Called the "first tour of hell",[1] it describes a vivid journey to the Underworld taken by Kumma, the Assyrian prince and protagonist of the story.
[2] It is rooted in older Mesopotamian underworld myths such as The Epic of Gilgamesh,[1][3][4] although it is also similar to other texts such as Ludlul bēl nēmeqi,[3] and contains Egyptian influences.
[7] However, the description of the dead king's deeds matches those of Sennacherib[8] The beginning of the text is badly damaged.
The opening may refer to a divination or an offering, after which an unknown individual begins to hoard wealth and neglect his duty to care for the gods.
[2] A scribe is introduced in line 17, and then an unknown individual, either the prince or the king, became distressed, wandering the streets and crying in the night.
Ereshkigal then appeared in Kumma's dream at night, saying she would hear his prayers, but then claimed that she could not answer and asked why he turned to her instead of Shamash.
[9] Von Soden reads that Ereshkigal may have offered Kumma a one-time use of the ability of dream interpretation, which is why she said that she could not help him.
Namtartu, described as Namtar's female counterpart, had the head of a protective spirit,[7] and the hands and feet of a human.
He runs outside and laments his fate in front of the public, and praised Nergal and Ereshkigal for coming to his aid.
[3] This section in the Underworld Vision can be considered a derivative of the Göttertypentext, being narrated in first person, describing the actual gods instead of statues.
In his second dream Kumma, after saluting to the underworld gods, described seeing a man with a black body and the face of the Anzû, dressed in red, holding a bow in one hand and a dagger in the other and trampling on a snake.
"Enkidu in tablet seven of Epic of Gilgamesh describes a similar man in his dream, before he physically died.
"While this is not a complete match as the man Enkidu described had the hands of a lion and claws of an eagle, the wording in both texts are the same or with slight variations, suggesting that the scribe was familiar with the Epic of Gilgamesh.
"However, Kumma described the physical appearance of death in the Underworld Vision, contradicting the Epic of Gilgamesh in a somewhat humorous way.
Another example is the reference to the Egyptian smiting scene in Namtar, who was grasping someone's head by their hair in one hand and holding a dagger in the other.
The smiting scene is a well known artistic motif beginning from the Narmer Palette, spreading to the Levant but seldomly attested in Assyria.
The evil spirit and Nedu both had lion heads, human hands, and bird-like feet, which fit the ugallu, seen from Sennacherib's and Ashurbanipal's reliefs.