Poet and High Priestess – Enheduanna
Have you heard of the ancient city-state of Ur in Sumeria? If not, you may not have heard of today’s poet who was also the city’s High Priestess. Her name: Enheduanna. She is among the first known female writers and also the earliest known poet ever recorded. She served the Temple of the goddess Inanna and the moon god Nanna (Sin). She lived in Ur over 4,200 years ago.
Her compositions come in two forms: exaltations of the goddess Inanna, in both the goddess’ loving or warlike poses, and temple hymns sung by the Priestesses and selected others. In today’s presentation of Enheduanna’s compositions we present four temple hymns and the most complete exaltation of Inanna. The latter is at the very end of the post; it is quite long and only the hardy will make it to the end; that is, unless you worship Inanna. What follows are translations of some of her temple hymn poems by Betty De Shong Meador.
Temple Hymn 7
The Kesh Temple Of Ninhursag The Lofty
high-lying Kesh
in all heaven and earth you are the form-shaping place
spreading fear like a great poisonous snake
O Lady of the Mountains Ninhursag’s house
built on a terrifying site
O Kesh like holy Aratta
inside is a womb dark and deep
your outside towers over all
imposing one
great lion of the wildlands stalking the high plains
great mountain
incantations fixed you in place
inside the light is dim
even moonlight (Nanna’s light) does not enter
only Nintur Lady Birth
makes it beautiful
O house of Kesh
the brick of birthgiving
your temple tower adorned with a lapis lazuli crown
your princess
Princess of Silence
unfailing great Lady of Heaven
when she speaks heaven shakes
open-mouthed she roars
Aruru sister of Enlil
O house of Kesh
has built this house on your radiant site
and placed her seat upon your dais
Editor's Note: Ninhursag was the great goddess of nature, wild and tame. Wild animals were her children. She watched over human birth in all its aspects, as germ-loosener, blood-stauncher, mother-spreading-the-knees, and mother-who-has-given-birth. By the mid-third millennium B.C.E., she was among the trio of the great deities, along with An of heaven, and Enlil of the wind. She attended to form-shaping, both in the womb and in the dark interior of her temple. The Sumerian word for womb, arhush, also means compassion. She was patron deity of the important city of Kesh in the mid-portion of the fertile alluvium of Sumer.
Temple Hymn 15
The Gishbanda Temple Of Ningishzida
ancient place
set deep in the mountain
artfully
dark shrine frightening and red place
safely placed in a field
no one can fathom your mighty hair-raising path
Gishbanda
the neck-stock the fine-eyed net
the foot-shackling netherworld knot
your restored high wall is massive
like a trap
your inside the place where the sun rises
yields widespread abundance
your prince the pure-handed
shita priest of Inanna heaven’s holy one
Lord Ningishzida
his thick and beautiful hair
falls down his back
O Gishbanda
has built this house on your radiant site
and placed his seat upon your dais
Editor's Note: Ningishzida, a frightful deity of the Netherworld, held the important position there of chair-bearer, who carried notable persons arriving in that unsavory place. The hymn implies that the Netherworld came into being at creation, calling it ki-ul, primeval place, set deep in the mountains, the mountains east of Sumer that were, when the earth was flat, believed to be the place the dead would reside. Later, the underworld lay under the abzu, the sweet water ocean beneath the earth.
Temple Hymn 17
The Badtibira Temple Of Dumuzi Emush
O house
jeweled lapis herbs fleck the shining bed
heart-soothing place of the Lady of the Steppe
Emush brickwork glistening and pure
its burnished clay placed firmly (on the earth)
your sky-rising wall sprawls over the high plain
for the one who tends the ewes
and over the Arali House for the shepherd
your prince radiant one of the Holy Woman
a lion pacing the steppe back and forth
the wonder-causing pure breasted one
the Lord spouse of pure Inanna
Dumuzi master of the Emush
O Badtibira (fortress of the coppersmith)
has built this house on your radiant site
and placed his seat upon your dais
Editor's Note: Dumuzi, the epitome of the young dying gods, was spouse of the inimitable Inanna, Enheduanna’s personal deity. This hymn focuses on Inanna, the “Holy Woman,” whose heart will be soothed on Dumuzi’s
“shining bed.” Inanna banished Dumuzi to the underworld as ransom for her freedom, when she discovered him basking in her royal robe on her royal throne, not mourning her loss at all.
Temple Hymn 20
The Lagash Temple Of Ningirsu Eninnu
Eninnu
right arm of thick-necked Lagash in Sumer
with heavy-cloud bird Anzu’s eyes
that scan insurgent mountains
Ningirsu’s crowd-flattener blade a menace to all lands
battle arm blasting storm drenching everyone
battle arm all the great gods the Annuna
grant again and again
so from your skin of bricks
on the rim of the holy hill green as mountains
you determine fates
a holy whirlpool spins in your river
blowing whirlwinds spawn from your glance
at the gate facing the Holy City
they pour wine into fine stone vessels of An
out under the sky
what comes in cannot be equaled
what goes out never ceases
at the fiery face of the Shugalam gate
its radiant brilliance the fate-cutting site
Lord Ningirsu besieges with hair-raising fear
all the Annuna appear at your great wine festival
your prince furious storm-wind
destroyer of rebel cities
your king angry bull flaunting his brawn
savage lion that makes heads shake
warrior the lord of lords who plots schemes
king of kings who mounts victories
mighty one great hero in battle has no rival
son of Enlil lord Ningirsu
O Eninnu
has built this house on your radiant site
and established his seat upon your throne
Editor's Note: The hymn describes Ningirsu as a ferocious warrior. In other contexts he was the gentle god of the plough. Here he entertains the great gods in a "great wine festival." War and refinement, savage destruction and divine revelry cohabit under his roof. His temple dominated the territory of Lagash, as one ancient inscriptions says, “The Eninnu, its dread covered all the lands like a garment."
Temple Hymn 22
The Sirara Temple Of Nanshe
O house you wild cow
there to conjure signs from divination
you arise splendid to behold
bedecked for your princess
Sirara great and princely place
you dream-opener
highly prized in the shrine
your lady Nanshe
a great storm
strong dark water
born on the shore of the sea
laughing in the sea foam
playing playing in the waves
divine Nanshe mighty Lady
O house of Sirara
has built this house on your radiant site
and placed her seat upon your dais
Editor's Note: Nanshe is goddess of the sea, notable for spanning the unreachable distance between the conscious civilized society and the dark and demonic waters of the unknown sea. She is the dream interpreter of the gods and adept at divination. The poet Enheduanna in her role as high priestess, like Nanshe, interpreted dreams. Nanshe also cared for the socially disadvantaged, exerting her concerns for social justice and order.
Temple Hymn 26
The Zabalam Temple Of Inanna
O house wrapped in beams of light
wearing shining stone jewels wakening great awe
sanctuary of pure Inanna
(where) divine powers the true me spread wide
Zabalam
shrine of the shining mountain
shrine that welcomes the morning light
she makes resound with desire
the Holy Woman grounds your hallowed chamber
with desire
your queen Inanna of the sheepfold
that singular woman
the unique one
who speaks hateful words to the wicked
who moves among the bright shining things
who goes against rebel lands
and at twilight makes the firmament beautiful
all on her own
great daughter of Suen
pure Inanna
O house of Zabalam
has built this house on your radiant site
and placed her seat upon your dais
Editor's Note: Three of the 42 Temple Hymns feature Inanna, Enheduanna’s personal deity, each highlighting one of her salient characteristics: the sensual, astral, or warrior goddess. Inanna, some say, was the most important deity in the ancient world, her temple at Uruk dating from the fifth millennium B.C.E. until the Common Era. All of Sumer’s initial deities were astral beings; the first three were cosmic lights, the moon, the sun, and the radiant morning and evening star – Inanna. Her jeweled mountain temple at Zabalam houses the axis mundi, the opening through which the celestial rotation emerges. Inanna opens the gate each morning at this nodal point of the cosmos. She is the epitome of desire, the energizing force that animates creation and fuels the heavenly procession. Suen/Nanna is her father the moon. The me (a Sumerian word) were the many aspects of the known world, both the natural world and that of civilization. Each deity was given dominion over a portion of the me. In this hymn, Innana’s sanctuary guards her portion, her dominion.
Temple Hymn 42
The Eresh Temple of Nisaba Ezagin
this shining house of stars bright with lapis stones
has opened itself to all lands
a whole mix of people in the shrine every month
lift heads for you Eresh
all the primeval lords
soapwort the very young saba on your platform
great Nanibgal Nisaba Lady of Saba
brought powers down from heaven
added her measure to your powers
enlarged the shrine set it up for praising
faithful woman exceeding in wisdom
opens [her] mouth [to recite] over cooled lined
tablets
always consults lapis tablets
[and] gives strong council to all lands
true woman of the pure soapwort
born of the sharpened reed
who measures the heavens by cubits
strikes the coiled measuring rod on the earth
praise be to Nisaba
the person who bound this tablet together
is Enheduanna
my king something never before created
did not this one give birth to it
Editor's Note: Nisaba is the venerable goddess of writing who watched over the Sumerians’ remarkable achievements in the arts, sciences, and literature. Evolving from record-keeping tabulations, stamped or drawn into damp clay, true writing began to emerge in the late fourth millennium B.C.E. The first literary tablets discovered are from 2600 B.C.E. A new profession, the scribes, emerged. They worshiped Nisaba as their protector, guide, and inspiration. Her realm encompassed all scholarly pursuits – from the creative and intellectual achievements of literature and science to the practical recording of the elements of civil life. As purveyor of creative thought, she came to be known as the goddess of wisdom. The ‘saba’ portion of her name, the sacred soapwort plant, is written in Emesal, a dialect of the Sumerian language used to record the speech of women, and in this case, the names of goddesses. This final Temple Hymn omits the usual colophon and adds Enheduanna’s personal signature.
Background
The cultural memory of Enheduanna and the works attributed to her were lost some time after the end of the First Babylonian Empire. Enheduanna's existence was first rediscovered by modern archaeology in 1927, when Sir Leonard Wooley excavated the Giparu in the ancient city of Ur and found an alabaster disk with her name, association with Sargon of Akkad, and occupation inscribed on the reverse. References to her name were then later discovered in excavated works of Sumerian literature, which initiated investigation into her potential authorship of those works. Enheduanna's archaeological rediscovery has attracted a considerable amount of attention and scholarly debate in modern times related to her potential attribution as the first known named author. She has also received considerable attention in feminism, and the works attributed to her have also been studied as an early progenitor of classical rhetoric. English translations of her works have also inspired a number of literary adaptations and representations.
Temple Hymns
The 42 hymns have been reconstructed from 37 tablets from Ur and Nippur, most of which date to Babylonian periods. Each hymn is dedicated to a particular deity from the Sumerian pantheon and a city with which the deity was associated. Some of the hymns could not have been written by Enheduanna showing that the collection may have gained additional poems over time.
Exploration 1: Do you find any corollaries between the Temple Hymns and Christian hymns?
Exploration 2: These hymns were composed approximately 4,200 years ago. Some people think humanity was still in its hunter-gatherer stage then. Obviously something much more was going on in ancient Sumeria. What impressions did you have of the culture and society of that time?
Exploration 3: Do you think that Enheduanna’s position as priestess has anything to do with her work being valued even in the modern age?
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