Posted on November 22, 2022 at 12:00 PM by Sadye Scott-Hainchek
Who's the first named author in human history?
You might guess one of the ancient Greeks — and you'd be over a millennium off-base.
The first person to write publicly under their own name was an ancient Mesopotamian priestess named Enheduanna.
She wrote a number of temple hymns plus three standalone poems, including the "The Exaltation of Inanna," and her work mixes the political (praise for her gods and the Akkadian empire) with the personal (a possible description of sexual harassment).
You can read more about Enheduanna's work and see one example of it in the NY Times.
“She Who Wrote: Enheduanna and Women of Mesopotamia, ca. 3400-2000 B.C.” runs through February 19 at the Morgan Library & Museum in New York City.
And since this episode popped up around the same time as the article ... the Noble Blood podcast featured Lady Mary Wroth, often considered the first female writer in England to publish prose under her own name.
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Categories: Today in Books