About twenty descendants of Enheduanna met at the Missouri River Regional Library yesterday afternoon.  I might have been the only one, certainly one of the few, who knows about this relationship.

It was a gathering of mis-Missouri authors, all of whom had their books for sale.  I sold five in two and half hours but I had some lively conversations with with some of the other descendants.

Enhe—who?

I am a member of the Archaeological Institute of America and a former member of the National Geographic Society.  Do not be impressed.  That only means that I subscribe or subscribed to a magazine.

In my latest edition of the AIA’s Archaeology magazine is the story of Enheduanna, a poet and a composer of hymns to the temples of the Akkadian Empire.  She was a priestess and a princess, the daughter of Sargon the Great who founded the world’s first great empire by uniting northern and southern Mesopotamia,  and his spouse, Nanna.

Enheduanna, whose name translated means “Ornament of Heaven,” was the high priestess at the temple to Nana-Suen, the moon god, in the ancient city of Ur, once a coastal city near the mouth of the Euphrates River on the Persian Gulf in what is now southern Iraq.  Time has caused the coastline to shift and the site of Ur is on the south bank of the river, about ten miles from Nasiriya, a city not far from the Gulf.

There is a portrait of her—sort of a portrait—found on a 4,000 year old disk excavated in 1927.

She is shown in the long dress, two male servants behind her and another in front of her, prayerfully working on one of her poems or hymns.  The disk dates from about 2250 BCE.*

She is important in today’s observation because she is the world’s first author.

Or at least the earliest person whose writings have survived with an author’s name attached.

Kate Ravilious, in her magazine article, quotes Assyriologist Anette Zgoll: “The rituals that Enheduanna performed were instrumental in creating the new power structure by reconciling the city states and the wider realm.”

One of her hymns is Temple Hymn 26: To 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

She wrote in cuneiform and her works are preserved in 4,000-year old clay tablets.

Perhaps you have been moved to write a poem (beyond your elementary school English classes where a teacher might have had you write one as an assignment), or a published or unpublished book.

Or maybe you blog.  Or perhaps your literary tastes are confined to Facebook or some other social media platform.

Those who write are literary descendants of a woman who lived for that four millennia ago and whose words are preserved on clay tablets.  Some of us also write on tablets but our works probably won’t be found by archaeologists thousands of years from now.

Enheduanna would be considered the patron saint of authors, probably, except she probably is considered a heathen by those who confer official sainthood.

A lot of people, perhaps most people, have an urge to write. Something.  Some make a living doing it. But only a minuscule percentage of writers are in that category.

I don’t think any of the people at the tables in that library room make a living from writing, but mot would agree that writing makes living better.

You can be the Enheduanna of your household.  Publication is secondary to the reward of just writing, whether is poetry, a memoir, a family history, or an attempt at the great American novel.

Don’t worry about where to begin. Just start.  The beginning point and the ending point will come later.  But write.

Enheduanna has had a lot of descendants.  Be one more.

*BCE is an archaeological term for “Before the Common Era,” which provides a process of dating that does not favor a particular religion.

(photo credit: wikicommons)