Enheduanna

The Akkadian/Sumerian poet Enheduanna (2285-2250 BCE) is the world’s first author known by name and was the daugher of Sargon of Akkad (Sargon the Great). Whether Enheduanna was, in fact, a blood relative of Sargon’s or the title was figurative is not known. It is clear, however, that Sargon placed enormous trust in Enheduanna in elevating her to the position of high priestess of the most important temple in Sumer and leaving to her the responsibility for melding the Sumerian gods with the Akkadian ones to create the stability his empire needed to thrive.

Enheduanna’s name translates as 'High Priestess of An’ (the sky god) or 'En-Priestess, wife of the god Nannar’ (though there are other possible translations). She is best known for her works Inninsagurra, Ninmesarra, and Inninmehusa, which translate as 'The Great-Hearted Mistress’, The Exaltation of Inanna’, and 'Goddess of the Fearsome Powers’, all three powerful hymns to the goddess Inanna (later identified with Ishtar and, still later, Aphrodite). These hymns re-defined the gods for the people of the Akkadian Empire under Sargon’s rule and helped provide the underlying religious homogeniety sought by the king.

For over forty years Enheduanna held the office of high priestess, even surviving an attempted coup against her authority by the Sumerian rebel Lugal-ane who forced her into exile for a brief time. In addition to her hymns, Enheduanna is remembered for the forty-two poems she wrote reflecting personal frustrations and hopes, religious devotion, her response to war and feelings about the world she lived in.

In 1927, the British archaeologist Sir Leonard Wooley found the now-famous Enhuduanna calcite disc in the excavations at the Sumerian site of Ur. The three inscriptions on the disc identify the four figures depicted: Enheduanna, an officer of the harem, her major domo and her scribe. The royal inscription on the disc, reads: "Enheduanna, zirru-priestess, wife of the god Nanna, daughter of Sargon, king of the world, in the temple of the goddess Innana.” The figure of Enheduanna is placed prominently on the disc emphasizing her importance in relation to the others and, further, her position of great power and influence on the culture of her time.

Written by Joshua J. Mark, published on 12 October 2010 under the following license: Creative Commons: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike. This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon this content non-commercially, as long as they credit the author and license their new creations under the identical terms.