Page:The Babylonian conception of heaven and hell - Jeremias (1902).djvu/35

 the real power centred in a goddess called Allatu (i.e., the "Mighty One"), or Erishkigal (i.e., the "Mistress of the Great Place"). She is represented in the Hades reliefs as a lion-headed monster (perhaps as being the wife of the lion-god Nergal), kneeling on a horse in a boat, or— without boat—standing upon a horse, snakes in her hands and lions sucking at her breasts. The concluding portion of the Twelve Tablet epic, above referred to, says of her: "She who is dark (?), she who is dark, mother of Ninazu; she who is dark, whose gleaming shoulders (?) are hidden by no garment, whose bosom like to a not " This sombre goddess watches over the primæval laws of the Underworld, receives from the mouth of the porter the names of fresh arrivals, and upon those on whom her wrath falls pronounces the great curse. With the help of the Anunaki she jealously guards the spring (?) of life which is hidden in a certain sanctuary of the Underworld, the water of which can ravish the dead from her power, as was indeed one day about to happen. "Bending before her" stands a divine female scribe of the Underworld, of whose duties unfortunately we know nothing more definite. Among the servants of Erishkigal are prominent the often-named "watchman," or Chief Porter, and Namtar, the god of pestilence. Side by side with Erishkigal reigns, as king of