Enheduana of Sumer (summary)

Almost 4,300 years ago, a priestess named Enheduana began to write. As the daughter of a powerful king, Enheduana learned to write when even most men didn't know how to write - let alone women! She is known as the world's first "non-anonymous" author, being the first person to use her own name in her writings. Although many other men also used their names in writing, this was mostly for the sake of recording things, for their jobs. Enheduana wrote for the art of writing. As the daughter of the king Sargon, Enheduana was very respected by the people. In her people's eyes, only she could cause the higher powers to smile on the land and keep the animals, crops, and people well. Enheduana brought a lot of her religious feeling into her writing. She wrote a set of 42 poems/hmns to the temples of Sumer and Akkad. Then suddenly, her father died. Her brothers were the next heirs to the throne, but both were killed in war. Next, a nephew of Enheduana's came to power. He didn't like the idea of sharing it, so he exiled her to the desert. Still, Enheduana was the most remembered from that time. Nobody remembered her mean nephew, but they have remembered her writing all that time to now.