Enheduanna was the world’s first recognized female author. Very little is known about her, but it is clear she was one of the most powerful women within the Sumerian empire (present-day south-central Iraq). She was an Akkadian princess, the daughter of King Sargon the Great, and High Priestess of the Moon Goddess Inanna. As high priestess, she wielded power for forty years. She was an astronomer, mathematician, and writer. Yet, her greatest legacy was her poetry. Her poems are still being widely read and cherished today.
Enheduanna was born around 2285 B.C.E.[1] She was the daughter of King Sargon the Great, the ruler of Akkad who conquered the major city-states of Sumer.[2] Her mother was most likely Queen Tashlultum.[3] We do not know Enheduanna’s real name and Enheduanna was actually a title within the Sumerian empire.[4] She was most likely the first woman to hold that title, and it meant “High Priestess and wife of the God Nannar”.[5]
King Sargon the Great installed his daughter, Enheduanna, as the High Priestess of Inanna (The War Goddess) in a temple in Ur.[6] By installing his daughter as the High Priestess of Inanna, it would increase his political legitimacy.[7] Enheduanna lived in the giparu, which housed not only the temple, but also her living quarters, dining area, kitchen, and a burial ground for former high priestesses.[8] As the High Priestess, she had to make many astronomical and mathematical predictions. She often studied the stars and the moon cycles.[9]
Enheduanna apparently was the High Priestess in Ur for 40 years.[10] When the rebel Lugalanne overthrew her brother, Rimush, and installed himself as King, the temple of Inanna was destroyed.[11] Enheduanna was exiled at first to the Sumerian city of Uruk and then to the desert.[12] The events of the destruction of her temple and her exile greatly influenced her poetry.[13] She continued to write in her exile. She wrote in cuneiform.[14] Her poems were “The Exaltation of Inanna” and “A Hymn to the Goddess Inanna by the en-Priestess of Enheduanna”, She also wrote “Inanna and Ebih” and “Hymn to Nanna”.[15] However, both of those poems are in fragments.[16] One sample of her poem Hymn 48 is:
“The true woman who possesses exceeding wisdom,
She consults a tablet of lapis lazuli
She gives advice to all lands…
She measures off the heavens,
She placed the measuring-cod’s on the Earth.”[17]
Two lines in “The Exaltation of Inanna” bears her signature:
“the person who bound this tablet together
is Enheduanna
my king is something never before created
did not this one give birth to it”.[18]
Enheduanna may have died around 2225 B.C.E.[19] Her poems were stored in the royal archives in the Sumerian empire and were widely read by high priestesses.[20] She was widely venerated and some historians think that she may have attained semi-divine status. Over millenniums, she was forgotten.[21] Her works were only read by scholars who could read the Sumerian language.[22]
In 1927, Enheduanna began to get the recognition she deserved when the University of Pennsylvania’s expedition to the site of Ur was unearthed.[23] One of them was the Alabaster Disk that identifies the central figure as Enheduanna, who is dressed in ceremonial robes.[24] In front of her, a priest pours a libation on the altar.[25] The artifact is currently on display at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archeology and Anthropology in Philadelphia.[26] Even though not much is known about Enheduanna, she was much revered in the Sumerian empire. Her greatest legacy was her writing which survived long after the Sumerian empire had fallen.
Sources:
Bernardi, G. (2016). Enheduanna (XXIV bc). In G. Bernardi, Springer-Praxis books in popular astronomy: The unforgotten sisters: female astronomers and scientists before Caroline Herschel. Springer Science+Business Media. Credo Reference: https://go.openathens.net/redirector/phoenix.edu?url=https%3A%2F%2Fsearch.credoreference.com%2Fcontent%2Fentry%2Fsprytli%2Fenheduanna_xxiv_bc%2F0%3FinstitutionId%3D198
“Enheduanna.” Encyclopedia of World Biography Online, Gale, 2021. Gale In Context: Biography, link.gale.com/apps/doc/K1631011056/BIC?u=uphoenix&sid=bookmark-BIC&xid=c6f110b8. Accessed 27 Nov. 2021.
Glaz, S. (2020). Enheduanna: Princess, Priestess, Poet, and Mathematician. Mathematical Intelligencer, 42(2), 31–46. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00283-019-09914-7
[1]“Enheduanna”, para. 2
[2]“Enheduanna”, para. 2
[3]“Enheduanna”, para. 2
[4]“Enheduanna”, para. 2
[5]“Enheduanna”, para. 2
[6]“Enheduanna”, para. 3
[7]“Enheduanna”, para. 3
[8] “Enheduanna”, para. 3
[9] Bernardi, para. 8
[10] “Enheduanna”, para. 4
[11] “Enheduanna”, para. 4
[12] “Enheduanna”, para. 4
[13] “Enheduanna”, para. 4
[14] “Enheduanna”, para. 5
[15] “Enheduanna”, para. 5
[16] “Enheduanna”, para. 5
[17] Bernardi, para. 7
[18] Glaz, p. 35
[19] “Enheduanna”, para. 4
[20] “Enheduanna”, para. 9
[21] “Enheduanna”, para. 10
[22] “Enheduanna”, para. 10
[23] “Enheduanna”, para. 10
[24] Glaz, p. 32
[25] Glaz, p. 32
[26] “Enheduanna”, para. 10
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