Vitals
Also known as
- Rank
- Queen of the Great Below
- Pantheon
- Mesopotamian
- Order
- Mesopotamian pantheon
- Base of operations
- No temple of her own that survives naming her. She is invoked in the underworld literature rather than housed, and Kutha belongs to Nergal.
- Era
- c. 2000 BCE
- Traditions
- Mesopotamian
- Placed in
- The Assembly of the Gods
Traits
- Domain
- The land of no return, the dead
- Traditional form
- Enthroned in the underworld palace of Ganzir
Stats
Known connections
Chain of command
Identified with
4 attributed
What is it said to do?
Where these powers cluster
The 4 offices attributed to Ereshkigal, grouped by kind. Segment width is the share of powers falling in each category.
A bar dominated by one colour means a specialist; an even spread means a figure the sources credit with almost anything.
- martial2
- malefic1
- transformation1
3 texts
Which texts say so?
When these texts were written
Each dot is one of the 3 texts that names Ereshkigal, placed at that text's approximate date.
A wide spread means the figure was carried across many centuries and traditions; a tight cluster means a single period produced the whole record.
3 texts spanning roughly 900 years
The Sumerian recension, longer than the Akkadian one the corpus already held and different in its ending: Inanna is released only on finding a substitute, and Dumuzi is taken in her place. Ereshkigal's law binds a goddess who walks into her country, which is the point both versions make.
Strips her sister at each of the seven gates and holds her; the land of no return runs by her law, which binds even a goddess who walks into it.
Queen of the netherworld in her own right, ruling alone before Nergal arrives. The text is the corpus's best evidence that the marriage is a settlement of a quarrel rather than the origin of her authority.
Connections
What is it connected to?
Identified with Hades
Underworld sovereigns whose law binds even the gods who enter.
Identified with Hel
Queens of a cold underworld, both receiving those who die of ordinary causes.
Identified with The Lords of Xibalba
Underworld sovereigns who impose ordeals on those who descend.
Served by The Gallu
They ascend with Inanna to collect the substitute the netherworld is owed, and take Dumuzi when every mourner is refused.
Placement
Where does it sit in the hierarchies?
Answered from the sources
Common questions
Which texts mention Ereshkigal?
Is Ereshkigal the same as Hades?
What rank is Ereshkigal?
How else is Ereshkigal spelled?
What is Ereshkigal said to do?
How old is Ereshkigal?
Nearest in the corpus
If Ereshkigal is what you came for, these are next
Chosen by proximity rather than by popularity: the same pantheon first, then the same rank, then the same kind of figure.
Ishtar
Queen of Heaven · Mesopotamian
Goddess of love, war and the planet Venus, whose descent into the underworld is among the oldest recorded narratives.
Marduk
King of the Gods · Mesopotamian
Splits Tiamat and builds the world from her body, and is voted fifty names and supreme authority for doing it.
Nergal
God of the Underworld · Mesopotamian
God of plague, war and the underworld, consort of Ereshkigal — and one of the few Mesopotamian gods the Bible names directly.
Anzu
Storm Bird · Mesopotamian
The lion-headed eagle who steals the Tablet of Destinies and is shot down for it — a rebellion against divine order predating any biblical account by a millennium.
Enki
Lord of the Sweet Waters · Mesopotamian
God of the abzu and of cunning, who repeatedly saves humanity by finding the loophole in another god's decree.
Enlil
Lord of the Air · Mesopotamian
Holder of the Tablet of Destinies, and the god who decrees the flood. He was supreme until Marduk's Babylonian promotion displaced him.
The books behind Ereshkigal
Every claim on this profile is attributed to one of these. They are public domain, listed oldest first, and each links to a full text where one is freely available.
The Descent of Inanna to the Netherworld
Anonymous; Sumerian composition · c. 1900 BCE, from older material · Sumerian
Read The Descent of Inanna to the Netherworld in full ↗Nergal and Ereshkigal
Anonymous; Amarna and later Assyrian recensions · c. 1300–800 BCE · Akkadian
Read Nergal and Ereshkigal in full ↗The Descent of Ishtar to the Netherworld
Anonymous Akkadian; earlier Sumerian recension of Inanna · c. 1000 BCE, from older Sumerian material · Akkadian
Read The Descent of Ishtar to the Netherworld in full ↗Cover: CC BY-SA 4.0 · Gennadii Saus i Segura · Wikimedia file page
Corpus last revised 29 August 2026. A reference site’s credibility rests on being maintained, so this is the date the sourced records last changed — not the date the page was rebuilt.