Enheduanna was an Akkadian princess & high priestess in the 23rd cen. BC, over 4300 years ago, living in a historical region that now encompasses the Persian Gulf, Turkey & the eastern Mediterranean. Her name means, "Lady Ornament of An", as she was a high priestess of the moon god, Suen or Sin aka. Nanna. Her mother was Sumerian, probably also a priestess who came from southern Mesopotamia. Her father is commonly believed to have been, Sargon I of Akkad, also the son of a priestess or temple courtesan, as his father's identity is a mystery. Sargon was the founder of the Akkadian dynasty & he was the first ruler to unite northern & southern Mesopotamia. His reign lasted for 56 years from 2270-2215 BC.
Enheduanna is said to have served at the great Nanna temple complex in Uruk & the holy city of Ur. A famous artifact, an alabaster disk emblazoned with her visage is in the possession of the University Museum, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. The disk shows her in a religious procession, where she is proceeded by a male priest with two male attendants following behind. Enheduanna is wearing a frilled dress & a large turban, which indicated her elevated status. Historians have long debated whether Enheduanna & Sargon were blood relatives or if Enheduanna was adopted by Sargon. If the latter, this would reinforce Sargon's policy of elevating family members to important positions. This would also support the idea that after Enheduanna, a long line of royal daughters were appointed high priestess of Nanna, making her the first. On the back side of the famous alabaster disk, Enheduanna refers to herself as "zirru of Nanna", which is an obscured term that may be interpreted as "wife of Nanna", which referred to her status as the personification of Ningal, the consort of the god, Nanna.
Though she was the high priestess of Nanna, her most famous work is the hymn, Nin me sara (The Exhaltation of Inanna), which was dedicated to the godess, Innana/Ishtar. This is fitting as Inanna is often portrayed as the daughter of Nanna. In the song, Enheduanna asks Nanna & Inanna for aid, after being removed from her position by a rebellious Sumerian king, Lugal-Ane, who she accuses of disgracing the gods by razing the Nanna temple, in Uruk. Many of Enheduanna's works are interwoven with political themes that likely allude to her support of her father's rule. In the end her pleas would be answered & the rebel king was defeated & the rebellion brought to an end. Enheduanna's nephew, Naram Sin, ascended to the throne & united the kingdoms of Akkad & Sumer for several years after.
Enheduanna is remembered by history as the first known author to write in the first person. Scribes of earlier kings had written about the king & gods but never about themselves or their feelings towards their deities. The hymns she wrote to Inanna celebrate her intimate relationship with the goddess, which makes her work the oldest surviving verbal account of an individual's consciousness of their inner self. Nin me sara was long upheld as a sacred scripture in Sumerian literature. As long as 500 years after Enheduanna's death, during the Babylonian period, it was used as a reference text in edubba (scribal schools). Over 100 copies of Nin me sara have been found on clay tablets, serving as testament to the piece's popularity. It is one of the few Mesopotamian literary texts to have been reproduced so many times. Enheduanna is also credited with bringing together the Sumerian Inanna & the Akkadian Ishtar.
After her death, a hymn was devoted to her by an unknown composer, which could indicate she became revered as a deity herself. Though her story has been nearly lost to the mists of time, more recent research done on her life, is introducing a new generation to her work; for example, Cass Dalglish of Augsberg College published a poetic translation of Nin me sara titled, Humming the Blues. Though much is not known of her life, Enheduanna's significance still remains as likely the world's oldest known author & an early keystone example of women's role in literature.
https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Enheduanna
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