L is for Lapis Lazuli (Gemstone Folklore)

Welcome to the 2022 A to Z Blogging Challenge! My theme this year is Gemstone Folklore. Because I love stories about shiny things. Read the introduction to the project here.

LAPIS LAZULI

Lapis lazuli is a metamorphic rock of intense blue color that has been mined for millennia. It often contains pyrite with gives it gold-colored veins. In the middle ages, it was the source of ultramarine blue pigment.

Inanna's descent into the Underworld

Sumer

This old Sumerian myth from about 4000 years ago tells the story of the goddess Inanna's journey into "The Land of No Return." The goddess of beauty, sex, and war (among other things) dresses in her finest, and descends down into the underworld to visit her elder sister Ereskhigal, queen of the dead. Among her adornments whe wears a necklace of lapis lazuli beads, and carries a lapis lazuli measuring rod and measuring line. Ereshkigal herself lives in a palace made of lapis lazuli. Passing through seven gates, Inanna's adornments are taken away one by one - including the beads and the measuring instruments - until she enters the palace naked, and is turned into a corpse. Later on, she is brought back to life.

Lapis lazuli figures into the mythology of Inanna and Ereshkigal in other texts as well. In the Babylonian epic of Gilgamesh (which is claimed to be inscribed on tablets of lapis lazuli itself), Gilgamesh makes various offerings to the gods at his partner Enkidu's funeral. He offers a cup of lapis lazuli to Ereshkigal, and a chair and staff of lapis lazuli to Namtar, her underworld vizier. When Inanna tries to seduce the king, she promises him a chariot of gold and lapis lazuli.

Also, when Uta-napishti tells Gilgamesh the story of the epic deluge he'd survived, he mentions another mother goddess, Belet-ili. Belet-ili mourns for humanity swept away by the flood, and after it ends, she appears to the survivors. She makes an oath to remember the deluge, and swears on her necklace of flies carved for lapis lazuli. Apparently she received the precious necklace from her lover, Anu the sky god. It is the Bablyonian equivalent of the Bible's rainbow...

Sources: Read about the Sumerian texts here and here. Gilgamesh here or here.

What is your favorite kind of blue?