A recent show in New York is focused on Enheduanna, a little-known Mesopotamian poet and priestess. Diane Cole examines her impact and how she contributed to forging a shared set of values across the old kingdom.

The Mesopotamian poet, princess, and priestess Enheduanna was the first author to be referred to by name in all of recorded history. Surprised? She Who Wrote: Enheduanna and Women of Mesopotamia, ca. 3400–2000 BC, a recently launched exhibition at New York City's Morgan Library, is curated by Sidney Babcock. "When people ask who is the first author, they never guess anyone in Mesopotamia, and it's never a woman," Babcock adds. He claims that most of the time, they refer to an individual from ancient Greece; if they do, it's Sappho, a female author who lived more than a thousand years later and whose writing is less well-known than Enheduanna's.

You're not alone if you haven't heard of her. Up until 1927, Enheduanna was completely unknown to modern society. However, Sir Leonard Woolley, an archaeologist, discovered items that bear her name. We now know that her name means "Ornament of Heaven" in Sumerian, and that, as the high priestess of the moon deity Nanna-Suen, she wrote 42 temple hymns and three stand-alone poems that, like the Epic of Gilgamesh (which is not credited to a named author), scholars consider to be an important part of Mesopotamia's literary legacy.

Enheduanna was a political figure in addition to being a religious leader and priestess. She was also the daughter of Sargon the Great, who some historians believe to be the one who established the first empire in history. She was particularly important in bringing Akkad, the northern Mesopotamian region where Sargon initially attained power, together before he later conquered the southern Sumerian city-states. She did this by emphasizing the connections between the rituals and beliefs associated with the Akkadian goddess Ishtar and the Sumerian goddess Inanna in her literary and religious hymns and songs, thereby establishing a shared set of beliefs throughout the empire. Enheduanna composed 42 hymns for 42 temples in the southern portion of Mesopotamia; the hymns were transcribed by scribes at the temples for hundreds of years after her death. Each hymn emphasized the special qualities of the patron goddess to the devotees in those cities.

On clay tablets with the wedge-shaped impressions known as cuneiform, rather than the manuscripts we are used to seeing in exhibitions highlighting, example, Jane Austen or Charlotte Bronte, are Enheduanna's works on display throughout the presentation. She recounts the creative process in the following passage from her poem The Exaltation of Inanna:

"I have given birth,

Oh exalted lady, (to this song) for you.

That which I recited to you at (mid)night

May the singer repeat it to you at noon!"

And at the conclusion of the Temple Hymns, she asserts her authorship by saying:

"The compiler of the tablet (is) Enheduanna. My lord, that which has been created (here) no one has created before."

In her 2009 book Princess, Priestess, Poet, Jungian analyst and Enheduanna translator Betty De Shong Meador claims, "The voice we hear in the hymns is that of a gifted poet." "She candidly portrays the daily activities, concerns, and fundamental character of the gods and their temples. She swarms the entire nearby cosmos with engaging, active, and unmanageable divine beings.

These songs may also allude to Enheduanna's strong mathematical background, which is probably not surprising given that historians attribute the origins of mathematics to Mesopotamia along with the invention of cuneiform and other early writing systems. In Mesopotamia's vibrant agricultural and textile economies, where the two systems grew entwined as farmers and merchants counted what was produced and recorded what was being sold and traded, writing and counting were likely forced to develop.

Babcock expects that the show would raise Enheduanna's profile. She is depicted in a calcite disc that was discovered in 1927 by Woolley and dates to around 2300 BC. The carving shows Enheduanna marching solemnly in line in front of a ziggurat-like temple while being escorted by three plainly clad attendants who are holding ritual goods. She can be recognized by her ornate circular headgear and flounced, tiered robe. Enheduanna's profiled face is visible when she lifts her eyes to Inanna, the goddess of war and love. For 40 years, up until her passing, she held onto her post.

Early feminism

Beyond Enheduanna, the exhibition's approximately 90 objects highlight the numerous ways in which women increasingly participated in different facets of Mesopotamian society. These objects range from different statuary and cuneiform tablets to wall plaques and a multitude of cylinder-shaped seals along with the images and impressions left when they were rolled on a clay or stone tablet. According to Babcock, by demonstrating women's increased prominence in the third millennium, "I wanted to set the stage for Enheduanna," noting that Mesopotamia at that time was less patriarchal than other societies. Indeed, he quips, "There would have been no Downton Abbey because in this era women could own property," and it could be passed down through the female line. This was true in Mesopotamia at that time.

Beginning around 3400 BC, this time saw a significant increase in Mesopotamia's urban centers as well as a persistent rise in the production and trade of products throughout the nation and the region. More personnel were required as a result of an increase in business orders, many of whom were women. These women took up positions in a wide range of trades, including as ceramics, weaving, baking, animal husbandry, brewing, and artisan work, going beyond their usual roles at home or taking on religious responsibilities. One photograph on exhibit shows a group of ladies weaving at the loom, one of whom is in full action with her hair flying behind her. Others depict women dining with males, seemingly on an equal footing, while another depicts women at what appears to be a pottery wheel. They are also shown playing musical instruments, either in ensembles or alone, as shown in a stunning shell inlay of a woman holding a flute to her mouth while wearing lovely ribbons in her curly hair.

And this is but one illustration of what might be seen as a fashion show showcasing the varying and frequently elaborate hair and attire preferences of Mesopotamian women. Ankle-length robes with tiered rows of hanging loops give the appearance of bird feathers. One particularly notable robe has a geometrically intertwined pattern that echoes thatched leaves or reeds. Statuettes, some as small as Barbie dolls, sport thick hair braids wound around the head like a coil. Most of these women are seated, barefoot, with hands joined and modest expressions, as if in prayer.

Royal opulence

The show's aesthetic centerpiece is Queen Puabi's spectacularly colorful burial costume, who lived roughly 150 years before Enheduanna. Puabi's magnificent headpiece is comprised of hammered leaves, gold ribbons, and round beads fashioned of lapis lazuli and carnelian, as befits a queen. A complex crown-like comb covered in star-shaped flowers is perched on top of those ornaments; it is made of the same material as the hair coils and the matching pair of enormous moon-shaped earrings and is also made of gold. The vibrant, waist-to-neck strands of gold and semi-precious stone beads, which are wound around a belt with gold ringlets, are just as impressive. In the late 1920s, these discoveries generated as much of a stir as the 1922 discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb in Egypt, which was made possible by excavations directed by Woolley.

However, according to Babcock, "We know very little about Queen Puabi," who reigned circa 2500 BC. The only place we have her name is on a lapis lazuli cylinder seal that was discovered on her body. According to Babcock, cylinder seals, many of which were scarcely bigger than a spool of thread, were widely used in Mesopotamian civilization as both a form of personal identification and a means of authenticating communications or, for example, the contents of jars. The impressions left by the ornate designs and figures that were frequently carved onto the seals, whose impressions provided a wealth of precise information about every level of society, are particularly essential for those attempting to reconstruct Mesopotamian life today.

These cylinder seals display the evolving characteristics of the two important female deities, Inanna and Ishtar, as well as those of mortal women. Enheduanna assisted in the fusion of Inanna and Ishtar's distinct personas into one interchangeable deity. Inanna served as a symbol of the divine feminine principle prior to Sargon's invasion of Sumer. She was the kind mother and the queen of heaven, who oversaw and preserved the cycle of life. Her face was typically hidden, but rings of bunched reeds served as a symbol of her presence.

However, change was afoot because by 2400 BC, a vessel fragment depicts a female divinity in human form. She embodies the fertility and fecundity associated with Inanna, wearing a horned crown with leafy, vegetable-like material emerging from her shoulders, and holding a cluster of dates, but the animal-like crown also symbolizes fierceness.

Ishtar, represented in the exhibition with weapons sprouting out of her shoulders and her foot atop a lion whose leash she holds, is portrayed as a female deity who is ever more warlike with the rise of Sargon and through Eneheduanna's hymns. Enheduanna similarly depicts Inanna/Ishtar in her poems as a strong goddess of war and conquering in addition to love and abundance. Additionally, according to Babcock, the exhibition's cylinder seals depict scenes from her poem Inanna and Ebih.

The narrative pits an aggrieved, indignant Inanna against her foe, a mountain range that will not submit to her or grant her any concessions. We witness the goddess murder the male deity of the mountain by causing the mountain's stones to fall from the sky.Her dagger's blade was polished on both sides. She grabbed Ebih's neck and began torn up the grass. She "presented the blade into its heart" and "yelled like thunder" such that "the stones that make up Ebih crashed down its back." She then joyfully stamps her foot on the stone fragments to mark her victory. Another first for Enheduanna's literary legacy is Babcock's observation that "This is the first time you have illustrations for a text, ever."

Which is another way of saying that Enheduanna is still relevant today in a variety of fields, including literature. She was a prominent person in ancient Sumer, women's history, and feminism, among other fields.