Meet the World’s First Author: A High Priestess from 2300 BC

 

When I tell people the world’s earliest known author was a woman, I usually get raised eyebrows. The fact often surprises even seasoned trivia lovers. Yet more than 4,000 years ago, in ancient Mesopotamia, a high priestess named Enheduanna became the first person in recorded history to sign her name to her writing. This isn’t just fun trivia—it’s one of those moments where history reaches out and taps us on the shoulder, reminding us that stories and voices have always mattered.

Enheduanna lived around 2300 BC in the Sumerian city of Ur. She wasn’t just any ordinary figure. She was the daughter of Sargon of Akkad, one of the great empire builders of the ancient world. But Enheduanna wasn’t defined solely by her father’s power. She held the important role of high priestess of the moon god Nanna, which granted her religious authority, cultural influence, and access to the most advanced scribes and libraries of her time.

What makes Enheduanna unforgettable is her decision to attach her own name to her writings. Imagine this: at a time when writing was still a relatively new invention, mostly used for recording grain deliveries, temple accounts, or kingly proclamations, Enheduanna stepped forward and said, “This is mine.” She wrote poetry, hymns, and prayers—works meant to honor the gods—but she left her personal signature. That single act changed everything.

Her most famous surviving work is The Exaltation of Inanna, a powerful hymn praising the goddess of love, war, and fertility. In it, Enheduanna not only praised a deity but also spoke of her own struggles, her exile, and her prayers for restoration. That’s striking. Instead of anonymous devotion, she gave readers (and worshippers) a glimpse into her personal voice. She turned worship into literature. She transformed ritual into art.

If you think about it, she paved the way for every author who ever followed. From Homer’s epics to Shakespeare’s plays, from Jane Austen’s novels to modern bestsellers, all trace back to a moment when one woman decided her words were worth preserving under her own name. That’s the trivia spark—without Enheduanna’s boldness, literature might have stayed an anonymous chorus of voices lost to time.

There’s also something moving about the way her words have endured. The clay tablets bearing her writings were baked hard by fire and accident, surviving thousands of years buried in ruins. Scholars pieced them together in the 20th century, and suddenly, Enheduanna’s voice spoke again, soft but steady, across four millennia. Think about it: her words were inscribed before the Great Pyramid of Giza was finished, before Abraham left Ur, before paper was even invented. Yet here we are, still able to read her poetry.

I find that both humbling and inspiring. Humbling because it shows how fleeting our own modern noise might be—tweets, posts, emails—most of it won’t last. Inspiring because it reminds us that human voices, when captured in words, can bridge centuries. Enheduanna probably never imagined her writings would be studied in universities or mentioned in trivia columns thousands of years later. She likely wrote to honor her gods, to share her faith, and maybe even to carve out her place in a male-dominated world. But in doing so, she gave us the first true author’s voice.

Here’s another bit of fun trivia: for decades, scholars debated whether she really existed or whether her name was simply a title given to multiple priestesses. But discoveries of consistent writing style and references across different works confirmed that she was indeed a single, historical person. In a way, she became her own proof. Her signature wasn’t just ceremonial—it was real.

So the next time you open a book, or even scroll through something online, think of Enheduanna. Before quills scratched parchment, before Gutenberg’s press, before Kindles and audiobooks, a Mesopotamian high priestess picked up a stylus, pressed it into a clay tablet, and made history with three simple choices: write, sign, endure.

It’s fun trivia, yes. But it’s also a reminder: words last. And sometimes, so does the name behind them.

That’s the heartbeat of my new book, The Power of Authors: A Rallying Cry for Today’s Writers to Recognize Their Power, Rise to Their Calling, and Write with Moral Conviction, written with Lois Swensen and a foreword by Jane L. Evanson, PhD, Professor Emerita at Alaska Pacific University. It launches this September. You’ve been reading its heartbeat in these messages—soon you’ll be able to hold the book in your hands.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Recent Posts

Subscribe to Our Newsletter

Start Your Publishing Journey with Expert Guidance.
Unlock Exclusive Tips, Trends, and Opportunities to Bringing Your Book to Market.

About Us

Kindly contact us if you've written a book, if you're writing a book, if you're thinking about writing a book, we can help!

Departments

My Account

Social Media

Payment

Publication Consultants Publication Consultants

Copyright 2023 powered by Publication Consultants All Rights Reserved.