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Lishtar´s Note: The text that follows is probably one of the most important works I had the pleasure to get hold of this year
(1999) on how Mesopotamians viewed the body, and in extension, matter. The piece is groundbreaking and shows once
again how modern our Mesopotamians Soul Ancestors were in terms of their views on matter and spirit. Personally, I find that
it is delightful to see spelled out what modern Mesopotamian mystics knew already in their hearts, minds, bodies, spirit and
soul: inner truths always can be proved by the best scholarship that is guided by the Light of the Tradition. Thus the inclusion
of the text under Mesopotamian Religion and Magick, because one of the greatest contributions of Mesopotamian wisdom to
bring wholeness to modern consciousness is exactly the resurrection of the body as a sacred indissoluble component of
mind, heart and spirit to form the Quintessence of the Soul. The quotations that follow are not part of the original article, but
are included for your soul´s delight. Enjoy!

"We count for something only because of the essential we embody: if we do not embody, then life is wasted" (Carl Gustav
Jung)

"Meaning is invisible, but the invisible is not contradictory of the visible, the visible itself has an invisible inner framework, and
the in-visible is the secret counterpart of the visible" (M. Merleau-Ponty

"It is the integrity of mind, heart, body and spirit that helps the soul to fly to the Highest Heights and plunge into the Depths
Below to grow and transform in all worlds and spheres" (Lishtar)

One of my favorite views of the Divine Feminine (Inanna/Ishtar/Lillith)

THE ESSENTIAL BODY: MESOPOTAMIAN CONCEPTION OF THE GENDERED BODY

By Julia M. Asher-Greve

Source: Wyke, Maria (ed.) (1998) Gender and the Body in the Ancient Mediterranean. Blackwell Publishers Ltda., Oxford, UK.

Researching the body in ancient Mesopotamian art and literature reveals how essential the body was considered in
Mesopotamian thought. Western philosophical tradition denies the body a function in reason and spiritual meaning, but the
ancient Mesopotamians may have had quite different structures of understanding. "Objectivism" has been criticized for not
giving consideration to the body as a component of rationality and understanding. Some philosophers have proposed that we
need a theory of meaning and rationality that puts "the body back into the mind" (1). In Ancient Mesopotamia, the mind was
still in the body, mind and body were inseparable, meaning and understanding were, to use Mark Johnson´s term, "embodied"
(2). This article focuses on how early Mesopotamians (c. 3000-1600 Before Common Era) concepts of the body differ from
subsequent Western views and on the analysis and meaning of selected Sumerian and Akkadian (3) terminology as well as
textual and visual evidence of how the body was marked represented and understood.

The Graeco-European tradition inscribes the mind/body dichotomy with two binary gender categories assumed to be
universal: male mind versus female body. The spate of recent publications on the body has been influenced firstly by the
mind/body dichotomy and the long Western tradition from Plato to Descartes which denigrates the body, and thus women,
and secondly by contemporary discourse on postmodern, feminist and gender theories (4). Caroline Bynun´s article, "Why All
Fuss about the Body" surveys the literature recently published about "the Body" (5). The literature reveals that the term is
used as a synonym for senses, Sex, gender, sexuality, gestures, corporeal functions, disease, physical activities, the corpse,
or even for the person and the self. Bynum remarks that the usage of "body" is confusing and contradictory. While dualistic
ontology need not necessarily imply something negative, feminism has exposed the fact that dualism in the Western

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Philosophical tradition has unfortunately always included Plat´s misogyny and his denigration of the body, with women
designated as body-directed beings. Since Plato, body, emotion and the particular have been equated with women and
negative values, whereas culture, mind, reason and the universal have been equated with men and positive values (6).
Platonic and Cartesian tradition constrasts body as anatomical, material, spatial, temporal and fallible to mind as mental,
spiritual, eternal, universal and infallible. The views expressed in Sumerian and Babylonian sources, however, demonstrate
that mind/body, mind/matter or spiritual/material dualisms are not at all "universal", nor they include a denigrating view of
women.

The Sumerian language (8) offers several terms for body, addressing the different contexts in which the body is set:

- su and su-bar (in Akkadian language zumru) (9) refers to the external body and often stands for people, groups and society
per se. It is used in phrases such as "body of a deity", "body of the king", "body of a city", "body of Sumer" or "body of the
land". The term su (in Akkadian erû) can also mean naked, and it is a synonym for image;

- s(h)a (in Akkadian karshu and libbu) (12) includes the external and internal body. The original meaning is heart. That s(h)a
came to mean the total body - not only individual organs such as heart, stomach, belly, womb, but also mind, thought, plan,
desire - indicates that the heart was perceived as the central core of the self. Knowing and feeling were located in the
body (Lishtar´s emphasis)

- (me-) dim (in Akkadian binatu and binutu) (13) is written with an abstract sign whose original meaning is not known. It
primarily means limbs but also creation and creature. The verb dim (in Akkadian banu) (14) refers to the form and shape of
the body and means "to create, to form, to fashion". It is also used for the fashioning of objects such as statues and steles
(15). The body is humanity, the object of creation (16).

A hymn for king Ishmedagan of Isin (1953-1935 BCE), a song celebrating the sacred city of Nippur, juxtaposes two Sumerian
words for body, su and s(h)a:

City [=Nippur] your centre [s(h)a] is sacred

Your appearance [bar] is lustrous

Your body [su-bar] exhibits awe-inspiring radiance (melam) (17)

The city of Nippur is compared with a divine body. The term su-bar is used metaphorically for the entire city as a larger body,
meaning external, visible body and appearance. The body of the city emanates, like a deity, awe-inspiring radiance (melam)
(18). Nippur´s main temple, which constitutes the centre of the city and makes Nippur holy, is the main temple of the Air God
Enlil, the highest deity in the Sumerian and Old Babylonian pantheon before Hammurabi (1792-1750 BCE); s(h)a is used for
this sacred centre: the core is equally heart, mind and body. Such a passage could also describe a deity by simply substituting
for the city´s a deity´s name.

There is no specific Sumerian term for mind or human brain. A connection between the brain and thinking was not made. The
Sumerian word for intelligence, understanding and sense, geshtu, is written with the sign for ear, which indicates that these
faculties were acquired by listening. The term geshtu is a frequently mentioned quality of kings (19). There is no evidence,
however, that intelligence or reason (another translation for geshtu) is conceptualized in opposition to the body. This is not
unique for the Sumerians. In his study Foundations of Primitive Thought, Christopher Hallpike notices that in many cultures
understanding, thinking and knowing are associated with hearing (20).

The Sumerian term s(h)a (body and heart) implies that meaning as that in ancient Egypt, where the heart was considered the
seat of will, thought and feeling, had power over the limbs and was open to the influence of the gods. Locating psychological
processes in physical organs is also known in other cultures (21). In Ancient Mesopotamia deities choose kings with their
hearts. The heart is not only the core of the body, but heart, body and mind as the same word is a holistic concept (22). Thus,
conceptually there is no dichotomy between mind and body. This holism is also confirmed by Sumerian creation myths:
humanity is formed in one process, it is complete, mother and birth-goddesses (and the Divine Magician- Lishtar´s addition)
are guarantors for the wholeness and perfection of creation (23). This may be one of the reasons that kings (who are
described as ideal human beings) claim goddesses as their symbolic mothers (24) and why for the fashioning of some statues
the metaphor "born" (alan mu-tud) is used (25). Physical perfection and imperfection are related to sexual position (26).

Conventions for representing the body in Mesopotamian culture are equally significant. From the late 4th millennium onwards
written and pictorial documents represented the human body as:

- sexed, with anatomical and physiological sexual markers such as genitals, breasts or beards;

- gendered, marked by socio-cultural gender elements such as masculine or feminine clothing or hairstyle, or baldness for
men and adornment attributes, context and occupation;

- or ambiguous and assexual, showing neither unequivocal anatomical Sex markers, nor gender-specific markers.

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The Sumerian signs are equally distintive for human beings, man and woman, the sign for human being lu and is ambiguous
in pictographic terms (27), the sign for man (nita) is the penis and the sign for woman (munus) the vulva. The pictograph for
body is chosen for writing person and the pictographs for genitals for writing woman and man. It is an ambiguous human body
that signifies person, thus the general is not sexed, but the specific is. This confronts scholars with many problems. Because
the Sumerian language has no grammatical gender, it is often not clear which gender is addressed. Nevertheless,
Sumerologists tend to prefer the masculine gender in their translations. For instance, the Sumerian word for person or
persons lu is generally translated man or men. But the word is gender neutral and should be translated persons(s) or people.

The ambiguity of the archaic sign for person can be compared with that of human figures depicted on cylinder seals. The so-
called simple pattern style differentiates between man and woman, who are gendered by clothing, male nudity and hairstyles
and who, on some seals, are engaged in gender-specific work, such as weaving or animal herding. On some seals, persons
(lu) are engaged in a task that was not gender-specific (e.g. handling pots or animals). These figures often lack gender
markers such as hair and/or distinct clothes.

In the visual arts, gender ambiguity is often evident in European figurative art, such as in the depiction of angels and saints
(30). Hieronymus Bosh orchestrates sometimes more, sometimes less sexed bodies. In contemporary art the Sex of bodies is
often elusive, implying that humanity is androgynous (31). Whether a representation appears ambiguous or androgynous may
also depend on the viewer´s knowledge of implicit culturally determined gender signifiers and markers and/or accompanying
titles or text (32). Visual statements on humanity in European art seem to fluctuate between giving particular prominence to
the male, as in Michelangelo´s Creation in the Sistine Chapel, or simply depicting sexless or ambiguous bodies (33).

Decoding gender in the visual arts of ancient societies poses comparable problems. Not all codes are self-evident or
understood by modern scholars. Two examples may illustrate the problem. On the so called family relief (Kirg Urmanshe of
Lagash, Early Dynastic Period), the king and his sons (dumu, child) are easily identifiable by skirts worn only by men (34),
bare chests and shaven heads. But one figure wears a dress covering the right shoulder and has long hair, both of which are
gender-neutral. Name and designation as Abda, child of Urnanshe do not specify the gender of the person, who has been
identified as either the prince or princess (35). Circumstantial evidence, however, indicates a priestess: this figure combination
of dress and hairstyle is typical for women, but not for men, her height is superior to that of the crown prince Akurgal, standing
behind her and there is also the ritual context. As high priestess Abda can head a procession, and her asexual appearance
may be linked to her priestly status (36).

The statue of another Urnanshe, a leading singer (nar-mah) in the city of Mari possesses a name and wears a type of skirt
which are both masculine markers. Yet it also exhibits features primarily coded as feminine such as na effeminate face and
bulging breasts (37). These features may reflect castration (38). Effeminate or masculine traits in sculpture remain enigmatic:
women are often flat-chested, men occasionally have effeminate breasts, such as some foundation figurines assumed to
represent kings (39). Considering the emphasis on masculine strength and heroism in royal ideology, these figurines are
difficult to integrate into the royal imagery. Perhaps they represent demiurgic creatures, whose gender is not clearly defined,
or perhaps asexuality and sexual ambiguity are associated with priestly functions.

There were more than two gender categories in Mesopotamia (40); the third was castrated men (amar-TUD), the same term
also applying to castrated animals (41). These men were the sons of female weavers and women of low social status; they
were castrated at a young age, worked in groups and are often listed as fugitives. In the Third Dynasty of Ur Period (2112-
2004 BCE) their status is at the lowest end of society. In the creation myth known as Enki and Ninmah, a fourth gender is also
introduced (41). The goddess Ninmah forms (dim) a human being that is neither male nor female; her brother-beloved Enki
finds a role in society for this creature at the royal court (43). This person is described as "neither having penis nor vulva in its
body", it is thus sexless. All the persons Ninmah creates are adults, and it is therefore remarkable that the lack of female
breasts is not mentioned. Apparently, breasts were not conceived as a primary distinction between the sexes. Breasts,
however, are emphasized in visual representations of nude women, but not always indicated a clothed female. Many clothed
women are portrayed flat-chested, which makes it difficult to distinguish them from men. In the literature emphasis is palced
on the vulva and the womb rather than the breasts (44). Perhaps because breasts developed in puberty and therefore were
not considered primary sexual organs, women were essentially defined by the vulva and the womb. This may be why, in
narrative imagery, women often represent a gendered category (garments and hairstyle), whereas men are more often
characterized by sexual markers such as beard or nakedness.

Gender categories as described above are already operational at the beginning of the 3rd Millennium BCE on the oldest
monumental narrative, the Uruk vase. The narrative mirrors Sumerian economic and cultic activities, water standing for
irrigation (on the bottom), plants and pairs of ram and sheep for cultivation symbolizing prosperity and fertility of the land. In
the third register (from the bottom) nine naked men moves left carrying vessels and baskets with produce. The men are sexed
by genitals and gendered by baldness, meaning that their bodies are inscribed with two gender signifiers: anatomical - the
male genitals; and socio-cultural - baldness. These strong young men might well represent gurush, the Sumerian term for
young, unmarried men. According to later textual evidence, gurush were at least occasionally referred to as being virginal
(46). A striking feature of the lower and middle registers is the isocephalic composition - heads and the opts of plants are on
the same level. Thus plus the repetition and the structuring in rows emphasizes uniformity and order, displaying the young
nude men as a group, not as individuals.

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In the top register the uniformity of repetition, isocephaly and unidirectional rows, is broken; although the direction of the
procession continues with the three-figure group facing right (one mostly missing, with just one foot and parts of the skirt
preserved), it comes to a halt as the naked bearer holds his basket of offerings in front of the theme´s central figure. The
space is divided into human and divine (or sacred) spheres by the central axis, which separates the main action from the
symbols and objects. Just behind the central figure facing left are two reed poles with streamers, the symbol and sign of the
goddess Inanna (47). The divine sphere (right) contains three Inanna symbols, large and small offering vessels, votive
objects, a sacrificial male ram and two small figures on pedestals (dressed in skirts and having long hair) of ambiguous
gender.

To the left, in the human sphere, stands a priestess in front of the gates of the temple of Inanna. The priestess receives a
group of three men consisting of a nude offering bearer, the En of Uruk (identifiable by the fragment of netskirt, a garment only
worn by the En on other images, where he is always bearded) (48), and his servant, who carries the trail of his skirt.
Remarkable in the treatment of bodies is that only the subordinate offering bearer is sexed, the En as in other representations
is marked sexually (beard) and socio-culturally (netskirt). His servant, however, exhibits the same gender ambiguity as the two
persons in the divine sphere, only his short skirt marks him as male (49).

Identification of the main figure as a woman is based on her dress, and the iconographic pattern that men always wear either
short skirts or long skirts plus beard. The bodies are inscribed with a gender role which also encompass social, religious and
gender identity. Clothing determines gender and social tatus.

The visual representation of the nude body is also instructive for our analysis of gender in Mesopotamian culture. Nude men
in ritualized action are a recurrent motif in Mesopotamian art; more common than groups are single men assumed to be
priests performing a ritual act such as libation (50). Apart from one occasional dancer or musician, women in ritual and cult
always wear garments. Sumerian and Akkadian texts do not explain the nudity of men in ritual and cult, but it is mentioned in
several Hittite texts (51). Cross-cultural comparison provides further explanations. As mentioned, at least some young men
(gurush-tur) were virginal. Naked young virginal men might thus signify purity, probably a prerequisite for the participation in
certain rituals and cults. Further, a nude person is believed to be more receptive to divine influence. According to Philo of
Alexandria:

The High Priest shall not enter the Holy of Holies in his robes, but laying aside the garment of opinions and
impressions of the soul, and leaving it behind for those that love outward things and value semblance, shall
enter naked... (52)

It is possible that the concept of purity expressed through nudity extends to the so-called nude hero. Contrary to the nude
young men in ritual context, the hero is depicted as an adult, bearded man.

The motif of the nude heroic man combating wild animals appears during the Early Dynastic Period (c.2800-2350 BCE) and
develops into the most popular motif on cylinder seals of the later Early Dynastic and especially in the Akkadian period (c.
2350-2150 BCE) (53). The emergence of this motif occurs when the concept of rulership began to change, suggesting a
connection between the nude hero and the royal ideology (54). The nudity of the combatants is the key to futher
interpretation. There is a connection between the portrayal of heroic combatants as nude and the nudity of gods depicted in
the battle of gods, a mythological motif in the flood myth (Atrahasis) (55). The divine battle is the only context in which gods
are portrayed in the nude. The heroic deed is accomplished naked, which emphasizes and enhances the magnitude of the
feat. There is no protection, victory is accomplished by pure physical prowess and superiority, the hero fighting lions and bulls
against all odds.

The nude hero celebrates male physical power, a theme well attested throughout antiquity, and he develops into an icon of
masculinity based on physical strength (56). The Sumerian word for young man (gurush) reflects this concept, written witj the
sign for strong (kala) One of the most common royal epithets is strong man (nita kala-ga) (57). In a copy of a statue
isncription the king Ishme-Dagan of Isin (1953-1955 BCE) is described as follows:

"Ishme-Dagan, the strong young man with muscles and the body of a lion, mighty youth, who possesses fearsome splendour"
(58)

The king´s strong body is a sign of his perfection, superiority and godlike appearance. Due to his physical might he can
perform heroic deeds, he is the hero (59). Image and text convey the glorification of the masculine strength and heroism, thus
the nude male hero is a royal allegory which also links the king´s heroic battle through the notation of nudity. The hero - the
king - resembles a god physically. This places him in proximity othe gods, insinuating powers customarily attributed to the
divine.

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Nakedness, however, can also signify deprivation, humiliation and social dispossession, as well as what a Sumerian poem
describes as precivilization:

And there was no cloth to wear...

The people of distant days,
They knew no bread to eat
They knew not cloth to wear,
The people went about naked (60)

Dead or captured enemies about to be killed, blinded or castrated, are stripped of all clothes. Fallen or capturated enemies
who are depicted naked are all men (61). Women were also captured and led into slavery, but they do not appear in visual
imagery until the 1st Millennium BCE on Assyrian wall reliefs , where they are depicted as sexless, and are often hard to
distinguish from men; the presence of children sometimes indicates that the captured persons are women (62). In the context
of war and captivity all bodies of enemies convey the message of victory or subjugation. Whereas enemies can be portrayed
as fierce soldiers in order to emphasize the heroic victor, the gender of women and possibly male civilians seems irrelevant
and they are represented as a mass of conquered bodies.

Male nudity signals either purity and heroism or enslavement and death, whereas female nudity is linked primarily to sexual
activity and eroticism (63). Nude women and goddesses are numerous in Mesopotamian art. Scholars have struggled with
their interpretation because insight into their meanings cannot be derived from textual sources (64). In the broader analysis of
the body and gender roles, it becomes evident that the nude female - both divine and mortal - is a symbol of erotic power.
Bodily appearance is perceived as a powerful force, just as with the hero-king (65).

An inscription on the back of a nude female stone torso (British Museum, 94 cm, WA 124.963) found near the Ishtar temple in
Niniveh states that this statue is property of the palace of the Assyrian king Assurbelkala (1073-1056 BCE), and that
Assurbelkala "made these sculptures in the provinces, cities and garrisons for titillation" (66). It is a puzzling inscription,
inviting our speculation as to who had to be titillated and why. But one fact is obvious: female nudity was erotic and nude
female statues were intended to stimulate the libido of men.

Numerous statuettes and terracottas - popular art forms - convey the image of nude women as sexually alluring (67). How
such images relate to the concept of the perfect female body as sexually pure is enigmatic. Female sexuality was strictly
controlled by men. Violations of the female body such as defloration, rape, pre and extra-marital Sex, natural or intentional
abortion were treated in the Sumerian and Akkadian collections of laws (68). In literary texts, however, the female body is
described in sexual and erotic terms (69). Such descriptions and nude depictions apparently were not perceived as
contradictory to the laws. Perhaps most of these representations were not in public places. They might have been related to
private erotic stimulation and lovemaking. Yet some nude female statues clearly were installed in public spaces.

In literary texts and votive inscriptions, many goddesses have the epithet of "beautiful women" (munus-sha-ga), but it is not
made explicit what beauty entails. In fact, there is a startling contrast between descriptions of bodily pleasures and the more
general concept of beauty. Metaphors of beauty seem to be primarily agricultural; the attractiveness of women, for instance, is
compared with that of grain, palm tree or cow (71). Erotic pleasure was one of the divine powers, called me in Sumerian (71).
Sumerian love-literature focuses on the body in particular the vulva, the lap and thighs, and human love was portrayed as
bodily pleasure with the anticipated result of procreation (72), [as well as an act of worshiping the god/desshead in the human
partner: Lishtar´s addition, depicted in the series of songs of human and divine love in the occasion of the Sacred Marriage
Rite in special).

In ancient Greece the ideal form of the human figure was presented as nude (73). This may be an ancient Near Eastern
pattern, traceable to the pre-historic nude female figurines. If the nude male hero alludes to divine proximity, the nude female
can be similarly understood, especially since many terracotta figurines exhibit ambiguity concerning divine or mortal female
identity. The only goddesses depicted nude or particularly dressed are Inanna/Ishtar, goddesses of love, sexuality, eroticism
and war, and various goddesses associated with Her (74).

The body´s life starts with birth and, according to Freud, the first ego ist he body-ego. This is still generally accepted
psychoanalytic theory based on studies of infant behaviour (75). Mesopotamians conceptualized the body as the agent of
thinking, feeling, experiencing and knowing. The body was the essential ego/being. In the absence of a specific concept of
mind, the corporeal body was representative of the totality of the individual. In the absence of a specific concept of mind, the
corporeal body was representative of the totality of the individual.

Creation narratives support this interpretation. The creation passage in Atrahasis also known as the Flood Myth contains
wordplay between tëmu (intelligence and understanding) and etemmu (spirit and ghost) both integral to the human being
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(76). The body and thus humanity is created from the blood and flesh of a slain god mixed with clay and shaped by the
goddess Nintu (77). The spirit-ghost comes from the god´s flesh, intelligence from his blood (78). That the spirit was thought
to have corporeal shape is implied in the Early Dynastic economic texts that list offerings of clothes for the statues and spirits
of male and female ancestors (79). The spirit survives the postmortem decomposition of the flesh, yet remains bound to the
body in the form of its bones. The Akkadian word shiru covers a meaning as broad as the Sumerian su and sha, that is,
ranging from flesh and kin to a metonymic use for body, person and self (80). Perhaps the flesh from the gods stands for his
total body, including the bones. This would better explain why the spirit does not totally transcend the body but stays linked to
its bones. The body was conceived as the essence of humanity and survived in a form still reminiscent of the body.

Thinking, feeling, knowing and afterlife were located in or linked to the body. Here, as in the Sumerian concept, intelligence
(gestu) is inseparable from the body. Transferred to humanity through the blood of the god, it might be expected that
intelligence is extinguished with death (but it is not so, once in the myth of Atrahasis, the spirit of the slain god can be heard in
the drumbeat of creation, or life-force that pulsates in everything that was, is and will be). Tzvi Abusch claims that tëmu
(intelligence) represents the link between life and afterlife, because it is phonetically present in the word etemmu (81). In fact,
only etemmu, the spirit (in Sumerian gidim) survives death, it is the spirit of the dead (82). It has been suggested that etemmu
is the ghost, not the spirit because the word is used only in conjunction with the dead. But etemmu is conceptualized as being
integral to the whole body beginning with creation. The spirit is the "form-giving" element and at death this form survives.
Intelligence, however, is never mentioned in conjunction with the spirit-ghost of the dead.

The self is located in the inseparable unity of the body and spirit. Because the self could be re-created and actually be present
in an image, Mesopotamian visual representation possessed a form of reality which is difficult to comprehend for modern
scholars. This form of reality becomes clearer when we consider that many monuments are inscribed with curses invoking
maledictions and punishement for those who destroy or mutilate the monument, symbolically equivalent to the destruction of
the image or the actual killing of a person. One of the most severe curses was the deprivation of progeny, which meant that
no ancestor cult could be performed and the referent spirit became a nameless wandering demon.

Further evidence for the importance of corporeal presence in visual depictions of the body can be obtained from literary
references to abductions of divine statues from temples and cities (84). Such abduction represented major catastrophe for the
Babylonians because the absence of the deity ensured that the cult was discontinued until the statue was returned. It was
believe that the deity had turned against the city and abandoned it (85). Only the return of the divine statue could reverse
such a fate. Statues of humans also had life, serving as an alter ego: the statues of king Gudea of Lagash (2141-2122 BCE)
are his proxies, perpetually placed in the presence of, and in communication with, the deities (86). Thus the statue is believed
to be more than an inanimate image, it is a corporeal being.

The early Mesopotamian conception of the body seems to be that of a self, comprising body and spirit, which can replicate
itself in other manifestations, such as statues or monuments which are more than symbolic proxies than distinct duplicates.
The spirit, not a replica but a unique entity, can apparently inhabit several objects simultaneously. In a sort of reciprocal
interaction, the deity bestows life not only on the human individual but also on all its subsequent images (such as statues or
monuments) and these in turn can independently and eternally converse or negotiate with the deity. This conception differs
from that of Platonic idealism which regards phenomenal bodies as replicas of an ideal or metaphysical form of the human
figure. Mesopotamian statues are placed in the path of teh deity whose life-giving glance (igi nam-ti-la) animates them. That
removal or destruction of statues causes death or lack of progeny may be interpreted as meaning that both they and the
individual they represent are removed from the divine glance (igi-izi) (87).

In closing the analysis of gender and the body in Mesopotamian culture, I want to note that studying texts and images from a
feminist and gender perspective opens new avenues of interpretation. As I have shown, in early Mesopotamia the mind/body
dichotomy was absent. Ancient Mesopotamians did not develop a system of binary gender equating male with positive and
female with negative values. The Mesopotamian holistic concept of the human being was based on a physical system, with
the body as fundamental point of reference. The body was the total self, the essence of humanity, equally matter and spirit,
emotion and reason, both temporal and eternal. Gender was the interpretation of anatomical differences and imperfections.
The inscription of gender on the body was one option to structure society.

The human body was a divine, genderless creation. As humanity was created in one process prior to Sex or gender, it can be
presumed that the body, as a metaphor for humanity, contained within itself all possible gender. This is corroborated by the
archaic sign for person (the plural also means humanity), a genderless body.. The secondary creation of the two normative
sexes, male and female, in the Atrahasis myth was understood as requiring a complementary anatomy for procreation, upon
which social gender was imposed. But gender categories extended beyond the binary concept to multiple gender and social
status for persons of ambiguous or not, Sex and castrated men. Gender differentiation followed the nature of physical
differences: those born with Sex anomalies 9certain singers and courtiers) were integrated into society; those, however,
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12/11/2020 THE ESSENTIAL BODY: MESOPOTAMIAN CONCEPTION OF THE GENDERED BODY

whsoe Sex was artificially altered (castrates) were marginalized. Although in historical periods (beginning 2600 BCE) men
generally held a higher status than women and other genders, neither the female gender nor persons of no, and naturally
ambiguous Sex, were denigrated or assumed to lack culture, mind and reason because they were still considered divine
creations.

The visual arts provide evidence of the mode of gender inscription on the body: anatomy signifies the ideal image of
masculine and feminine. The absence or presence of Sex markers plus various combinations of clothes and hairstyles are
employed to signify different gender groups. But these codes do not always suffice for unequivocal gender identification.
Either we lack the information required to decipher all codes and combinations, or the borders between gender groups are
fluid. The coexistence of female and male images with ambiguous gender images in the same genres (sculpture, relief and
seals), sometimes juxtaposed in narrative images can be explained by the existence of multiple, fluid gender categories.

In a thought system where the body is perceived as a fusion of the spiritual, emotional and physical, anatomical
differences have another significance than in Western dualistic ontology because spiritual and emotional qualities
are equally and evenly present in all genders. Thus, in the earliest Sumerian pantheon goddesses dominated [Lishtar
´s emphasis]. Goddesses and women and certain persons of ambiguous gender still held prominent positions in the Early
Dinastic period (88). The demotion of goddesses and the deterioration of the status of women in later periods is paralleled by
a rising emphasis on anatomical properties of male and female bodies (images of nude heroes and women), on motherhood
and on male strength. The roots of this development reach back to the Early Dynastic period, when royal ideology changed
and wars were more frequent, resulting in Mesopotamian socity becoming more militaristic. According to Amélie Kuhrt,
women´s exclusion from warfare is reflected in their social marginalization (89). Increasing militarization of Mesopotamia is
probably the major reason for the change of gender status, which is reflected in the regulations of women´s bodies in the law
codes, but also in increasingly numerous representations of nude females in the Third Dynasty of Ur period and Old
Babylonian art (c. 2150-1600 BCE).

OBS: Notes to be posted shortly.

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