Prayer and poetry: Enheduanna and the women of Mesopotamia

Enheduanna, high priestess at the ancient city of Ur, is thought to be the world’s first named author. She was a poetic innovator, but she was not alone in Mesopotamian history as a prominent or a literate woman, as Lucia Marchini learns from Sidney Babcock.

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Published: 12 October 2022 • View live issue

Period: Bronze Age Near East

Location: Asia › Iraq › Dhi Qar › Ur

Sometime in the 23rd century BC, a writer composed a series of hymns devoted to the different gods worshipped in the temples of 36 cities across Mesopotamia. These Temple Hymns were signed off with the following lines:

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

This declaration of originality and authorship, and lines from another poem, ‘The Exaltation of Inanna’, give us the name of what is thought to be the first known writer: Enheduanna.