Enheduana, the woman who wrote before the rest

In 1927, in the ruins of the ancient Sumerian city of Ur, in present-day Iraq, the British archaeologist Leonard Woolley uncovered an alabaster disc featuring the imposing figure of a high priestess. Over the past few years, I’ve often returned to that image from four millennia ago, fascinated by this remarkable woman — thought to be Enheduana, daughter of the Akkadian ruler Sargon the Great, a priestess, princess, poet, and the first named author in human history.

For many decades after the discovery of her portrait and the clay tablets believed to carry her poems, Enheduana (also spelt Enheduanna) was a name familiar chiefly to scholars of ancient Mesopotamia. More recently, however, this woman, who lived approximately between 2285–2250BC, has emerged into the public consciousness. Last year the Morgan Library & Museum in New York ran an exhibition titled She Who Wrote: Enheduanna and Women of Mesopotamia, c 3400-2000BC, and this spring the writer and translator Sophus Helle has published Enheduana: The Complete Poems of the World’s First Author.