BONUS RE-AIR: High Priestess of Ur, the World’s First Author, Enheduanna

This episode originally aired in March 2024. The first recorded author in all of human history was a woman, a high priestess, her name was Enheduanna. Pre-order Liv's Odyssey adaptation (!!!), The Odyssey: a Modern Retelling. https://geni.us/TheOdysseyBook Submit your question for the next Q&A via email http://mythsbaby.com/questions or a voice note https://www.speakpipe.com/LTAMB. Get ad-free episodes and so, so much more, by subscribing to the Oracle Edition at patreon.com/mythsbaby http://patreon.com/mythsbaby. Enter ourpodcast guest https://www.mythsbaby.com/contact form if you'd like to be on the show as a conversation guest! CW/TW: far too many Greek myths involve assault. Given it's fiction, and typically involves gods and/or monsters, I'm not as deferential as I would be were I referencing the real thing. Sources: The Complete Poems of Enheduanna, the World's First Author by Sophus Helle; Enheduanna.org https://enheduana.org/. Things The Mesopotamians Did First https://www.worldhistory.org/article/1859/mesopotamian-inventions/; Very Baseline Ancient Iraq Bits: Wikipedia: Akkadian Empire; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akkadian_Empire# Mesopotamia https://www.worldhistory.org/article/1859/mesopotamian-inventions/. Attributions and licensing information for music used in the podcast can be found here: mythsbaby.com/sources-attributions http://mythsbaby.com/sources-attributions. Learn more about Liv's next group trips https://travelbugxlivalbert.my.canva.site/ to GREECE! Application deadline is November 30 (Subject to change due to demand). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Liv Albert?

  Hey nerds, really quick note from me. I want to tell you that we now have the applications open for the next set of listener group trips. This is us going back to the original, the trips that we have held in the past that have been so much fun, so successful, and pretty affordable in terms of wandering around Greece with a bunch of nerds. So check out the details and get your applications in at mythsbaby.com grouptrip.

• 0:42Speaker 01

  The youth mental health crisis is growing, and social media is a major driver. Kids are spending up to nine hours a day on screens, often unsupervised, and studies show a direct link to anxiety, depression, and even suicidal thoughts. That's where Gab comes in. Gab offers safer phones and watches for kids with no social media, tailored to every age, offering the right tech at the right time, or tech in steps. From GPS tracking-enabled watches for younger kids to phones with parent-enabled apps for teens, each device allows kids to more safely grow their independence. Visit gab.com/getgab and use code GETGAB for an exclusive offer.

• 1:23Speaker 01

  That's G A B B dot com forward slash get gab. Gab: Tech in Steps. Independence for Them, Peace of Mind for Parents.

• 1:37Liv Albert?

  The earliest-named author in the whole of human history was a woman. She lived over forty-four hundred years ago in Mesopotamia. She was a poet, a priestess, and a princess, and her name was Enheduanna.

• 2:20Liv Albert?

  Hi, hello, welcome. This is Let's Talk About Myths, baby! And I'm your resident furious feminist, Liv. And today I am here, not with myths or even real people from the ancient Greek world, but one that is much, much older. We're heading southeast now, across the Mediterranean and into southwest Asia, to an ancient people whose land lay between two rivers, and where we find the first recorded author in all of human history: A woman named Enheduanna. But before we get to her, just a little bit of news. Quite appropriately, we are moving directly from Bronze Age Ancient Iraq

• 3:04Liv Albert?

  into Bronze Age Greece and the wider Mediterranean. Next month, we are returning to the now annual tradition of special research series. This time it's not in January because I gained some sense, and it is covering the Bronze Age and its collapse. There's a trailer for it in your feeds right now, but I will tell you a little bit more here. For the month of April, we are going to be looking at the broad history of Bronze Age Greece, some of the wider Mediterranean, and then its collapse. Because the Bronze Age ended dramatically, in a series of events and disruptions that changed the face of the ancient Mediterranean

• 3:48Liv Albert?

  in a way that has not been seen since. The ancient people who thrived during this period, the Mycenaeans and the Minoans, laid the groundwork for everything that would become the ancient Greece that we know so well. They built palatial complexes that we can still visit today, 4,000-year-old compounds where people lived for hundreds of years, developing relationships across the Mediterranean, trading and interacting with the Egyptians, the Phoenicians, the Hittites, and others, in what was a closely-connected network of ancient people creating art and cultures that remain some of the most incredible in all of human history. And then, everything changed.

• 4:31Liv Albert?

  The networks that connected them crumbled, the palaces were destroyed, or abandoned, or both. The whole of the Mediterranean and its broad, wide-ranging cultures just collapsed. Everything changed, seemingly out of nowhere. Except it wasn't out of nowhere, but I'm gonna tell you all about it. With the help, fortunately, of a number of experts across the field of Bronze Age history and archaeology, and Michaela. Michaela has done a lot of work for this series. That starts next Tuesday and runs throughout April. Today, though, before the Bronze Age collapsed, before the Mycenaeans built their palaces in the Peloponnese, before the Minoans built their labyrinthine palace at Knossos, before

• 5:16Liv Albert?

  Linear A or Linear B were ever inscribed into tablets detailing livestock and wine stores, there were the Sumerians, and then the Akadians. The people we often call Mesopotamians. The people between two rivers. And there was Enheduanna, the world's first recorded author. A woman!

• 5:55Liv Albert?

  This is episode 254, "High Priestess of Ur: The World's First Author, Enheduanna."

• 6:17Liv Albert?

  Years ago, I told you a little bit about Enheduanna, just briefly. I had an idea all those years ago to regale you all with the many things that the ancient Greeks didn't do first. Not to lessen their impact, they are my beloveds, and modern Greece has a vice grip on my heart, but instead, as a means of reminding you- Me, everyone, that for all the Western world, the English-speaking colonialist project that is the Western world, wants us all to believe that the greatness of humanity was born and raised in the West. It wasn't. Or rather, it was, but we should be adjusting what we see as the West. The Ancient Greeks did a lot of things first. They were incredible,

• 7:00Liv Albert?

  but there were so many groups across the world that were doing equally incredible things, things that equally contributed to the wonders of humanity today. And in many cases, they were doing them much, much earlier. There were people and culture in Greece during the time of Edhedwana, don't get me wrong, but not like they were in Mesopotamia, a place which I will be referring to as Ancient Iraq from now on. Because, well, it's Ancient Iraq, but there are more reasons I'll explain later.

• 7:36Liv Albert?

  Now, one day, I would love to learn more about the broad history of the Sumerians, and Akadians, the Babylonians, and others, all of these people that make up Ancient Iraq, since it is inarguably one of the most important regions in all of human history. But, well, I am utterly drowning in research and depression, so we're going to cover only the basics of the region itself, and focus instead, as much as we can, on the woman who once lived there and whose writing we have. But in order to understand Edhedwana, we need to understand at least a little bit about the world in which she lived.

• 8:14Liv Albert?

  The people of Ancient Iraq invented, well, civilization, kind of, I'll explain, but they did absolutely invent so many things that came along with generally early human civilization. I try to use that word very sparingly and intentionally too, because like, all too often it is used as a means of subjugating other cultures if the West chooses to deem them uncivilized. But in this case, it's an important word, and one which we will define, because that's the key. These people of ancient Iraq are generally acknowledged to have been the "first civilization." Now, what that means, really, compared to, say, like, the many other pre-existing cultures

• 8:56Liv Albert?

  of the region and beyond, is that they are the first for which we have evidence of something more "formalized" being established. Like, a place with rulers, and laws, and trading, and agriculture, and like, a kind of quantifiable city. A unified culture in a way that before then, the many, many, many other pre-existing cultures and proto-civilizations that existed for many millennia, just like, hadn't quite achieved. Just sort of the next step in humanity. That said, other ancient people, both in the general region and beyond, were being established at similar times and soon after, but the kind of acknowledged "first," and the one which we have the earliest evidence for things that would be then determined to be like,

• 9:41Liv Albert?

  semi-officially "civilization," happened there, in ancient Iraq. I'm generalizing a little, and I'm trying to explain it simply, because I just want to emphasize their importance in the historical record. And again, this land that we typically learn to call Mesopotamia is ancient Iraq. It stretched into other neighboring modern countries as well, but broadly, it's Iraq. In the same way that ancient Greece and ancient Rome stretched into lands which are now other countries. And ancient Iraq gave us... I mean, I don't, I don't want to say everything, but like, a fucking lot. I'm just using a couple of simple websites for this base lesson in the cultures, because

• 10:24Liv Albert?

  it's all I've got, but according to worldhistory.org, which very appropriately uses a cuneiform symbol as its logo, the people of Mesopotamia, ancient Iraq, gave us, ahem, the wheel, mass-

• 10:38Liv Albert?

  Produced ceramics, mathematics, time. And I'm just reading the list here, but assuming that they mean like the conceptualizing of time. Writing, that's the aforementioned cuneiform. Cylinder seals and envelopes, mass-produced bricks, the sail? I hope that means they also invented boats, we can assume, maybe? Or are they just a sail? Who's to say? The map, again, I gather they mean the concept. And, well, cities. They were the first of what we now call cities. So it's no wonder that it's also where we find the first established system of writing. Cuneiform. Now, cuneiform appears as early as 3,500 BCE, so it's just like a comfortable 5,500 years ago?

• 11:24Liv Albert?

  It's a really interesting script, like written, it's written in soft clay tablets with a stylus. This little device that's shaped like a little wedge, and it can be used to create their very intricate script. It is beautiful. It's all these shapes and lines that look like art. I am perpetually in awe of the fact that people can read it, like, write in it today? And cuneiform is, of course, well, it's what our girl Edhedwana wrote when some thousand or so years later, she composed her poems. But don't let that number pass you by, though. Like, I often talk about how we need to keep in mind just how long the world of ancient Greece lasted. Like, just how many centuries come between, say, works like the Iliad and the Odyssey,

• 12:09Liv Albert?

  and then the playwrights, and on down to the Romans and Obed, right? I throw around the word centuries a lot. Or use the comparison of Shakespeare's time, two hours, as a means of considering just how long these people were developing stories and culture.

• 12:27Liv Albert?

  But there is 1,000 years between the first instances of the cuneiform writing system and Edhedwana's poetry. And then from there, there's another 500 years or so before the earliest proto-Greek language appeared, Linear A, and we can't even translate that. And another few hundred before the Mycenaeans started using Linear B. And another 500 or so before the ancient Greek alphabet is established. If you need math, that's another over 1,000 years.

• 13:02Liv Albert?

  I don't use these Greek examples to suggest that they were even early compared to other later writing systems, like they're definitely not. They're quite late. They're just my go-to examples. Even the ancient Greeks acknowledged, you know, that their alphabet was developed based on the Phoenician. Still, it's just impossible to overstate just how ancient the people of ancient Iraq were, just how many thousands of years that they were civilizations and cultures before even the Greeks dipped their toe in existence. And just how early they were doing things like this, creating poetry and art, just in the grand scheme of ancient history.

• 14:00Liv Albert?

  The poems of this Akkadian princess Enheduanna aren't the earliest poems we have in history, but they are the earliest for which we have someone's name, the author's name. Her poets are older than the Epic of Gilgamesh, the earliest evidence of epic literature, and they are by like a few hundred years at least. But what can we possibly know about a woman who lived over 4,000 years ago? Well, the reason I'm here with an episode attempting to share it with you, it's not, we'll see, is because there's a new book about Enheduanna and what we know of her, at least, and her

• 14:40Liv Albert?

  work, and a translation of her poems. This is all by Sophus Helle. It's the primary work that I'm using to speak about her today. And

• 14:49Liv Albert?

  recording this after having written the script, I can tell you right now that it was so interesting and her poems are so beautiful that I barely got into the book for this entire episode. So I don't know, there'll be more. It's not going to be even remotely comprehensive, like really barely scratched the surface. And I don't have enough grounding knowledge in the time period or region to really do her justice. But it is my attempt at sharing just like a little about this woman. There are intricacies to what we do or do not know, you know, with any certainty and like theories about poems that she did or did not write, or alterations, or whatever, all of that stuff that comes with ancient literature, you know, and all of which would easily make

• 15:29Liv Albert?

  for episodes on their own. So again, consider this an overview, an introduction, just a small taste of all there is to learn. I have conversation episode goals, so I hope this isn't the last I have to say about the world's first recorded author. But first, I just, I really want to ground you all in just how long ago Enheduanna lived. I'm going to use the same example that Hale uses in this book. That Julius Caesar lived closer to us in time than he did to Enheduanna.

• 16:08Liv Albert?

  And if we want to use a Greek example, it seems to me that, I mean, math is not my strong suit, but it seems to me that even good old Alexander the Great is really straddling the line in the middle. Like, maybe he's a tiny bit closer in time to Enheduanna than to us now, but it's so close that it's just, just my lack of perfect math skills that's letting me not be certain. Like, consider then, like, a time period where the historical person in a kind of like median point between the time we live in today, where I am speaking

• 16:48Liv Albert?

  to you in a podcast, and this ancient poet, like, the, the guy in the middle of time

• 16:56Liv Albert?

  is Alexander, a man so deep in the world of ancient Greece that he's like, kind of the emblem for it. And here I am telling you that he's like smack dab between us and Enheduanna.

• 17:09Liv Albert?

  As this, this beautiful book describes, quote, "It is nothing short of miraculous that this ancient woman's voice has survived the passing of centuries, if only as an echo etched into clay, revised and rewritten over many generations."

• 17:28Liv Albert?

  I told you this book was beautiful. Edhedwana was the high priestess of the Akkadian city of Ur in the south of ancient Iraq. She was the daughter of Sargon of Akkad, the emperor who founded the Akkadian Empire. I don't know how to pronounce these words, I'm sorry. And, and he conquered much of what had been Sumeria and is often considered, he's considered to be like the first leader of an empire. Not ideal, you know, it is what it is. All to say, he was a particularly important leader in the grand scheme of the ancient world as a whole. This isn't irrelevant to, to Edhedwana, like, not only was she his daughter, but she was

• 18:10Liv Albert?

  also just like a person living through a particularly transformational time period, and obviously coming from a very high place societally. The poems that we have from Edhedwana are, they're all hymns, they're songs to and about the gods, just like the Homeric hymns that I've read to you so many times. And as Helleb describes them, quote, "Their goal is not to describe the world, but to change it by invoking the gods and enlisting their help." I love this description of hymns, I'm going to think of it the next time that I read the Homeric hymn to Hermes. Perhaps not as deep and transformational as Edhedwana's hymns, but certainly still

• 18:55Liv Albert?

  about invoking the gods and asking for help. In finding your cows. I'd be cautious about what kind of help they might provide, though, you know, based on that. Enheduanna's are are nothing like the Homeric hymn to Hermes unsurprisingly, but they are no less important and certainly far more foundational. The gods Enheduanna sang to were not dissimilar to what we know of from Greek gods. You know, ancient gods across the Mediterranean and beyond share a lot of qualities because humanity shares a lot of qualities and all gods are reflections of humanity in some way. To read Enheduanna's poems is quote, "to enter a world ruled by the violent whims of reckless

• 19:40Liv Albert?

  gods." Sound familiar? Gods serve to explain the world and humanity within it. Worshipping them is an attempt to understand and navigate both, to hope for change or disruption, to praise and give thanks when things are good, to seek mercy or forgiveness when things are bad. Enheduanna was high priestess of this moon god, Nana, but when she was ousted from her place as high priestess, she seems to have tried to sing to Nana for help and then receives none. And and so finding no help from her god, she turns to Nana's daughter, a goddess I

• 20:25Liv Albert?

  hope you're all familiar with by now, Inanna, also known as Ishtar. You remember her. She is connected with the Phoenician goddess Estarte and both almost certainly served as the inspiration origins of none other than Aphrodite via Cyprus and then this close connection with the ancient people of southwest Asia. Inanna, though, is not a traditional goddess of love like Aphrodite. To me, she's Aphrodite and Ares in one, which is why I love their connection so much. She's something so much bigger than just Aphrodite. She is the goddess of war, sex, change, and destruction.

• 21:07Liv Albert?

  War, sex, change, destruction, all wound up into one goddess. And as Helle very bluntly states, and I so appreciate, quote, "Inanna is the single most complex and compelling goddess of the ancient world."

• 21:29Liv Albert?

  It's quite the claim. I love this for her. I absolutely agree. Two of Enheduanna's poems are sung for Inanna. One now called "The Exaltation of Inanna," we will talk about that one, and another, "The Hymn to Inanna." For Enheduanna, Inanna is not just any old deity, but as Helle says, she's the ruler of the universe. Needless to say, this says something about the time in which Enheduanna is living. You know, she, quote, "makes a statement not just about religion, but about reality more broadly, since the gods controlled the cosmos." At this point, I'm only referencing the introduction of this book. Like, it's so beautiful and I just keep getting stuck on the words used to describe,

• 22:11Liv Albert?

  like, not only Enheduanna, but Inanna now and, and poetry broadly and this world. I highly recommend this book. Enheduanna, though, like, she is a myth herself, as much as she was real. Because when we're dealing with such an early time period and so many things that, like, happened in the intervening millennia, it becomes difficult to separate the myth of a woman like Enheduanna from reality. She was an important figure even, you know, to the people who lived just centuries after her. Not unlike Sappho, but students in the 18th century Babylon, okay?

• 22:52Liv Albert?

  18th century BCE, so like before the Mycenaeans still. And this is so many hundreds of years after her. You know, they're, they're a later culture, but they're the same region. And they studied her work as evidence of a language that was, by that point, dead to them. Because she wrote in Sumerian. And so by the 18th century BCE, like, 700 years later, Sumerian is dead and they have her work.

• 23:29Liv Albert?

  And so, again, almost 4,000 years ago from now, people studied her work in the same way that we study Homer and like ancient Greek and Latin.

• 23:44Liv Albert?

  That's the thing that's, it's often easy to forget and, and no one would blame anyone for forgetting because when it comes to history this ancient, like it was history too, to the people who came centuries after. They studied it much the same way as we do before they too then became the history to be studied.

• 24:24Liv Albert?

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• 25:06Liv Albert?

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• 25:50Liv Albert?

  So find the fall pieces you'll reach for most at Quince. Download the Quince app for app exclusive offers or go to quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK too. And when Quince asks where you heard about them, let them know it was me. Let's talk about myths, baby. It's the best way to support the show.

• 26:16Speaker 01

  The youth mental health crisis is growing and social media is a major driver. Kids are spending up to nine hours a day on screens, often unsupervised. And studies show a direct link to anxiety, depression, and even suicidal thoughts. That's where Gab comes in. Gab offers safer phones and watches for kids with no social media. Tailored to every age, offering the right tech at the right time. Or Tech in Steps. From GPS tracking enabled watches for younger kids to phones with parent enabled apps for teens. Each device allows kids to more safely grow their independence. Visit gab.com/getgab and use code GETGAB for an exclusive offer.

• 26:57Speaker 01

  That's G A B B dot com forward slash get gab. Gab Tech in Steps. Independence for them, peace of mind for parents.

• 27:25Liv Albert?

  We're going to look at her poems now, or rather one, because I've gotten so caught up in her and this book that I can't fit more yet. But first I have to quote the last line of the introduction of this, this book on her. Because, well, you'll see. Quote, "What would the history of Western literature look like if it began not with Homer and his war hungry heroes, but with a woman from ancient Iraq who sang her hymns to the goddess of chaos and change?"

• 28:05Liv Albert?

  I can't read just her poems outright. Oh my god, I wish I could. Um, but translating Enheduanna is like kinda new or newer than the works that I usually read from. There aren't old ones. This is not unrelated to the quote I just read.

• 28:20Liv Albert?

  I have to say, this new translation though, and the book itself, like really incredible. I've read one hymn in its entirety and all I wanna do is read every word into this microphone, but since I can't, I can just highly recommend that you read it.

• 28:35Liv Albert?

  In the exaltation to Inanna, Enheduanna speaks of this rebel leader who took over the city of Ur and forced her out of her temple and her role as priestess. She calls to Inanna for help. It's this plea and it begins with flattery for the goddess. She praises the goddess's ability to destroy, that she is, quote, "the guardian of the gods' great powers." Enheduanna wants her to use those powers to defend the temple and her as its priestess, to reinstate her, quote, "As if you were a basilisk, you pour poison upon the enemy."

• 29:19Liv Albert?

  There's so much of that comparison, those similes, those, oh my god, it's so good. She speaks of the goddess's history, her relations to the other gods, and how, quote, "Enlil loves you for teaching the land how to fear."

• 29:37Liv Albert?

  It's not hard to tell how furious Enheduanna was when she wrote this. You can feel it in every word. They are just vibrating with her rage. This is a song of rage, rage of Enheduanna and the goddess and how the two align. She speaks of just how terrible Inanna is, how much fear she's struck into the hearts of humans, how much she's achieved, quote, "You strike like the strike of a storm, you roar like the roar of a storm." When she turns to singing of the city itself, preparing to tell the goddess what's happened, she says, quote, "Something is wrong with the wombs of the city."

• 30:22Liv Albert?

  She sings of herself too, an introduction of sorts, like the reason she's singing to the goddess. Quote, "My honey mouth is full of froth, my soothing words are turned to dust." And then, the story. She tells of this man who's taken hold of her, speaking of the hold that he has and begging for mercy. She tells the goddess that she's pleading with her, tears streaming, but that she knows it is up to the goddess now, since Enheduanna's own patron god, Nana, hasn't listened. She tells the goddess how the usurper has defiled the temple, how he doesn't fear any

• 31:02Liv Albert?

  of the gods, how he's turned her beloved temple into an evil place. This hymn is amazing. It's beautiful and angry and poetic and speaks of the goddess in a way that has me in a chokehold. Enheduanna speaks to the goddess of her plight, how Nana has ignored her, how she's been forced from her city, from her temple, and so is she destined to die on foreign land? She tells the goddess, and this line is truly something, that the usurper, quote, "took the crown of the high priestess from me, giving me a knife and dagger instead. These suit you better," he said. There's apparently a lot of ways to interpret that.

• 31:47Liv Albert?

  The end notes were amazing, but either way, it's incredible. She calls to Inanna to show her her might to the usurper, to let everyone know what she can do. Quote, "Let them know that you grind their skulls to dust." This is the first poet of human history and her work is awesome. That's one of like 20 lines of like terrible goddess powers that Enheduanna wants her to show off. Like, it's incredible. She sings of the pain of her existence and how, quote, "For you I have given birth to it." In the end, Enheduanna includes a kind of epilogue confirming that Inanna heard her, that she listened.

• 32:30Liv Albert?

  And the hymn ends, quote, "You who crushed the mountains, you who were given powers by An, my queen cloaked in charm, all praise Inanna."

• 32:56Liv Albert?

  That the first recorded author in all of human history was a woman, and a powerful one at that, means something. We know there were so many authors who were women. There is no reason to believe that women weren't just as interested in writing as men in the ancient world or otherwise, that they weren't just as eager to expose their ideas, to share their knowledge, to put their creativity and their inspiration into words. It's not that they weren't doing it, or they didn't want to, from the very moment that humans started creating. It's just that, for the most part, their work didn't get to survive. And again, it isn't because the women didn't want it to, it's because of a whole host

• 33:39Liv Albert?

  of other issues, some natural and others nefarious and patriarchal. As Helle points out in this introduction to Inheadwana, quote, "Even today, female authors continue to be labeled 'women writers,' as if they were anomalies in an inherently male profession. And as a woman who's written well over a hundred thousand words this year alone, I feel this deeply. And like so many authors, ancient and otherwise, man or woman or someone in between, her work was universally relatable and remains that way. Her poems, quote, 'treat themes that are as relevant today as they were 4,000 years

• 34:22Liv Albert?

  ago: exile, social disruption, the power of storytelling, gender roles, the devastation of war, and the terrifying forces of nature.'" But all of that said, I don't want to fall into the feminist trap of glorifying someone or something simply because a woman did it. Like, she is an example of the creative work of an ancient woman, and that she is our oldest surviving author, like, is an incredible feat. And both of those things can be true without us glorifying her as a person. Her work can and should be glorified, absolutely. Like, she did incredible work and it survives, and that rarity alone is something enormous.

• 35:04Liv Albert?

  But as a person, you know, she was the princess of the emperor who conquered everything, and her poetry contained what Helle calls, quote, "frankly disturbing glee at the crushing of revolts."

• 35:17Liv Albert?

  You know, she was imperial. She was a product of her time and her role, just as any other. Like, the key, though, she was human, complex and flawed and maybe fucked up, too. But she was real, just like everyone. So, we can and should celebrate her as an example of a woman whose writing survives and whose writing is in-fucking-credible, from what little I've read. But not necessarily as some, you know, feminist icon. We can celebrate her work for the creative and lasting endeavor that it was without excusing the more complex nature of just, like, being a human being, let alone, you know, the princess and priestess of the world's first empire.

• 35:57Liv Albert?

  Because whoever she was as a real person, the good or the bad, it means something that the world's first author was a woman. And that she was from ancient Iraq, you know, has a certain something extra in it.

• 36:12Liv Albert?

  And speaking of that, and empires, funny enough, let's talk about language a little bit, shall we? I want to go into some more detail about why I've chosen to call Mesopotamia ancient Iraq. I don't mean to suggest that I have, like, any innovative thoughts on this, by the way, like, the term is used in this book, though I will say that I hadn't read it in that book before I made this decision myself. We generally imagine the word Mesopotamia to refer to, like, a number of cultures that lived in this region, you know, between the Tigris and the Euphrates, like, they were between rivers, that's why it's called that, like, the earliest of which, you know, were the Sumerians and Akadians. Really, though, like, again, this word just means between

• 36:55Liv Albert?

  rivers. And it's actually ancient Greek, like, quite literally, meso, between, potamos, rivers. It's, the word that we're taught in schools, at least, you know, at least in my experience, it's the name that I started using when I was writing this episode and that I've definitely used on the show before. It's still the one you need to search, really, if you want to learn more, like, it's the one I've always used when I consider this kind of collective group of ancient people in that region. And I feel like that's kind of why I thought it was being used, and it's very likely that that is the original origins. But the more I read and the more I've thought about it, like, the more I started to

• 37:38Liv Albert?

  wonder why the word Mesopotamia is used so broadly, when in so many cases of other ancient people, we refer to, you know, them, the ancient people of a land by the name of the land today. Like, it's not unique that we would use a word with Greek origin when we're speaking in English, that's very common. But it is unique, in this case, compared to how we speak about many other ancient cultures. Like, why aren't we taught to call it ancient Iraq? Because it is ancient Iraq. Like, sure, the ancient borders went beyond modern Iraq, but again, that's incredibly true of ancient Greece and ancient Rome,

• 38:21Liv Albert?

  obviously. I gather it's maybe beginning to be used, like I said, it is in this book, but even Google wouldn't give me a background on, like, whether there's any kind of conscious decision to make a change in how we describe Mesopotamia. I would love to, to hear if this is something that is being talked about, because I wasn't able to find it outside of, like, one academic article that the abstract was really interesting, but it would cost me $50 to read, and it was just about the words. I just couldn't justify it. And now that I've noticed it, like, it just feels wrong to me to refer to it in this way that

• 38:59Liv Albert?

  feels, it feels like it's meant to intentionally separate this ancient people from its modern land and people. And given the Iraq of it all, and the West of it all, it just doesn't seem that coincidental.

• 39:40Liv Albert?

  Did you think I wouldn't turn that into like a full-blown rant about Western imperialism? You must be new here. So like first, I don't mean to suggest that what I'm talking about, you know, was done consciously in terms of the term Mesopotamia. But I do think that at least over recent decades, that the continuation of teaching Mesopotamia as like this distinct, explicitly ancient place with little connection to its modern counterpart and modern people, particularly as it is taught in schools in the English-speaking West, is rooted in,

• 40:21Liv Albert?

  that's right, Western imperialism. See, like, it's not easy to bomb Arab countries indiscriminately. Like, it's not easy to wage illegal wars in the name of terrorism, to occupy and colonize innocent people, to starve and like ruin entire ethnicities. Like, it's not easy to convince your people out in the West that those people are deserving of their fates, that they're this like boogeyman of Western nightmares. Like, it's not easy to do all of that if we also teach our children that civilization was first established and even mastered by the ancestors

• 41:04Liv Albert?

  of those same people. How can the West maintain the idea that so many Arab people and countries are uncivilized barbarians who need the West to tell them how to rule their own countries, how to worship their god, how to practice their religion, how to live and dress, if we also simultaneously acknowledge the truth that the first civilization, as we conceptualize them, was there? Like, we in the West clutch this idea of civilization, this word, so tightly.

• 41:48Liv Albert?

  But if you tie it to the people, you're always trying to bomb, like it makes little trickier. Again, like, I don't mean to suggest that this was the original intention of using the word Mesopotamia. Like, it just has Greek origins. I get it. Like, that's fine. And even, or even that, like, it's inherently problematic now. I'm not saying that. I just want to draw your attention to something that I personally hadn't noticed before. How Mesopotamia, so specifically, tends to be the culture that we in the West learn about as something, like, both vitally important in the grand scheme of human history, like, did all these incredible things, definitely so important, gave us civilization, blah, blah, blah, but also is something other than its modern people.

• 42:33Liv Albert?

  As someone who was growing up in North America during, explicitly, high school during the illegal wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, like, and as a person who, like, possesses human empathy and reason, I think it's pretty clearly not a coincidence. Unintentional, maybe, but that doesn't make it any less damaging. And even if something begins unintentionally, gets perpetuated because it's working, right? Like, it's working.

• 42:59Liv Albert?

  And of course, it goes well beyond modern Iraq, obviously, and blends with this narrative that the West knows best, that we should be the arbiters of justice and progress and what is right or wrong. You can watch it happening right now, right, from the comfort and safety of your home. Our countries, again, in the English-speaking Western supremacist countries, our countries have convinced us that millions of illegally occupied people, people forced into a system of oppression, stripped of their freedoms, and forced from the land that their parents lived on and their ancestors and their ancestors

• 43:40Liv Albert?

  and their ancestors, are, no matter, you know, their age or their actions, like, we've been convinced that they are seemingly deserving of death. Or at best, like, maybe they're not deserving of death, but they still aren't deserving of being saved, or being spoken about like they are people. Their murders at the hand of Western supremacy, like, Western bombs and Western bullets are just collateral, they're just secondary. Their deaths are not the intention of the West's actions, if you read most major press. Instead, they are dead by bullets, rather than killed by the hands that pulled the trigger.

• 44:23Liv Albert?

  They are dead by explosion, rather than killed by the country and countries that sent the bombs. We are meant to believe that their deaths are just unavoidable because of however many nonsense things you want to pull out of a hat. And that is only possible because of the way we have been led to think about the people in that region. Without the longstanding propaganda against Islam and the Arab world, without the separation of the people who look like that and worship like that and live in that area, like, without

• 45:03Liv Albert?

  the separation of them from the humanity that was established, like, there. Without that, the West would be forced to admit that the children that they are killing, that they have killed in the time that it has taken for me to read these words to you, because statistically, I think it's been more than one. Like, without that propaganda, they would have to admit that those children who have been murdered by them are just as deserving of life as children in the West. They would be forced to stop bombing, to, to listen to court rulings, to hear the call of their own people watching and begging for an end of these massacres.

• 45:46Liv Albert?

  And without that propaganda being so successful, they wouldn't be able to collectively punish millions of people for one group's actions, they wouldn't be able to weaponize resistance to Western supremacy and turn it into a crime.

• 46:03Liv Albert?

  Anyway, the myth of Western civilization and the entire colonial project of the West is a disease, and I hope, particularly if you're listening to this like from one of the big bad Western countries like my own, I just hope that you consider the actions of your countries and think about whether or not you agree with them. Like, outside of the things that we have been told are the truth, and instead by looking at what's happening and the innocent human lives that have been lost. Anyway, are people thinking about anything else lately? Enheduanna was really cool. I'm glad I got to talk about her. It did lead me to have to say some other things. And so on that very light note, let's end today's episode with a five-star review from one of you amazing listeners. Today's comes from a user called LFindley4 in Australia.

• 46:48Liv Albert?

  Addictive Podcast! This is honestly one of my favorite podcasts. I especially love the conversation episodes. Stay excellent, Liv. I'm glad you decided to make this. Thank you, me too. I like that I have a voice that I can speak about really important stuff, even if it scares me, because somehow, the world can't agree that killing children is wrong. Let's Talk with Myths, Baby is written and produced by me, Liv Albert. Michaela Smith is the Hermes to my Olympians, better known as the assistant producer. Laura Smith is the production assistant and audio engineer. Select music in this episode was by Luke Chaos. The podcast is part of the iHeart Podcast Network. Listen on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Help me continue bringing you the world of Greek mythology and the

• 47:32Liv Albert?

  ancient Mediterranean by becoming a patron where you'll get bonus episodes and more. Visit patreon.com/MythsBaby or click the link in this episode's description. I am Liv, and oh gods, I love the ancient Mediterranean and beyond. Like, I know that ancient Iraq is not on the Mediterranean. I recognize that, but in my head, it's just like, close enough, you know? Plus, ancient poetry by a woman that's really good. Did I already say I love this shit? I started rambling and then I didn't keep up with myself. I love this shit.

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