Ereshkigal Tattoo Meaning

The underworld, grief, and the dark queen whose sorrow asked to be witnessed.

Ereshkigal is the dark queen of the underworld whose grief asks to be witnessed — the Sumerian ruler of the realm of the dead who sits alone in the darkness, weeping for the dead, holding the grief of all endings, the dark feminine who receives death rather than sends it. To carry Ereshkigal is to carry the underworld, grief, and the dark queen whose sorrow asked to be witnessed — the queen of the Sumerian land of the dead, the keeper who receives and grieves what dies, the sorrow that longs to be seen.

In Sumerian myth, Ereshkigal is the dark and sorrowful queen of the underworld: Ereshkigal is the queen of Kur — the Sumerian underworld — the divine ruler of the realm of the dead who sits alone in the darkness, who weeps for the dead, whose grief is the grief of all endings. Ereshkigal reigns over Kur, the land of the dead, the dark realm beneath the earth to which all the dead descend. She is its sovereign queen — and she is also its solitary, sorrowing presence, sitting alone in the darkness of her realm.

Unlike a destroyer or a bringer of death, Ereshkigal is the one who receives and rules the dead, and who grieves. She weeps in the darkness — for the dead, for all that ends, her sorrow the very grief of endings itself. (In the myth of Inanna's descent, it is to Ereshkigal's realm that Inanna comes, and Ereshkigal is found in deep distress and mourning.) She is the dark queen of the underworld whose reign is bound up with sorrow, who sits alone with the dead and the weight of all endings. The Sumerian Ereshkigal is thus the queen of the land of the dead — the divine ruler of the underworld who sits alone in the darkness and weeps for the dead, her grief the grief of all endings. Ereshkigal is the queen of Kur, the Sumerian underworld — the ruler of the dead who sits alone in darkness and weeps, her grief the grief of all endings. The Sumerian Ereshkigal is the queen of the land of the dead — Ereshkigal is the queen of Kur, the Sumerian underworld, the divine ruler of the realm of the dead who sits alone in the darkness, who weeps for the dead, whose grief is the grief of all endings; reigning over Kur, the land of the dead, the dark realm beneath the earth to which all the dead descend, its sovereign queen and also its solitary, sorrowing presence, sitting alone in the darkness of her realm — unlike a destroyer or bringer of death, the one who receives and rules the dead and who grieves, weeping in the darkness for the dead and for all that ends, her sorrow the very grief of endings itself (in the myth of Inanna's descent it is to Ereshkigal's realm that Inanna comes, and Ereshkigal is found in deep distress and mourning), the dark queen whose reign is bound up with sorrow.

Ereshkigal is Inanna's older sister — the two sisters represent the complete feminine divine: Inanna is the above, Ereshkigal is the below; Inanna is the day, Ereshkigal is the night; Inanna is desire and action, Ereshkigal is grief and depth. When Inanna descends to the underworld, she descends to her sister's domain. Ereshkigal's grief is cosmological — she sits in the underworld weeping for the dead who come to her, weeping for the young men who have left their wives, weeping for the young women who have been taken from their husbands. Her grief is not pathological. It is her function: she holds the grief of every death, every loss, every ending, so that the living world does not have to carry it. The Descent of Inanna (the oldest recorded myth) ends with Inanna's resurrection — but Ereshkigal remains below, still weeping, still receiving the dead.

Ereshkigal across cultures

Related symbols