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Asharq Al-Awsat
Asharq Al-Awsat
Lifestyle
New York - Jennifer Schuessler

In Search of Enheduanna, the Woman Who Was History’s First Named Author

Morgan Mesopotamia Ur
“She Who Wrote” embeds Enheduanna in a broader story about women, literacy and power in ancient Mesopotamia. Credit: Lila Barth for The New York Times

It was a random morning in November, and Enheduanna was trending.

Suddenly, the ancient Mesopotamian priestess, who had been dead for more than 4,000 years, was a hot topic online as word spread that the first individually named author in human history was … a woman?

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