Gala (priests)

The Gala (Sumerian: 𒍑𒆪 gala, Akkadian: kalû) were priests

of the Sumerian goddess Inanna, significant numbers of the
personnel of both temples and palaces, the central institutions of
Mesopotamian city states, individuals with neither male nor
female gender identities.

Originally specialists in singing lamentations, gala appear in

temple records dating back from the middle of the 3rd
millennium BC.[1] According to an old Babylonian text, Enki
created the gala specifically to sing "heart-soothing laments" for
the goddess Inanna.[2] Cuneiform references indicate the
gendered character of the role.[3] Lamentation and wailing
originally may have been female professions, so that men who
entered the role adopted its forms. Their hymns were sung in a
Sumerian dialect known as eme-sal, normally used to render the
speech of female gods,[4] and some gala took female names.[5]
Homosexual proclivities are clearly implied by the Sumerian Ancient Sumerian statuette of two
proverb that reads, "When the gala wiped off his anus [he said], ‘I gala priests, dating to c. 2450 BC,
must not arouse that which belongs to my mistress [i.e., found in the temple of Inanna at Mari
[6]
Inanna]’ ". In fact, the word gala was written using the sign
sequence UŠ.KU, the first sign having also the reading giš3
("penis"), and the second one dur2 ("anus"), so perhaps there is some pun involved.[7] Moreover, gala is
homophonous with gal4-la "vulva". However, in spite of all their references of their effeminate character
(especially in the Sumerian proverbs), many administrative texts mention gala priests who had children,
wives, and large families.[8] In addition, some gala priests were cisgender women.[9]

Notes
1. Hartmann 1960:129–46; Gelb 1975; Renger 1969:187–95; Krecher 1966:27–42; Henshaw
1994:84–96
2. Kramer 1982a:2
3. Gelb 1975:73; Lambert 1992:150–51
4. Hartmann 1960:138; Krecher 1966; Cohen 1974:11, 32
5. Bottéro and Petschow 1975:465
6. Gordon 1959, no. 2.100
7. Steinkeller 1992:37
8. Rubio 2001:270; Michalowski 2006
9. al-Rawi 1992

References
Ann Suter (2008). Lament: Studies in the Ancient Mediterranean and Beyond. Oxford
University Press. ISBN 0199714274.
 Stephen O. Murray, Will Roscoe, eds. (1997). Islamic Homosexualities: Culture, History, and
Literature. NYU Press. ISBN 0814774687.
Carl S. Ehrlich (2009). From an Antique Land: An Introduction to Ancient Near Eastern
Literature. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. ISBN 0742563472.

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