| Chapter 3: | Goddesses of the Ancient Near East |
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Chapter 3
Goddesses of the
Ancient Near East
Sumerian Ereshkigal and Inanna
From the earliest historic age, there are references to goddesses who are whimsical, erotic, and ferocious. The first texts of this sort have their provenance in the Near East; the female figures described in these texts are erotic, but they do not appear in the “magical” crouching or dancing positions evinced by their Neolithic predecessors.
The Sumerian underworld goddess, Ereshkigal (her name really means “Great Lady Earth [Lady Earth Great]”), fixes her eye of death upon the “Great” goddess, Inanna, in the Descent of Inanna, turning her into a corpse (see figure 17). In Sumer, the goddess was split into her upper-world and lower-world aspects,