FIRST FEMALE WRITER IN HISTORY: WHO WAS EDHUNNAHA ?

Post #1 of Edhunnaha and Inanna Series

Writers have had an important role throughout time and it is special to find the works of any women creative, is no less amazing when you see how old her work is around 23,00bce. This is the story of Enheduanna and she is so much more than I ever imagined. Her poetry to the Goddess Inanna is so powerful and descriptive. Enheduanna is the perfect person to capture the crossroads of culture during her time she represents the waning power and status of the goddess culture and faith of Neolithic times.

“Enheduanna was high priestess to the moon god Nanna at his temple at Ur around 23,00 B.C.E. Appointed to this sacred position by her father, Sargon of Agade, Enheduanna developed the high priestess’s post at Ur a city in southern Mesopotamia, into the most important religious office in Sumer during the almost forty years she performed her sacred role.” As said by Betty De Shong Meador in her wonderful and enlightening book Inanna Lady of Largest Heart Poems of the Sumerian High Priestess Enheduanna.

Her influence in the generations to come as a powerful shift was taking over the times in which she lived and her death. This was a slow change to the destructive rise of power of male deities and men to back it up such as seen in Enheduanna father Sargon. Her life covers the strength and powerful hold of Goddess culture at this time and has a personal experience with the beginning of the rise of the patriarchy.

Disk of white calcite; on one side is a panel wherein is carved in relief a scene of sacrifice, on the other an inscription of Enheduanna, daughter of Sargon of Akkad

Englishman Leonard Woolley in 1922 excavates an area in southern Iraq, where they find a limestone disc with pictorial carvings on the front and writing on the back the following quote

 “in the moon goddess is temple we found a sadly battered alabaster disc on one side of which was carved in relief just such a scene of worship, why the high priestess as was given on the Lagash plaque, but an inscription on the back tells us that the principal figure with her fluted dress and high conical hat is none other than En-he-du-an-na, daughter of King Sargon of Akkad. It was an astonishing piece of luck to get this personal evidence regarding Sargon…; Now we have En-he-du-an-na, and she is a very real person; she lived at Ur and she had her court there, as beseemd a princess.

Considering the state of  the back of the disk it is amazing that the text to survive  gives names. The text on the back is called cuneiform. The Face of the Ancient Orient, book by Sabatino Moscati goes into detail on the script of the Mesopotamian civilization and the pertinent information about their writing. “The literature which has survived consist of tens of thousands of clay tablets, inscribed with cuneiform this is an ideographic script of mainly syllabic character, incised in the clay with the stylus…. A single literary tablet rarely provides a complete text: the great poetic works in particular covered several tablets, and this fact accounts for one of the fundamental problems in reconstructing Sumerian literature, namely the order in which the various parts of a given text are to be read. ” He also lets us know that the works are anonymous and scribes with copy ancient text from earlier models, and in regard to art he lets us know that it is also religious in nature.

Given the fact that many of the surviving texts would’ve been anonymous other than important rulers who deliberately include their name it increases the importance of this fine regarding Enheduanna and all that she was able to accomplish. This alabaster disc is a literal, physical evidence as proof of her religious importance, status and legacy.

Back of Disk

Enheduanna work is raw, visceral and unapologetic of the strength of Inanna in all her forms a warrior, a lover, priestess and more. She is truly a powerful poet driven by a complex devotion to the Goddess that only she can intimately bring out for all to see. Three poems and many hymns survive the destruction. They were recopied by scribes to learn how to write and serve example of the power of Enheduanna writing. It is through him that she was appointed to the position of High Priestess, but she makes it her own. She is independent, strong and honest, just like the Goddess Inanna.

The ability to unify and connect much of the Ancient Near East that encompasses many places under Sargon as noted by Moscati below.

 “…The ‘Ancient Orient’ has come, by a widely accepted scholarly convention, to mean Near East.” Moscati continues by saying… ‘Mediterranean East’; this separated it from the cultures of India, and even more China, which have different centers of gravity and developed in substantial independence…Passing from West to East, the ancient Oriental world includes Egypt, Palestine, Syria, Arabia, Anatolia, Mesopotamia, and Iran.”

Family Tree of Sargon

Enheduanna was a high priestess in Ur at the temple of the Moon God Sin as noted on the family tree below by the family member Naram-Sin who would rule later. The region of Naram-Sin is important personally in the life of Enheduanna as one of the three poems is about her own life and struggle. But we will get to that later. Her title was that of En is important because it represents her role as a high priestess is noted by the time of the fourth millennium as stated in chapter 3 “The Robes of the Old, Old Gods: …The title en, used to refer to the high priestess or priest….This designation’s appearance precedes that for king, lugal, by a thousand years, emphasizing the preeminence the institution of the temple had over the political office of the king.” This shows the power and status associated with her  title of En.

Meador has the following thoughts on the goddess Inanna and her relationship to Enheduanna and her father Sargon. “Enheduanna declares she is dedicating a dais to Inanna her temple. She identifies herself as “daughter of Sargon.” Again, we must ask why Enheduanna would elevate Inanna above all other gods at this particular time? A possible clue plays in the empire building activities of her father Sargon… Although Sargon invoked Inanna warrior mode, he expanded Inanna’s role as a warrior goddess, planting her banner over the new social institution of an established empire…. It seems possible that Enheduanna elevated the paradoxical Inanna in order to reestablish the balance between the reality of the forces of nature and the hubris of aggressive conquest by an individual human being.” Her position at the temple was one of unifier of the people due to her father’s expansionist policies.

The temple in which she worked as she moved through her father’s territory would have been the center of life in the cities she visited. So many occupations were now  available due to human civilization settling down to grow food and no longer having to hunt or gather food. The evolution of writing was to capture how many good and services one had, like sheep traded for grain. Many of today’s occupations had long roots in the past, farmers, fishers, traders, lawyers, judges, artists, writers, priests and priestess, nursemaids, textile makers, bakers and manicurists just to name a few.

Enheduanna’s work would hold together the fabric of society who’s religious impressions of deities were reflected in their geographical location. The Egyptians who traded with these people had a an entirely different religious outlook based on their geographical location. The Egyptians had the Nile River, which was much more predictable and stable, therefore their interpretation of the divine followed suit. The ancient Mesopotamians however, had the unstable and difficult to predict Tigris and Euphrates River. This was reflected in their deities who could both bless and curse in terms of what was given and taken away.

Temple rituals were used to appease the deities to give mercy and good fortune upon their followers. This brief example below comes from the second poem Lady of The Largest Heart: pg.146

her song sung

with joy of heart

in the plain

with joy of heart

she sings

and soaks her mace

in blood and gore

smashes heads

butchers prey

with eater ax and

bloodied spear

all day

This is just an example of the raw and visceral nature of the Goddess Inanna. Inanna is a powerful deity and her beloved poet Enheduanna does not shy away from this bloodthirsty deity. Inanna as a deity with a variety of roles and interpretations makes a lot of sense. Christianity has a difficult time explaining the nature of God because he is either seen as detached from his actions and followers at times. He also seems to be confused and contracting himself and biblical text, in addition to having the figure of Satan being used in a way to explain God’s behavior. This is not a problem for him Enheduanna where she embraces and owns up to the complex and the dual nature of her Goddess in both her protective and destructive aspects. It is also important to note here that Inanna is not a goddess of childbirth or motherhood. She, along with Lilith represents the aspect of a female deity indulging in the pleasures of sex, in Inanna’s case it is for an important ritual translated in Greek as hieros-gamos meaning sacred marriage. A temple ritual that may or may not have actually been enacted in ancient times, involving a priest and priestess, or substitutes there  the king and queen a role played by others, whom the joining of male and female in a sexual act is not meant to be procreative insured the fertility of the earth, crops and people.

I believe it is this raw, unapologetic power that the patriarchy has sought to destroy in women society culture and religion. The Catholic Church as of 2020 has only recently made an announcement to let women be more involved in Catholic rituals. Women simply want to be included and to have some of the same status and respect as men do in other areas of life. For example woman can now go to college (in most parts of the world), pursuing education and with their degree become teachers, nurses, architects, writers, CEOs, and even Vice President of the United States.

The idea of gender roles and who should be doing what according to whether they are male or female was something entirely different during Enheduanna’s times. There is a fourth role that the Goddess Inanna inhabits that  androgynous a special article or perhaps even a serious will. And about that soon. In one of the poems she changes the social status of an outcast (as interpreted by Meador) to a sacred gender role within the temple. But as I have stated more on this will come later. The responsibility power and authority to shape the hearts and minds of so many did not go unnoticed. After Enheduanna’s father Sargon on being no longer ruler Narim-Sin has Stilla a carved stone monument depicting the military victory of  Narim-Sin. In this role he declared himself the sole God over all the deities, and it was during this time that Enheduanna was finally removed from her position as high priestess. We know the name of the man who sought to take her place and how she managed to return to her high status but this would be covered in a separate article.

In conclusion,the work of Enheduanna shows us that she never lost her faith. She was forcibly removed from the temple, but regained her position as a priestess. Enheduanna loved in on him personally and privately. The reign of her father Sargon of Akkad protected her position. Her poems show goddess worship still included in religious institutions a testament to the old ways powerful enough to influence new aspects picked up by Judaism and Christianity for example the concept of one deity above all. Enheduanna personally loved and praised Inanna above all other deities even the moon god Sin. She did uphold her duty to publicly worship many deities and her powerful writing was copied by scribes. Her work is around today and the complex goddess that is Inanna more than makes a space for the LGBT community. Her poems also show the times and events going on in the religious and political culture and how customs change slowly over time. Enheduanna was able to regain her position and her dignity another woman who I will cover Hypatia was not so lucky.

Sources, Citations and Notes:

This work and many others in antiquity would not be possible without the tireless effort of translators from all over working in a variety of time periods to make this possible along with those who do the excavation and preservation, permits and writers on such topics. So hats off to these wonderful people.

Bibliography

1. Enheduanna, and Betty D. Meador. Inanna, Lady of Largest Heart: Poems of the Sumerian High Priestess Enheduanna. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2000. Pg.6

2. Enheduanna and Meador, ILLH, pgs.38-39.

3. Moscati, Sabatino. The Face of the Ancient Orient: A Panorama of Near Eastern Civilizations in Pre-classical Times.1960. Pg. 32.

4. Moscati, Face of the Ancient Orient, pg. 6.

5. Enheduanna and Meador, ILLH,pgs.33

6. Enheduanna and Meador, ILLH,pgs.42.

Images:

https://www.penn.museum/collections/object/293415

https://www.penn.museum/collections/object_images.php?irn=293415