Jaskaran Kaur

B.A.(H) History, 6.838 CGPA , Gargi college,University of Delhi (2017-18)

M.A. History, Ramjas College,University of Delhi ( 2020-21)

TOPIC - Ancient Mesopotamia

The origins of state in Ancient Mesopotamia has gone through various demographic ,
ecological, political, social and economical changes , and all these changes impacted
the women most. The male – female egalitarianism in the society was replaced by
male – dominated, patrilineal society. The subordinated of women in ancient
Mesopotamia is favoured by various ancient laws and because of change in society,
and their needs. However, the Neolithic Villages are scattered all over the world and
have evolved over time into agriculture communities, then urban centres and finally
states has been called “the urban revolution ” or “the rise of civilisation”. This
process occurs at different places throughout the world: first , in the great river and
coastal valleys of China, Mesopotamia, Egypt, India and Mesoamerica , later in
Africa, Northern Europe and Malaysia.

Archaic states are characterised by the emergence of property class and hierarchies ;
commodity production with a high degree of specialisation and organised trade over
distant regions ; urbanism ; the emergence and consolidation of military elites ;
kingship ; the institutionalisation of slavery ; a transition from Kin dominance to
patriarchal families as the chief mode of distributing goods and power1 .
Mesopotamia also goes through a transition from an egalitarian society to
marginalisation of women i.e. there occur important changes in the position of
women ; female subordination within the family becomes institutionalised and
codified in law ; prostitution becomes established and regulated ; with increasing
specialisation of work, women are gradually excluded from certain occupation and
professions.

‘State is constituent of Territory, population, taxes. According to Fredrick Engles ,

bureaucracy and army are not even possible without tax . All these components
may haven’t been present collectively at a starting state formation , if they have
present simultaneous may be in a nebular form. In the early state formation no
matter which state has been emerged early women had been marginalised
everywhere. Most theories of the origin of the archaic state have been single cause ,
prime-mover theories , stressing in turn the following as cause : Marx , Engels ,
Childe believes that capital accumulation due to new technologies which result in

1 Lerner, Gerda, The Creation of Patriarchy,1986, pg.54

class stratification and class struggle i.e. New technology revolutionise the surplus
production which make it available to high class (high class withdrew themselves
from the production and enjoy high class status) and this resulted in class formation.
Karl Wittfogel gave the theory of Hydraulic Despotism which means the need for the
development of large scale irrigation projects lead to the rise of strong
bureaucracies. Fried believes that the population increase and population pressure
needed the state to organise their affairs because alternate to it would have been
chaos. Carneio states that the population pressure in a circumscribed environment
leading to militarism , which in turn leads to state formation i.e. the demographic
pressure particularly in a constrained environment would lead to conflict of
resources which in lead to militarism , and which in turn led to state formation. Each
of these explanations has been criticised and replaced by more complex , system-
oriented explanations. Robert McC. Adams , while recognising the importance of
environmental and technological factors in the growth of civilisations, stressed that
the core of the urban revolution lay in changes in social organisation.

All of these theory lack the Epistemology i.e. gender perspective . Robert McC.
Adams has stressed on the significance of social organisation but it also lacks a
gender perspective. Ruby Rohrlich in “state formation in Sumer and the subjugation
of women history and their experiences. Women have been systematically excluded
from the enterprise of creating symbols; philosophies ; science and law. Women
have not only been educationally deprived throughout historical time in every known
society, they have been excluded from theory -formation2. The tension between
women’s actual historical experience and their exclusion from interpreting that
experience have called “the dialectic of women’s history” by Gerda Lerner. This
dialectic has moved women forward in the historical process3 . Other theory to
explain the earlier state formation is that the intensification of agriculture production
due to specialisation led to a stable food base which allowed the population to
increase. The food redistribution was managed by the temple community which gave
this group the power to coerce farmers and herders to produce surplus. The surplus
would best be increased by improving and increasing irrigation which in turn
increased the power of the temple elite and led to sharper distinctions of wealth
between those who owned land closer to a steady water supply and those who did
not. This early class formation led to the next important shift in societal structure –
that from Kin-based to class-based society 4. Gerda Lerner states that this change
from kin-based social structures which has particular significance for the history of
women. The anthropologist Rayna Rapp points to the conflict between kinship
groups and rising elites and conclude that “kinship structures were the great losers
in the civilisation process”.

2 Lerner , Gerda,1986, p. 5
3 Lerner , Gerda , 1986 , p. 5
4 Engels, Frederick, The Origin of the Family, Private property and the State; Karl wittfogel , Oriental Despotism

, p.18 , Carneiro
There is need to examine in the case of Mesopotamian societies that how the
process of transformation took place and why it took the form it did. In other words
of Charles Redman , it “should be conceptualises as a series of interacting In other
words of Charles Redman , it “should be conceptualised as a series of interacting
incremental processes that were triggered by favourable ecological and cultural
conditions and that continued to develop through mutually reinforcing
interactions.”5

Gerda Lerner further stated the three stages in the urban revolution in
Mesopotamia: the emergence of temple towns, the growth of city-states, and the
development of national states. The beginning of Neolithic period preceding bronze
age in single connected regions of Catal Huyuk and Hacilar in Antolia (modern day
Turkey) in 6th and 8th millennia B.C. have burials which reveals the differences in
wealth and status among the town dwellers . It can be assumed that similar village
and town communities existed in the Mesopotamia. While Catal Huyuk and Hacilar
started disappearing before 5000 B.C. and village farming communities in
Mesopotamia gradually started spreading into the Southern lowlands. Gradually
the increase in population in a constricted land with less availability of water had led
to the development of irrigation. On contrary the late Ubaid culture of Southern
Mesopotamia in 4000-5000B.C. was egalitarian. The Burials have revealed neither
class nor gender differentiation. Female figurines have been found in large number
in most of the sites. From this Ubaid culture- ancient cities of Mesopotamia sprang
and act as a nucleus. Ziggurats are temple of Ubaid and it is a Sumerian name for
bronze age temple, these were higher buildings and evolves out of Neolithic shrine.
These ziggurats , temple complexes become the hub of urban centres. The virtual
leaders or the priests had also provided the management of non-sacred activities.
This would led to distinctions in wealth depending upon the location of farmer’s land
and to tension between communal and private property rights and interests.

Gerda Lerner explains that “ in an ecological constructed space, growing population

can be supplied only by increasing production or by expansion. The former leads to
the development of elites, the latter to the development militarism, first on a
voluntary , then on a professional basis.” In Mesopotamia, these social formations
took the form of temple- towns, which developed in the 4th and 3rd millennia B.C.6 .
The first symbol system or token developed in connection with trading activities
and for keeping the accounts. The earliest clay tablets in Sumer were ration lists,
records of tribute, donations and lists of divine names. the fully developed writing
which incorporated grammatical elements occurred after 3000B.C. in Sumer. It
marked the development of Mesopotamian civilisation . it is believed that it
originated in the temples and palaces and greatly strengthened the leadership role of

5 Redman, Rise of civilization ,p. 229

6 Redman , Rise of Civilisation, p.229-236
elites. Scribes were trained by schools to meet all the needs of governance
including sacred knowledge.

SUMER has gone through city-state to empire. Catal Huyuk is the earliest prototype
of a highly developed Neolithic society from which the Sumerian state developed.
Preceding in time, and geographically at some distance from similar settlements in
Sumer, it is nevertheless linked to them , temporally and spatially , as a westerly
variant of the Halafian culture in Upper Tigris- Euphrates region7 . Ubaid Culture
flourished in southern Mesopotamia when catal huyuk appears to have been
abandoned when the cultural centre of the near east shifted eastwards and then
southern Mesopotamia , and here the Ubaid culture overlapped with the Halafian in
the North. As at catal huyuk ,”in the Ubaid period significant differmrtiation in grave
wealth was almost entirely absent”8 . The female figurines were found in most of the
sites and from the Ubaid centres , and the cities of ancient Sumer sprang out.

Ancient Sumer was situated on the plain between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers and
lacked number of resources especially timber, stones, metals which were primarily
used for the building of ziggurats – the elaborated temples and later from the
palaces and tombs of the kings. The farmers used date palms and reeds to build
their dwellings and used clay and stones to make their tools, bronze came later on
and get into use for making weapons. By Protoliterate times, the demand of the
priesthood for copper, precious metals, lapis lazuli, stone and cedarwood arose and
led the expansion of commodity production and also to great increase in long-
distance trading. A class of merchants arose that also acquired wealth land, power
and great and land under the aegis of the ruling class9 . In the latter part of the Early
Dynastic period, much of inter trade was subjected to royal demand. The merchants
had close relationship with the ruling families and received rations, and land from
the rulers.

The features of Sumerian landscape includes competing for vital resources of land
and water, warfare and walled cities. Increasing warfare and defensive consideration
requires the land to be cultivated close to the city walls. Which requires irrigation
system to maximise agricultural produce. The need for irrigation system disrupted
the communal system of land tenure by restricting access to often-scarce water and
promoted the “concentration of hereditable, alienable wealth in productive
resources, and hence also the emergence of a class society.10 ” Thus, irrigation work
disrupted the communal system of land tenure, while kin groups continued to own
large plots of land. Women were used to be part of communal ownership.
Cohesiveness lands which were formally alienated can now be bought as private
property. The most best and fertile land were owned by elite, communal resources,
7 R. J. Braidwood, Prehistoric Men , 1975,p.137
8 Adams, The Evolution of Urban Society, p. 95
9 Rohrlich , Ruby, Feminist Studies,1980, vol.1, p. 76-102
10 Adams , The Evolution of Urban Society, p. 49
labour is now controlled by elite. The clean leaders become part of elite hierarchy.
From Protoliterate times on there are numerous records of differences in land
ownership, priest owning and controlling large tract of lands. “As Military matters
became paramount in economic and political decision making, the successful
generals eventually became the rulers usually after a power struggle with the
priesthood, but the priest maintained a secure place in the hierarchy as they
carried out their principal function of validating the status of the elites.11 ” By this
time the Sumerian religion was disseminating the ideology that humans had been
created solely to toil for the gods and their earthly representatives. In contrast to the
Neolithic societies which did not wen practice animal sacrifice, in Sumer the earliest
dynastic rulers practiced human sacrifice, perhaps as a gross display of their power
before they began to codify the laws, a crucial means of political control. In the Royal
Tombs of Ur, C-Leonard Woolley found in addition to object that revealed the
enormous wealth of even the early rulers, skeletons of about 70 members of the
royal retinue : “The burial of the King was accompanied by human sacrifice on a
lavish scale, the bottom of the grave put being crowded with the bodies of men
and women who seemed to have been brought down here and butchered where
they stood.12 ”

Women in Sumer : with the institutionalisation of the patriarchal family, economic

stratification, militarism, and the consolidation of the state in the hand of a male
elite, male supremacy pervaded every social stratum.13 The violence was not there in
the tribal structure because everybody owned everything, but as the clan became
very vertically organised, it deprived many from power as the kin ship system
became patrilineal, women were wrested from their own clans, also from the
socioeconomic, religion activity of the clans women and gradually ousted from
economic roles, all of these had deprived their voice in political decision making and
made them dependent on men. In this vertical classification, ones who were put at
bottom arises conflict and brings violence. The state system can only be sustained by
violence, this belief also fuelled the ,militarism process and need of great labour
force for the construction of public projects led to the captives turning into slaves
and deep structured classes. Women and children become first to be taken as slaves.
Modern archaeological work in Mesopotamia has uncovered thousands of clay
tablets that document the social order in Sumer in third millennium B.C highlighted
the changes in the position of women. such sources can be compared and brought
into reference with seals, status and other artefacts, as well as with the usual
archaeological evidence from graves and towns sites. As will be the case for much of
the historical period to follow that age, evidence for upper-class women is easier to
come by than for lower-class women. One of the earliest known portraits of a
women in Sumer is a carefully sculpted head from Uruk, which portrayed woman of

11 Rohrlich Ruby, Feminist Studies,1980, vol.1, p. 76-102

12 Robert L. Carneiro , A Theory of the Origin of the State,1970, p.733
13 Rohrlich Ruby, Feminist Studies,1980, vol.1, p. 76-102
great dignity and beauty, who might have been a priestess, a queen or a goddess.
This unique sculpture, dating from between 3100 and 2900 B.C, personifies the
major roles played by aristocratic women who were active in temple, palace and
economic management.

In Northern Mesopotamia the women Ku-Bau, previously an innkeeper founded the

third dynasty of the kish, around 2500B.C, ruler for a very long time and became a
legendary figure. Gerda Lerner says the earliest Sumerian dynasties were based in
cities of kish, Lagasz and Ur. According to the king list, a document written in 1800
B.C, the founder of kish dynasty was Queen Ku-baba, later identified with the
goddess Ku-baba who was worshipped in Northern Mesopotamia14. She was not a
royal women, and listed as reigning her own right. “But the merging of her historic
personality with that of a divinity is not unlike that of the mythical demigod
Gilgamesh, ruler of warka, who supposedly reigned in the early dynastic period,
but for whose historical existence there is no hard evidence and whose exploits are
immortalised in the epic of Gilgamesh.15 ” it is clear that in the initial stages of
Sumerian civilization women appears to be in the highest ranks, “matriarchy seems
to have left something more that a trace in the early Sumerian city-states.16 ” Gerda
Lerner in “creation book of patriarchy” critique Rodlege for her overenthusiastic
interpretation of women. Accordingly to Gerda Lerner, there never been matriarchy,
only matrilineal society and mother’s brother also played important role. The title
Nin, “queen”, was “only applied to goddesses and those women—who served as
rulers”17. The beginning of the first dynasty, Ur around 2900 B.C, the royal cemetery
was excavated by British archaeologist Leonard Wooley in 1922-34, 1850 graves
were discovered with 16 royal graves yielded Important information about burial
customs in a society characterised by class stratification, wealth and artistic
development.

In the royal cemetery, the names of two queens were inscribed one Nin Banda and
the other Nin-Shubad (also known as Nin Puabi ), whose name was not inscribe.18 (In
Northern Mesopotamia, woman Ku-Bru, innkeeper, founder the Third Dynasty of
kish ) The graves of both King and Queen were richly furnished, but the graves of
these two queen are more richly furnished then the male counterparts, the kings
whose named were not mentioned, got title if Lugal which means chief (big man)
king. Both Queen and King were buried along with retainers but Queens were buried
with large number of retainers as of their male counterparts-Lugal was buried with 4
retainers only, Nin Banda buried with 24retainers of both sexes and Nin Puabi buried
with 14 retainers of both sexes. Gerda Lerner put forward the question that what
was really being honoured through the human sacrifices? It is seen that both the

14 Cambridge Ancient History , vol.1 ,p. 115

15 Gerda Lerner, The Creation of Patriarchy, p.1986
16 George Thompson, The Prehistoric Aegean, 1965, p.160
17 A. Leo Oppenheim, Ancient Mesopotamia,1964, p.104
18 C. Leonard Woolley, Ur Excavations, vol.2, 1934, p.265
Lugal and Nin were occupier of royal office. Human sacrifice honours Lugal then
same human sacrifice honours queen. In this early period, royal tombs at Ur testifies
queens shared the status, power, wealth, and the escripition of divinity with their
husband, the king. In Lagash, ca.2350 B.C was ruled jointly by king Lugalanda and
Queen Baranamatrra. The ruler Lugalanda seized power over the most important
temples of the gods Ningirsu and Shulshag and the goddess Bau and placed them
under the administration of an official whom he appointed formerly was not a priest
and hence by appointed himself, his wife Baranamatrra and other family as temple
administrators. The Queen has her own court, ‘The House of Women’ and Lugal kept
his own separate court called ‘House of the Man.’ She was not a consort, she was a
Queen in her own right, hence it was a joint monarchy.

The King has referred the temples as the private property of the ensi (ruler). The
name of the deities were no longer mentioned in the temple documents and taxes
were levied on the priesthood. Lugalanda and his wife became the largest
landholders. The wife, Baranamatarra shared the Ensi’s power and managed her own
private estate. She has her own ministers i.e. own bureaucracy and scribes in the
‘scribe of the house’ of the women. She sent diplomatic mission to the neighbouring
state carried long distance trade and also bought sold slaves.19 Lugalanda of Lagash
was ousted from lagash by another chief called Urukagina and wife Shagshag, also
referred by the tittle of ‘Goddess of Bau’, also priestess of the temple Bau. They
ruled jointly and in the second year of their region, Urukagina proclaimed himself
king and assumed the title Lugal. Shagshag used to exercises legal and economy
authority over her domain i.e. temple complex of Bau, also served as chief priestess
of temple and served by the scribes of the temple of Bau. Urukagina proclaimed
reforms in his edicts as the earliest documented efforts to establish basic legal rights
for citizens. Urukagina accuses his predecessor of having taken over the God’s
properties in the temples and claimed he had a covenant with the city-god of Lagash
to protect the weak and the widowed from the powerful. 20 He charged his
predecessor Lugalanda that under him the “men of ensi “ had begun to arrest
control over the land owned by private owners, in wading and appropriating fruit by
force. Urukagina enacted tax reforms, curbed the power of corrupt officials and ruled
the temples in the names of the gods.21 K-Maekawa analysed that Urukagina’s
“reforms” as an expansion of royal power and found out that he developed the
concept of the kingship with divine powers and extended this kinship concept to the
domain of his wife, i.e. the temple of the goddess Bau. The consequences of
Urukagina’s reforms had made the Queen Shagshag victim herself. Shagshag’s status
was reduced to mere ‘consort’ , no longer a Queen Joint-sovereign rule was ended
and now Shagshag got a secondary status.

19 Engels, Origins,p.220-221
20 Gerda Lerner, The Creation of Patriarchy, 1986, p. 62-63
21 Ibid, p.63
In feminist theory, consort means a ‘disempowered person’ who doesn’t share
power , prestige , authority or office of King. She must be fertile, her womb must
provide heir. Ruby Rohrlich speculates this series of Urukagina’s edicts that contains
among other things- the regulations imposed monogamy on women. One of
Urukagina’s edicts contains- “ women of former times each married two men , but
women of today have been made to give up this crime”.22 The edicts continued to
state that women committing this crime were stoned with stones. Recent feminist
commentators have interpreted these edicts as evidence of institutionalising
patrilineality, requires monogamy, chastity and purity of women, also evidence of
former practice of polygamy and it’s end during Urukagina’s Regime.23 Urukagina’s
edicts further states that if a woman have audacity to speaks disrespectfully to a
man, than her mouth should be crushed with fired – bricks. Hence militarism and
violence used against women. These laws dissipate earlier egalitarian equation
between men and women, and had reduced women just to serve men. Yet these
edicts of Urukagina described by historian Kramer in his book” The Sumerian” , as
one of the most precious revealing document in the history of men, unrelenting
struggle of freedom from tyranny.

Gerda Lerner submitted in her work “The creation of Patriarchy” , that however
royal offices in Mesopotamia became more oriented to King , who became supreme
over everyone else, although female members of his family continued to be part of
administration . For instance, when Urukagina was overthrown by another king
Lugalzaggisi of city Umma. The latter expanded his holdings and made him himself
the supreme ruler of Sumer , however he was not able to consolidate his conquests
and administer them as a unified state. This was done by the king who overthrew
him and ended the independence of Lagash, the King Sargon of Akkad( CA. 2350-
2230 B.C.) established his rule over Sumer and appointed his daughter Enkheduanna
as high- priestess of the Moon- God Temple in the city of Ur and of the temple of
An, the supreme Hod of Heaven at Uruk.

King Sargon of Akkad was a Semitic ruler who founded a dynasty which extended
over section of Sumer , Ashur ( Assyria), Elam and the Euphrates valley . He
established garrison cities and made alliance to govern his vast empire. He appointed
trusted people as governors and also as mentioned earlier, his daughter
Enkheduanna as high- priestess. Enkheduanna was also a cultivar devotee of the
Sumerian goddess Inanna and her appointment symbolises the fusion of Inanna
with the Akkadian goddess Ishtar. She was a distinguished poet, the first known
women poet in the history and she wrote in Sumerian . Scholar states that she “
yeses these gifts to propagandise …. The union of Sumerian and Akkadians into one
state capable of carrying Mesopotamia rule… to the farthest reaches of the Asiatic

22 Gerda Lerner, The Creation of Patriarchy, 1986, p.63

23 Claude Levi-Strauss, The Elementary Structures of kinship, p.481
Near East”.24 For a long period of time, Enkheduanna’s poetry and hymns made her
survive. After King Sargon’s death , the new ruler of Ur had removed her from her
position as high – priestess. She wrote about her injustice in a hymn, appealing to
goddess Inanna about her injuries and return her to office. She was often quoted as a
poet in a Sumerian history. In a similar situation, Sargon ‘s grandson , Naram- Shin
the Great, appointed his daughter Enmenanna as high- priestess at Ur. This practice
was then followed by Sumerian and Akkadian rulers for 500 years. The written record
shows that “13 princely priestess held office for an average of 35 to 40 years”.25 Also
as a chief priestess they were unmarried and if she gets married, then she was not
allowed to perpetuate any biological dynasty of her own. However all of these
women were just appointees of their very powerful father or husband , there to
severe their agendas.

After the collapse of Sargonic empire, there was a complex struggle for dominance
among city- state of Mesopotamia. Various rulers had developed dynastic and
diplomatic marriages as a means of consolidating their military gains and also for
preventing warfare. For instance, in the Ur III dynasty, the rulers of Ur contracted
such marriages of their daughters with the sons of the rulers of Mari and other cities.
It is a higher and more elaborate form of the “ exchange of women” practiced much
earlier in most Societies.

Gerda Lerner traces the development of the role of royal wife and daughter as “
stand- in” for her husband and father. She draws the evidence from another place
and their filter , the city of Mari in the north of Sumer today’s Iraq- Syrian birder. The
royal documents dates 1790- 1745B.C. shows that society has given elite women
great scope in economic and political activities. Women like men, used to own and
manage property, they could contract on their own name, could sue in court and
serve as witness. The Assyriologist Bernard Frank Batto explains the position of
women at Mari and compared it with other Mesopotamian cultures as a cultural
remnant from an earlier stage of development.26

Gerda Lerner describes that the suggestion of women as in “ stand- in” role is an
aspect of an earlier concept of kingly rule is intriguing and supports her analysis
that women’s status and her role become more circumscribed as the state become
more complex. The wife’s power was dependent on the will of King. For instance,
the Marie King Zimri- Lim used to went on campaign to neighbouring city states and
captures booty- as children, women , jewels etc and sent it back to Mari and gave
detailed instruction to his wife , Queen Shibtu who served as his deputy during his
frequent absences . The king instructed his wife to select women among captives
for his harem. But in a subsequent letter the king wrote to his wife- There will be

24 Gerda Lerner, The Creation of Patriarchy, 1986, p.67

25 Gerda Lerner, The Creation of Patriarchy, 1986, p.67
26 Ibid,p.69
more( booty) available for my disposition… I will myself select the booty which I will
get, the girls for the veil and will dispatch them to you”.27 Gerda Lerner argues that “
wife’s cooperation in the matter is taken for granted and her husband’s sexual use
of the captive women, which served not only to gratify his pleasure but to enhance
his property and status is assumed as a routine matter”. There were also instances
of marriage of two sisters to one husband in Mesopotamia , which ended badly.
Gerda Lerner concludes that these royal queens who were serving their male relative
as “patrimonial” bureaucracy or to describe subordinate political rights were just
reduced to pawns in the hands of their father and husbands.

Ruby Rohrlich uses interesting source of Sumerian mythology , as in early society

there was no archives, archaeology and material remains but not for social relations
and “ mythology worked as an imbedded history”. As cosmogony is the theory of
beginning of universe, the Feminist theory says when you articulate how things were
in the beginning you are making a statement about perception of the source of
power in universe, provides sex roles in a given society (religion and rituals were
present in very early society). Ruby Rohrlich brings attention to the change in
cosmogonies , gender role in Sumerian mythology and change in nature of society.

Among the Ubaid people who laid the foundation of Sumerian civilisation, the
“Mother- Goddess” type of clay figurine – a slim, standing woman with a snake- like
head crowned with a coil of hair made of bitumen was very popular.28 In the early
Sumerian myths , the female deities are the creators of all life. The goddess Nammu
was a personification of primeval sea, has parthogenetically gave birth to heaven
and earth . She was seen as ancestors who gave birth to all gods . Gods appear in the
later pre- dynastic period. Humanity became the product of the combined effort of
Goddess Nammu and water- God Enki. Nonetheless In the early Sumerian divine
pantheon , female divinities continue to be very popular and prominent, and more
numerous than men. The ratio of female to male or goddess to god is 60:40,
however with the consolidation of patriarchy, Goddess steadily lost power in most
ancient societies and happened at many levels, and also went to completely erase
them. In the early primitive society it happens because of marginalisation. For
instance, Goddess Ishtar/Inanna was initially associated with earliest domesticated
plant in Mesopotamia i.e. Dates, from which her name was derived. She was also
the goddess of communal storehouse i.e. granary. According to Ruby Rohrlich, this
conception of Inanna symbolises the authority of women as producers and
distributors. Inanna has also become the deity of thunderstorms and rain. She is in
charge of the lightning and putting out fires, tears and rejoice. Thorkild Jacobsen, in
his book ‘Treasure of Darkness’ , describes many roles of Inanna and all of them are
in public domain, and not describing her as mother or wife. Therefore, Inanna is
rightly termed as the lady of many offices. But as the city- states became dominated

27 Gerda Lerner, The Creation of Patriarchy, 1986, p.71

28 Ruby Rohrlich, Feminist studies, vol 6 , p. 85
by military and male rulers , Inanna got reduced to deity of war and procreations,
results into marginalisation of female priestess.
Earlier the title of Nin/ En of priesthood appears in Portoliterate writing of Sumer
and were mainly women.The female deities outnumbered male deities as temple
patrons. Robert Mc Cormick Adams points out En/Nin denotes both political
leadership and ritual responsibility.Gradually, the autonomous position of
priestess, goes very much in vain , and this was further curtailed by the code of
Hammurabi.

Another important means by which women were subordinated in early Sumerian

state formation was through denying education to women. Earlier both girls and
boys were trained to be scribes in the school, Ziggurats , attaches to temples in
Sumer. Street scribes were used to available to all, scribal activity was open across
gender and across class for both sexes. The exclusion of women from education in
Sumer marks the beginning of male- dominated and male- centre’s educational
institutions. By the time of Ur III dynasty , the scribes were mainly men and elite ,
and they only attended scribe’s schools. By Hammurabi’s reign, 1792-1750B.C., the
patron deity of scribe was no longer Nisaba, but Nabu ,the son of the war god
Marduk. Earlier under Goddess of Bau, surgery and medicine came , also divine
functions associated with female principles. But with time and class stratification,
these goddess will loose their function and prestige.

Gerda Lerner states that while women who were stand- in , pawns or permanent
bureaucrats were continued to given education , so that they can perform their role
better, The common women around them wallowed in illiteracy . These royal
women were never representative of common women.

Ruby Rohrlich added that it is significant that the Sumerian term for freedom is “
amargi” , which literally means return to the mother. Probably, it is reference to
matrilineal and matrilocal clans , when all were free and no one was enslaved. She
juxtaposes matrilineal society and freedom in a matrilineal setup with more
egalitarian relation , and in patrilineal society with development to class stratified
society, rise of military , and freedom of society is compromised. Women
subjugation in Ancient Mesopotamia is contributed by State itself , State is abstract.
State can be made by an ideological component i.e. law , law gives a form to an
abstract form. State survive by implementing and formulating laws.
Both Rohrlich and Lerner talks about, one of the most significant way by which early
Sumerian state managed to degrade women was through undertaking political
centralisation and rectification of laws , and egalitarian kinship relations were
broaded and women’s position was adversely impacted.

Hammurabi’s code has strengthened the structure of patriarchal families whose

foundation had been laid in the code of Urukagina. Hammurabi makes divorce a
completely male prerogative and according to the code, among the ground in which
male can divorce the wife if she decipated the resources of household , not a good
housekeeper, also if she refuses her husband sexual access. She could be divorced if
she is bad spouse, if she is childless , her womb needed to be fertile , otherwise she is
of no use in patriarchal society. Another way, if the childlessness of the couple is
because of wife’s refusal to husband to keep conjugal relations , then Hammurabi
codes doesn’t advocates divorce, then he advocates death penalty, the wife was to
be drowned. Laws were fashioning domestic relations , only when male has power
i.e. highly masculine laws. Laws itself contribute unnecessarily in subordination of
women.

By the third millennium BCE, the city increased in size, and villages sought protection
behind their walls. The emerging polity centred around powerful rulers ,and his
constant military campaigns and a hierarchical society. Thorkild Jacobsen refers that
Sumerian mythology reflects this growing centralisation. In the early myths the
highest authority in the Mesopotamian universe was the assembly of the divines and
both gods and goddess participated thoroughly, Goddesses played an active role in
celebrating these assemblies. For instance, goddess Inanna perusal for her wisdom,
having various roles and all roles were in public domain , not in private domain. But
latter reduced to just Goddess of prostitution and war.
Prostitution in contrary to widespread cliché that it is not the oldest profession in the
world. In Mesopotamia, prostitution emerged after the profession of priests, scribe
, merchant and warrior had become dominated by male, and when women had
been made legally and economically dependent on men. During the reign of
Gilgamesh in Uruk, 2700 BCE, the human king, this assembly excluded women, the
basic step in the breakdown of the democratic kinship group and this paved the way
for the divine appointment of king instead of election. When the male assembly of
Uruk votes against the decision of Gilgamesh to make war against the city of Kish,
the the opposition was overruled by Gilgamesh and got support from younger
men. Gilgamesh has established the right of first sexual access to all the women in
his realm. Gilgamesh was not only tyrant but also a rapist, and he challenges Inanna ,
who was now degraded as the goddess of the prostitutes by his gross insult.
Gilgamesh and his warrior friend Enkidu triumphs over the queen of heaven by killing
the bull of heaven. By the end of 3rd millennium B.C., “the king had become the sole
and absolute ruler of the land”.29 This scenario of centralisation is reflected in the
epic of creation, the “ Enuma Elish” was composed during the latter half of the
second millennium B.C.
In this epic , the assembly of gods beg the God of Marduk to destroy Tiamat, the
original progenitor but now equated with elements of inertia , chaos and anarchy.
It was represented as a symbol that if order was masculine, then chaos was
feminine; active is masculine and passive is feminine, by which gender is created. In

29 Ruby Rohrlich, Feminist studies, vol 6., p.89

contrast to Inanna’s leadership in the early assembly of the gods , in this epic the
female deities played entirely minor role as consorts to the male deities.

Conclusion:

The transformation of ancient Mesopotamia from egalitarian to male dominated

society is fairly explained by Gerda Lerner and Ruby Rohrlich . The state formation in
Sumer leads to replacement of male- female egalitarian society to male dominated
society . The need of labour force for irrigation work , emergence of private
property , rise of militarism, subjugation of common women from education , only
royal women continued to get some kind of education according to their father or
husbands wish to act in their absence but this is in way helped the common
women, their removal from offices , no more women scribes, removal women from
their title of priestess , goddess or degrading their title , all these in addition some
more laws and codes led to the subjugation of women which carried out even
today , entrenched within us from traditions and cultures. The Urukagina’s codes ,
degraded women position in society , also in marriages , and normalised violence
against women. This is further carried out by Hammurabi codes which also made
divorce normalised only for men which typical patriarchal reasons. Women are
sexually and economically subordinated to women. The dethroning of powerful
goddesses and their replacement by a dominant male god has seen in ancient
Mesopotamian society. The subordination of women especially in sexual context is
very much carried by earliest law codes and enforced by full power on the state.

Bibliography:

1. Lerner, Gerda, The Creation of Patriarchy, 1986, Oxford University Press

2. Rohrlich, Ruby, Feminist Studies, Spring, 1980, Vol.6