Enheduanna, the first named author in history

Date

c. 2300 BCE

Category

Culture, arts & philosophy

Region

Mesopotamia (Iraq)

Era

Ancient Civilizations

Significance

Enheduanna, daughter of Sargon of Akkad, served as 'entu' (high priestess) of the moon god Nanna at the city of Ur, a post her father created in part to bind the Akkadian and Sumerian religious traditions of his new empire.

Several Sumerian literary works, most famously the hymn known as the Exaltation of Inanna, present her as their first-person author, and the Sumerian Temple Hymns are likewise attributed to her. On this basis she is widely celebrated as the earliest author in world history known by name, writing in the first person centuries before comparable named authors elsewhere. Her compositions blend personal voice, political circumstance and devotion to the goddess Inanna, and were copied for centuries after her death. Modern Assyriologists debate how much of the surviving corpus she personally composed, but her identification as a named, self-referential writer marks a milestone in the history of literature and authorship.

Empires active in c. 2300 BCE

• Indus Valley (Harappan) Civilization
  2600 BCE – 1900 BCE
• Akkadian Empire
  2334 BCE – 2154 BCE
• Egyptian Old Kingdom
  2686 BCE – 2181 BCE
• Elamite Kingdom
  2700 BCE – 539 BCE

Related culture, arts & philosophy events

• Naram-Sin proclaims divine kingship; the Victory Stele
  c. 2254 BCE
• Carving of the Great Sphinx of Giza
  c. 2500 BCE
• Oracle-Bone Script: Earliest Attested Chinese Writing
  c. 1250 BCE
• Great Hypostyle Hall and temple-building at Karnak
  c. 1290–1213 BCE
• Tomb of Fu Hao: An Undisturbed Shang Royal Burial
  c. 1250 BCE
• Merneptah Stele: earliest mention of 'Israel'
  c. 1208 BCE

Further reading

The Story of Art

The wider story

The Story of Art

E. H. Gombrich

The best-selling art history ever written, from cave paintings to the modern age.

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