Mesopotamian · Akkadian · c. 1300–800 BCE
Nergal and Ereshkigal
Anonymous; Amarna and later Assyrian recensions
How the underworld acquired a king, told as a diplomatic incident that goes wrong. Nergal offends Ereshkigal's messenger, is sent down to answer for it, and does not come back — the marriage is the settlement. It is the corpus's best evidence that Ereshkigal ruled alone first.
Read Nergal and Ereshkigal in full at the linked edition →What this text attests · 2
| Name here | Rank given | # | Powers described |
|---|---|---|---|
| — | — | 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. | |
| — | — | Sent down to answer for an insult to Ereshkigal's messenger and does not return; the marriage is how the dispute ends. His first Mesopotamian attestation in this corpus, which until now had him only in a verse of 2 Kings and in a nineteenth-century French demonology. |
