old, there set forth . . . of Anu and Ea roasted meat, set baked meats [] with cold, with water from leather bottles; in the house of dust that I tread [dwell] Enu-priests and Lagoru- priests, there [dwell] exorcists and magicians, there [dwell] the anointed priests of the great gods, there dwell [the heroes] Etana and Ner, there dwells Erishkigal, queen of the Underworld, [there dwells] Belit-Seri, the scribe (female) of the Underworld bends before her." Then follows the account, unfortunately fragmentary, of what happened when the goddess Erishkigal raised her head and became aware of the intruder. The story certainly connects itself with the Gilgamesh epic, on the last tablet of which the hero entreats the ghost of his friend as it rises: "Tell me, oh! my friend, tell me, oh! my friend, what the Underworld is like; tell me." The spirit of his friend answers: "I cannot (?) tell it thee my friend, I cannot tell it thee; if I should tell thee what it is like . . . sit down and weep . . ." In the following lines, which alas! are fragmentary, he after all seems disposed to give his friend the information: "That wherein the heart (on earth) has rejoiced, that below is turned to dust."
In the midst of "the land without return" is a palace, whence the gods of Hades exercise their rule. According to the Babylonian Hades legends
