Enheduanna, The Oxford Encyclopedia of Women in World History by Marian H. Feldman (pp.

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ENHEDUANNA (c. 2300 B.C.E..), early Mesopotamian high priestess and poet. Around 2330 B.C.E... Sargon, the charismatic usurper of the city-state of Kish in Akkad (central Mesopotamia in what is today Iraq), defeated Lugalzagesi, who controlled the prominent city-states of Ur and Uruk in Sumer to the south. Sargons unification of Sumer and Akkad (effectively all of southern Iraq) created the first Mesopotamian territorial empire. Centralization under the rule of a northern Akkadian dynasty, which based its power at a newly founded capital outside Sumer, engendered deep resentment and rebellion among the traditionally powerful southern cities. In a strategic ploy to mitigate the unrest, Sargon appointed his daughter, Enheduanna, high priestess of the Sumerian moon god Nanna at Ur. As such, she served as the divinely sanctioned embodiment of the goddess Ningal, Nannas consort. Her activity in the temple complex in this city is documented archaeologically by several administrative seals that bear the names and titles of her top officials. She may also have been appointed the high priestess of the sky god An at Uruk to consolidate ties of loyalty between the southern cities and Sargon. The position of high priestess of Nanna remained in the hands of subsequent princesses for the next five hundred years, signaling the effectiveness of this political move. In addition to Enheduannas elevated status as a priestess, which entailed the administration of an extensive and wealthy temple estate, she is known for her poetry. In a literary and scribal landscape in which authorship was rarely acknowledged and men dominated the profession, the explicit attribution of several literary compositions to Enheduanna confirms her exceptional character. Although she served as priestess of the moon god, Enheduanna held a personal devotion to the Sumerian goddess Inanna (equated with the Akkadian goddess Ishtar). Her most remarkable work is The Exaltation of Inanna, which takes the form of an autobiographical hymn in praise of the fore most Mesopotamian goddess and expresses the emotive qualities of the devotee. Other compositions, which include hymns to various temples, reveal a more scholarly aspect of Enheduanna as a profound theologian of Sumerian religion.
Enheduanna. A disk depicting Enheduanna at worship, c. 2300 B.C.E.. University of Pennsylvania Museum (image no. 139330)

Enheduanna remained a central figure in the later collective imagination of ancient Mesopotamia. A small alabaster disk about twenty-five centimeters in diameter, carved on one side with a relief representation of Enheduanna officiating at a ritual and on the other side with an inscription recording the dedication of a cultic item, was found by the excavators of Ur in the high priestesses residence dating to the Old Babylonian period

around five hundred years after her death. (It is now housed in the University Museum of the University of Pennsylvania.) Also during this later period, a scribe at Ur carefully copied the disks inscription onto a clay tablet. These relics of Enheduannas life, along with the preservation of her literary works, attest to her enduring place in Mesopotamian intellectual history. [See also West Asia, subentry Ancient Period.] BIBLIOGRAPHY Bahrani. Zainab. Women of Babylon: Gender and Representation in Mesopotamia. London: Routledge, 2001. Highly theoretical analysis of the representation of women in ancient Mesopota mia, including a short discussion of Enheduanna (pp. 112-117). Hallo. William W., and J. J. A. van Dijk. The Exaltation of Inanna. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1968. Scholarly translation of and commentary on Enheduannas major literary work; includes an introductory chapter on her life and works. Melville. Sarah C. Royal Women and the Exercise of Power in the Ancient Near East. In A Companion to the Ancient Near East, edited by Daniel C. Snell, pp. 219-228. Malden. Mass.: Blackwell. 2005. Recent overview, including discussion of Enheduanna and current bibliography. Marian H. Feldman