The name of the world’s first known author appears on the back of a 4,000-year-old white alabaster disk that resembles the moon. Uncovered in a temple in the ancient Sumerian city of Ur by archaeologist Leonard Woolley in 1927, the disk is decorated with a relief depicting four figures facing an altar. They appear to be participating in a sacred rite. One of the figures—a woman who wears a head-dress and a layered gown—is larger than the others and seems to be in charge of the proceedings. An inscription identifies her as Enheduanna, priestess of the moon god Nanna, servant of the goddess Inanna, and daughter of Sargon, king of the world.
When the disk was unearthed, Assyriologists, scholars who specialize in ancient Mesopotamia, were already familiar with the historical figure of Enheduanna as the author of Sumerian songs and hymns dating to the Akkadian Empire (ca. 2350–2150 B.C.). Now they had a face to put to a once-famous name that was only then beginning to emerge from four millennia of obscurity. “It’s incredible,” says Yale University Assyriologist Benjamin Foster. “She’s the only author in the entirety of Sumerian literature whose name we actually know, and the only author in the entire 2,500-year span of Mesopotamian history of whom we have a contemporary illustration.”
Enheduanna’s father, Sargon the Great (r. ca. 2340–2285 B.C.), was the founder of the Akkadian Empire, the first state that brought multiple peoples, territories, and city-states under the same rule. The empire’s influence echoed through Mesopotamian history, with powerful leaders such as Hammurabi of Babylon (r. ca. 1792–1750 B.C.) and Sargon II of Assyria (r. 721–705 B.C.) modeling their reigns on those of early Akkadian rulers, who were known as members of the Dynasty of Ishtar, after their patron goddess.
Until now, Enheduanna’s role in maintaining the Akkadian Empire’s power has been overshadowed by the fact that she is history’s first known attributed author, but new analysis of her sacred
