Thread by @Moudhy

In honour of National Storytelling Week, here is a thread of the story of the Descent of Ishtar, an ancient tale of the goddess Ishtar’s trespass into the Netherworld, retold exclusively in Star Trek GIFs #NationalStorytellingWeek

“To the Netherworld, the great realm,
Ishtar, daughter of Sîn, her mind—
The daughter of Sîn did indeed set her mind
To the place which those who enter, do not depart.”

Seemingly out of nowhere, Ishtar decides to visit the Netherworld.

The word Netherworld, sometimes Underworld, in the Descent of Ishtar is translated from Sumerian logograms that spell out “Kurnugia”.

KUR = place
NU = no
GI = return
A = grammatical function

Taken together, the signs mean, “the place from which there is no return” aka

The Netherworld to which Ishtar set her mind is a “gloomy house”, a place devoid of light, whose inhabitants are dressed in garments of wings, where dust is sustenance and clay is food.

“Open your gate that I may enter!
I will beat down the door, I will break the bolt...
I will raise the dead, they will eat the living.”

Ishtar threatens the gatekeeper to the Netherworld who reponds with

The gatekeeper repeats Ishtar’s speech to Ereshkigal, her sister and queen of the Netherworld, who is not happy about the intrusion.

Gatekeeper: your sister is here
Ereshkigal:

So the gatekeeper begins to lead Ishtar through the seven gates into the Netherworld.

At each one, he asks her to relinquish a piece of jewellery or article of clothing, according to the divine ordinances, and Ishtar is all like

But Ishtar does it anyway because those are the rules, and when you set your mind to going to the Netherworld, there’s no turning back.

Much like when you decide...

By the time Ishtar arrives to the Netherworld, she has given up all of her clothes and accessories, leaving her powerless.

Ereshkigal takes one look and was definitely not like

To her vizier, Namtar, Ereshkigal have the order:

“Go, Namtar, take her out of my presence!
Let loose 60 diseases, may they go out against Ishtar!”

In other words, Ereshkigal was definitely more like

While Ishtar was trapped in the Netherworld, all fertility on earth ceased.

“The bull would not mount the cow...
The young man slept in his own chamber,
The young girl slept by herself.”

And the whole world was like

The vizier of the great gods, Papsukkal, realised what had happened to the earth when Ishtar descended to the Netherworld, and decided to take matters into his own hands like

Papsukkal was not fucking around and went straight to the great gods Sîn and Ea, who created a male prostitute to confront Ereshkigal and ask her to let Ishtar go.

Ereshkigal response with “You have asked of me the unaskable!” but then eventually tells Ishtar

Ereshkigal, Queen of the Netherworld, the place from which none return, released her sister Ishtar on one condition

“If she does not give a replacement, bring her back here”

And given her knowledge of the First Law of Thermodynamics as applied to the Netherworld, Ishtar was all

It turned out that Ishtar’s husband, Dumuzi, instead of mourning her, was being a cheating sack of shit.

Naturally, she offered him as her replacement in the Netherworld so she could resume her role as goddess of fertility, and in conclusion told her husband to go to hell like

Special thanks to @swear_trek for some of the GIFs used (found in the normal GIF menu) and for existing