"Death of Orpheus" by Albrecht Durer The Stripping of the Flesh In "The Descent of Inanna," one of the oldest myths we have of death and rebirth — one with such staying power that modern fantasists such as myself or...
“The Stripping of the Flesh” from “The Tomb and the Womb: Death and Rebirth in World Myth and Mythic Fiction” by Hal Duncan
In "The Descent of Inanna," one of the oldest myths we have of death and rebirth — one with such staying power that modern fantasists such as myself or Catherynne M. Vallente are still drawn to retell it — the Sumerian goddess Inanna, Queen of Heaven, hears the call of the "Great Below" from her throne–room in the "Great Above." A feisty, ambitious girl with a string of abandoned lovers behind her and her gaze set on the destiny in front of her, she gathers her objects of power and, on "the road of no return," descends into the Kur, where Ereshkigal, Queen of the Dead, rules a city of dust and ash.
Published in 2006, this is a survey of death and rebirth stories across the world. In the section linked above, the author brings up Buffy as a modern Inanna, descending into the underworld.
Its in the Journal of Mythic Arts from Endicott Studios, which won the World Fantasy Award of 2008 and closed that year. The website itself went down by 2014, and most of the material was reuploaded onto the old news blog, including the above article. As the fiction archive never made it up there, links are provided below:
The article from the first page
The current page
The current nonfiction archive
The old Endicott Studios page
The old Journal of Mythic Arts page (articles, poetry, fiction, art, drama, mixed media, reading lists)
The old fiction archive
The old news blog
