Omniscient Sage, lady of all the lands / Sustenance of the multitudes, Goddess / I have verily recited your sacred song, I Enheduanna
NEARLY 100 YEARS AGO, archaeologists unearthed these words by Akkadian priestess, princess, poet, and politician Enheduanna while excavating in Ur, where the fertile Tigris and Euphrates Rivers join.
Enheduanna is now believed by a growing number of scholars to be the world’s first author and poet, as it was she who committed these autobiographical sentiments into the original cuneiform tablets over 4,000 years ago.
Her offices as high priestess of Ur and princess of Akkadia (in the area presently known as Iraq) were chiseled into a limestone disk now referred to as “Enheduanna’s Disk” circa 2350-2300 B.C.E. Enheduanna presided over the rituals, rich endowments, and storehouses of Ur’s temple of Nanna, the Sumerian moon god.
However, it is her much reproduced poem “The Exaltation of Inanna,” which honors the Sumerian goddess of love, fecundity, and war, that has elevated Enheduanna to her place on the crossroads of world history.
The roughly 100 replicas of “The Exaltation of Inanna” on cuneiform tablets are believed to be “practice copies” created in Mesopotamian scribal schools by priests-intraining. The copies were made over a period of 500 years after her death.
This story is from the Sep/Oct 2023 edition of Spirituality & Health.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the Sep/Oct 2023 edition of Spirituality & Health.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
ONE WORD TO BEAT WINTER BLUES: BIOMIMICRY
CREATURELY REFLECTIONS
THINKING ABOUT RESTITUTION
THE HEART OF HAPPINESS
WAITING IN LINE
OUR WALK IN THE WORLD
ENTER THE SAUNA
Journalist Emily O’Kelly shares some uplifting research on the benefits of sweat bathing, a global healing practice not just limited to Northern climes.
the trail of ATONEMENT
One Ashkenazi Jewish family escaped pogroms in Russia and then flourished in South Dakota, but the “free land” of their new homestead had been unfairly taken from the Lakota by the United States. Generations later, a celebrated investigative journalist set out to tell the truth of the Lakota and her family, calculate The Cost of Free Land—and pay it back.
STALKING YOUR Mind
Stalking the Mind is part of an ancient Indigenous American Medicine Way to tame your guilt, fears, and shame. What we’re “stalking” are our thought patterns and beliefs that seem to create the opposite of happiness and wellbeing. It’s a powerful psychotherapeutic journey of healing without the diagnosis or labels.
LEAVING MESA VERDE
After 21 years of service at Mesa Verde National Park, RANGER DAVID FRANKS recently guided his last tour of the pueblos and cliff dwellings. He says he was fortunate to assist the archeologists with a variety of work and never lost his amazement with their ability to figure out how and when things happened. The question he still wrestles with is much deeper: Why they left?
BECOMING YOUR OWN LEAD RESEARCHER IN HEALTHCARE
PEGGY LA CERRA, PHD, downloaded a health app to aggregate her medical records and was stunned to see the phrase \"aortic atherosclerosis.\" What she did next is a helpful model for all of us.
ARCHETYPAL ASTROLOGY
\"Is astrology true?\" is the wrong question, writes RABBI RAMI SHAPIRO. He suggests that the truth is out there, but out there is really in here.
WELLNESS IN THE WILD
Spa aficionado MARY BEMIS takes the [cold] plunge at Mohonk Mountain House.