Enheduanna

Enheduanna lived about 2300 BCE at Ur, in Sumer, daughter of Sargon of Akkad, the first empire-builder of Mesopotamia. Her father appointed her high priestess — the EN — of the moon god Nanna, and she became the earliest author in human history whose name we know.

To her are attributed The Exaltation of Inanna and a great cycle of temple hymns — poems written in the first person, that speak of the poet’s own voice and struggle. She wrote, that is, not as an anonymous scribe but as a self.

As priestess she bound together the Akkadian and Sumerian faiths of her father’s new empire, holding an authority that some scholars compare to kingship. An alabaster disk bearing her name and image, excavated at Ur in 1927, confirms her place in history.

Some scholars debate how much of the surviving poetry is truly hers, since the manuscripts we hold were copied centuries later — a caution the archive keeps. Yet the tradition that named her the first author endures. Honored among the Great Ones of every civilization; kept here so the memory is never lost.