Interpretation of the Myth “Inanna and the Huluppu Tree”

The myth is designed as an intelligence test. The reader is supposed to find out that the felling of the tree was unjust, identify the dance epidemic as the punishment imposed, and with the knowledge he has from other myths, find out who imposed the punishment.

The Huluppu Tree was always at the center of power. At first it stood in Eridu, but when Eridu fell, or was flooded, it was brought to Uruk. The tree is therefore a magical tool that the gods needed to create the Sumerian civilization.

Since the reigns of the kings of Uruk declined sharply after the tree was felled, it can be assumed that the tree gave the early kings a long life. The tree can therefore also be called the tree of life. It received its function from the three demons that lived in it: the eagle Anzu, the incorruptible serpent and the dark maiden Lilith.

The fact that Utu, the god of justice, had refused to cut down the tree for his sister Inanna means that it was unjust to cut it down. 

The Anzu bird was commissioned by Enlil to decree human fates (according to the myth Lugalbanda and the Anzu Bird. He took revenge on those who cut down the tree by decreeing their fates. He decreed that Gilgamesh could not stop playing on his pukku and that the young men of the city who had cut off the branches of the tree could not stop dancing to it until they died of exhaustion. This resembles the dance epidemics of the Middle Ages. The reason for this unusual punishment may be that Anzu can only decree good fates. He decreed the good fate of dancing in such a way that it included the bad fate of dying. Anzu could not influence Inanna’s fate because she was a goddess.

Since the pukku was created from the roots of the tree, which presumably reached to the underworld, a hole finally opened in the ground and the pukku fell into the netherworld.

Inanna needed the throne and the bed that she had made from the trunk of the tree to consolidate her power. In particular, the bed was later used for the sacred marriage ritual, the core of which was an act of sexual encounter between the king and the goddess Inanna. Inanna probably hoped to be able to influence the king in his decisions.