She Who Wrote: Enheduanna and Women of Mesopotamia

This exhibit brings together for the first time a comprehensive selection of artworks that capture rich and shifting expressions of the lives of women in Mesopotamia during the third millennium BCE. These works bear testament to the roles of women in religious contexts as goddesses, priestesses and worshipers, as well as in social, economic and political spheres as mothers, workers and rulers. One particularly remarkable woman who wielded considerable religious and political power was the high priestess and poet Enheduanna (ca. 2300 BCE), the earliest-named author in world literature.