Enheduanna – Priestess, Poet and Woman of Power

Over the last two weeks we have been celebrating both the Civilisations Festival, in conjunction with the current BBC series, and the Wonder Women Festival, showcasing some of the brilliant and pioneering women of Manchester. 

Have a look at some of the Curators’ blog posts on the theme of #Civilisations, and check out some of the #WonderWomen of Manchester Museum and the University of Manchester

And today’s Story from the Museum Floor by Luke from the Visitor Team fits perfectly into both of these themes, a strong, powerful woman in an ancient civilisation – challenging both ancient and modern ideas of gender roles.

Enheduanna – Priestess,  Poet, and Woman of Power

Enheduanna is the earliest writer and poet known to history, and very likely one of the most powerful women in the world during her lifetime. She lived over 4,200 years ago in what is now modern Iraq, an era and place where histories are centred on male political leaders, with women, for the most part being relegated to the role supporting characters, adornments, wives, or curiosities – not so with Enheduanna.

Enheduanna’s name written in cuneiform (Source)

Enheduanna – Daughter of Sargon, King of the World

Enheduanna was the daughter of Sargon The Great, a figure often credited by historians with forging the world’s first empire. Basing his new realm in the city of Akkad he went on to conquer all of the ancient Sumerian city states and much of the surrounding territory.

Bronze head of an Akkadian king, most likely representing either Sargon or Naram-Sin. Found in Nineveh (now in Iraq). In the National Museum of Iraq, Baghdad. (Source)

He brooked no opposition to his authority, and from what we can tell neither did his daughter.

Enheduanna – High Priestess

Not long after her father’s final victory Enheduanna was appointed as the both the High Priestess of the goddess Inanna in Uruk, and of the god Nanna in Ur (a city to which the Manchester Museum is connected through several of our objects displayed in both our Ancient Worlds and Money galleries).

 

Clay tablets from Ur, on display in the Money Gallery in Manchester Museum. The cuneiform inscriptions record offerings and payments made in silver. Both are from Ur, in ancient Mesopotamia, one is dated to 2073 BC, and the other to 2028-2004 BC.

Both of Enheduanna’s roles as High Priestess were positions of considerable power and responsibility and never before had they been held by a single person. She went on to retain these position through the reigns of three successive kings, although her time in office was certainly not without tumult.

Cylinder seal describing Enheduanna as a daughter of Sargon the Great. (Source)

Maintaining Power in Difficult Times

In the later years of King Sargon’s reign a rebellion broke out in the city of Ur led by a noble named Lugalanne  (apparently her brother-in-law) who in the process is also said to have made advances on her to join his cause in what is quite probably the most ancient recorded instance of sexual harassment.

Enheduanna steadfastly refused to join the rebel leader, and in the process found herself forced into exile. She lamented her plight in one of her epic poems:

Funeral offerings were brought, as if I had never lived there.
I approached the light, but the light scorched me.
I approached the shade, but I was covered with a storm.
My honeyed mouth became scummed. Tell An about Lugal-Ane and my fate!

Enheduanna – Poet

Needless to say, Enheduanna eventually prevailed over her rival and continued to occupy her exalted position for many decades thereafter. Despite the considerable temporal powers that she undoubtedly wielded during her lifetime, Enheduana is remembered chiefly for her writing.

She wrote of her religious devotion, of the wars that transpired around her, and of her personal hopes and fears. Even with the rise and fall of various subsequent kingdoms and empires her works continued to be copied and recopied continuously for 2,000 years after her death, with 42 of them surviving to this day.

Tablets of Sumerian Temple Hymns, currently housed at the Walters Art Museum.  (Source: The Walters Art Museum)

The Tides of Time

Eventually the tides of history and the shifting sands of Mesopotamia obscured her name and this most ancient of women was forgotten for a further two millennia. That was until 1927 when the pioneering archaeologist Sir Leonard Woolley discovered a calcite disc in her former home city of Ur.

 

The disc found by Leonard Woolley. (Source: University of Pennsylvania Museum)

This disc (housed today in the University Of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology) bears the only surviving image of Enheduanna. In the impressed image she stands proudly, performing a libation ceremony along with three of her (presumably) most favoured attendants, her estate manager, her personal hairdresser, and her scribe. The inscription reads:

Enheduanna, zirru-priestess, wife of the god Nanna, daughter of Sargon, king of the world, in the temple of the goddess Innana.

Enheduanna’s Legacy

Though her name is not well known in the modern world it must be noted that she did feature briefly in Neil deGrasse Tyson’s recent reboot of Cosmos, and also, perhaps a little-known fact, that a crater on the surface of Mercury named after her.

Enheduanna Crater on Mercury (Source: International Astronomical Union)

Her impact on the culture and people of her time is reinforced by the fact that Woolley noted during the course of his excavations at Ur that offerings had continued to be made to the high priestess after her death, and that many of these were found in layers datable to many centuries after her time and even after the demise of the dynasty that appointed her.

It can also be said that though her works were only rediscovered in modern times, her influence in certain areas of literature never truly faded, through the later Babylonians her fingerprints can be seen on psalms of the Hebrew Bible, in the Homeric hymns of ancient Greece, and the prayers said aloud in any modern Christian church. Credited with creating lasting paradigms of poetry and prayer used through much on the ancient world it can be said with some confidence that her legacy remains recognisable to this day.

The kingship of heaven has been seized by the woman,
At whose feet lies the flood-land.
That woman so exalted,
who has made me tremble together the city,
Stay Her, let Her heart be soothed by me.
I, Enheduanna will offer supplications to Her,
My tears, like sweet drinks.
Will I proffer to the Holy Inanna, I will greet Her in peace

– Excerpt from The Adoration of Innana of Ur, attributed to Enheduanna.

Luke A. Williamson

For more about the Archaeology and Numismatics collections at Manchester Museum, have a look at the Curator’s blog, Ancient Worlds Manchester.

Further Reading:
Object Number: B16665 (Penn Museum)
Enheduanna Poems – classicalarthistory.weebly.com
Enheduanna (2300 B.C.E.): Seven Sumerian Temple Hymns – poemsandpoetics.blogspot.co.uk
Charles Halton Introduces Enheduanna, ‘World’s First Poet’ – poetryfoundation.org
Enheduanna – Wikipedia
NASA – Five New Crater Names for Mercury
Enheduanna Crater on Mercury – iau.org
Kriwaczek, P. (2012), Babylon: Mesopotamia and the Birth of Civilization