Editing Nergal (section)

===''Nergal and Ereshkigal''===
Two versions of the myth ''Nergal and Ereshkigal'' are known, one from a single Middle Babylonian copy found in [[Amarna]], seemingly copied by a scribe whose native language was not [[Akkadian language|Akkadian]]{{sfn|Gadotti|2020|p=2}} and another known from [[Sultantepe]] and from [[Uruk]], with copies dated to the [[Neo-Assyrian Empire|Neo-Assyrian]] and [[Neo-Babylonian Empire|Neo-Babylonian]] periods, respectively.{{sfn|Gadotti|2020|pp=2–3}} The time of original composition is uncertain, with proposed dates varying from [[Old Babylonian Empire|Old Babylonian]] to Middle Babylonian times.{{sfn|Gadotti|2020|p=3}} Whether a Sumerian original existed is unknown, and the surviving copies are all written in Akkadian.{{sfn|Gadotti|2020|p=3}}

After Nergal fails to pay respect to Ereshkigal's sukkal [[Namtar]] during a feast where he acts as a proxy of his mistress, who cannot leave the underworld to attend, she demands to have him sent to the underworld to answer for it. The El Amarna version states that she planned to kill Nergal, but this detail is absent from the other two copies.{{sfn|Gadotti|2020|p=3}}

Nergal descends to the underworld, but he's able to avoid many of its dangers thanks to advice given to him by [[Enki|Ea]].{{sfn|Gadotti|2020|p=3}} However, he ignores one of them, and has sex with Ereshkigal. After six days he decides to leave while Ereshkigal is asleep. After noticing this she dispatches Namtar, and demands the other gods to convince Nergal to return again, threatening to open the gates of the underworld if she does not get what she asks for. Nergal is handed over to her again.{{sfn|Gadotti|2020|p=4}}

In the Amarna version, where Ereshkigal initially planned to kill Nergal, he defeats Namtar and prepares to kill Ereshkigal. To save herself, she suggests that they can get married and share the underworld.{{sfn|Gadotti|2020|p=4}} The other two known copies give the myth a happy ending: as noted by assyriologist Alhena Gadotti, "the two deities seem to reunite and live happily ever after", and the myth concludes with the line "they impetuously entered the bedchamber".{{sfn|Gadotti|2020|p=4}}

According to assyriologists such as [[Stephanie Dalley]] the purpose of this narrative was most likely to find a way to reconcile two different views of the underworld,{{sfn|Gadotti|2020|p=2}} one from the north centered on Nergal, and another from the south centered on Ereshkigal.{{sfn|Gadotti|2020|p=8}} [[Tikva Frymer-Kensky]]'s attempt at interpreting it as evidence of "marginalization of goddesses"{{sfn|Gadotti|2020|p=5}} is regarded as erroneous.{{sfn|Gadotti|2020|pp=15–16}} According to Alhena Gadotti the idea that Ereshkigal was supposed to share kingship over the underworld with her spouse is also known from the Old Babylonian composition ''[[Gilgamesh]], [[Enkidu]] and the Underworld'', in which [[Anu]] and [[Enlil]] give the underworld to her "as a dowry, her portion of the paternal estate's inheritance, which she controlled until she married".{{sfn|Gadotti|2020|pp=14–15}} It is however impossible to tell which of the three gods regarded as Ereshkigal's husbands in various sources was implicitly meant to be the recipient of the dowry in this composition—[[Gugalanna]], Nergal, or [[Ninazu]].{{sfn|Gadotti|2020|p=15}}