add site
services
publishers
database
health videos
toolbar
stats
live show
health store
more stuff
JOIN/LOGIN
| advertise add site services publishers database health videos
| | about toolbar stats live show health store more stuff JOIN/LOGIN |
En-hedu-ana (c. 2285-2250 BC; EN.HÉ.DU.AN.NA, Enheduana, Enheduanna, 𒂗𒃶𒁺𒀭𒈾 "lord or lady ornament of An (the sky or heaven)") was an Akkadian princess as well as high priestess of the moon god Nanna (Sin) in Ur, who came to honor Inanna above all the other gods of the Sumerian pantheon and assisted in the merging of the Akkadian Ishtar with the Sumerian Inanna. On the back of En-hedu-ana's alabaster disk lies an inscription recording her as the "daughter of Sargon of Akkad" a relationship that has been taken both literally and ritually. If literally true, the relationship attests Sargon's successful policy of appointing members of his family to important posts. He initiated a long tradition whereby the King appointed his daughter to the post of En of Nanna. Penelope Weadock's article on "The Giparu at Ur", Iraq 37, p.101-137, 1975 lists all of the names of these En Priestesses spanning a 500 year period. Near the end of her life, En-hedu-ana called on Inanna for help as she reveals in nin-me-sara, her most famous hymn, because she has been temporarily dislodged from her position by Lugal-Ane a rebelling Sumerian King showing this "imperial" appointment to be locally unacceptable. According to Annette Zgoll, the Sumerian people believed that En-hedu-ana had written nin-me-sara so effectively that her prayers to Inanna were answered with 9 victories thus quelling 9 battles between the Sumerians and the Akkadians. This allowed her nephew, Naram Sin, who was then king, to successfully unite Sumer and Akkad for several years. After this historic coup, En-hedu-ana was restored to her post as En of Nanna in Ur. Nin-me-sara was revered as a sacred document and 500 years after her death, during the Babylonian era, it was used as a text copied by students learning to be scribes in the Edubba, scribal schools. Zgoll used over 100 clay tablet copies of the hymn to create her translation of nin-me-sara thus pointing out how popular the hymn was. Few Mesopotamian literary texts have boasted as many copies. On the alabaster disk, she called herself the"zirru of Nanna," a mysterious term of which Joan Westenholz has assisted in the translation- the embodiment of the Goddess Ningal, the wife of the moon God Nanna. Historians have noted that Enheduanna's work displays the concept of a personal relationship with the divine, to wit:
...
In addition, she is the first author to write in the first person. Scribes wrote about the King and the divine, but never about themselves prior to En-hedu-Ana.
[edit] HymnsEn-hedu-ana is known to us as the author of several Sumerian hymns. She is generally considered the earliest author known by name[citation needed]. The hymns she wrote to Inanna celebrate her individual relationship with Inanna, thereby setting down the earliest surviving verbal account of an individual's consciousness of her inner life.
Westenholz edited another fragmentary hymn dedicated to En-hedu-ana, apparently by an anonymous composer, indicating her apotheosis following her death. [edit] In modern culltureMinnesota author Cass Dalglish has published a contemporary poetic adaptation of Nin-me-sar-ra [3] [edit] See also[edit] Notes[edit] References
[edit] External links
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ↑ top of page ↑ | about thumbshots |
