Origin from 2285 BCE
The formal installation of an entu, a high priestess most often devoted to a city's chief moon or sky god and frequently drawn from the royal family, into her sacred office. The rite involved purification, presentation of insignia and vestments, and public ceremony establishing her as the god's intimate attendant. Best documented through Enheduanna, daughter of Sargon of Akkad, installed as entu priestess of the moon god Nanna at Ur in the twenty third century BCE, whose own hymn compositions provide rare first person testimony to the office from within.
Facts
Origins
Origin Period2285 BCE falls within the twenty third century BCE, the installation its own text names for Enheduanna, daughter of Sargon of Akkad, as entu priestess of the moon god Nanna at Ur. Place of OriginUr, in ancient Mesopotamia 2 Historical OriginThe office is best known through Enheduanna, installed as entu priestess of the moon god Nanna at Ur in the twenty-third century BCE and remembered as the earliest author in world literature known by name. 1 Use
OccasionA vacancy in the office, filled by a woman of high or royal family whose selection was confirmed by divination. 1 Attributions
PurposeInstalling a woman as the high priestess of a god, an office that carried standing in the temple household and, where the appointment was royal, in the state as well. 1 Meaning
Literal MeaningAkkadian for high priestess, naming the installation of a woman, often a royal daughter, into the office of chief priestess dedicated to a city's patron god, a role Enheduanna herself is understood to have held at Ur. 2 Status
Current StatusNot performed. Known from ritual tablets and from royal inscriptions recording individual installations. 1 Function
Stage of Life MarkedOrdination, profession or vows 1 Practice
Who Performs ItThe candidate undergoing the rite 1 FrequencyAs the occasion requires 1 Solitary or CommunalPerformed by an officiant for a recipient 1 Text
Source TextInanna, Lady of Largest Heart: Poems of the Sumerian High Priestess Enheduanna draws on the corpus of temple hymns and administrative texts naming the entu priestess, the office Enheduanna herself held as high priestess of the moon god Nanna at Ur. 2 Learn More
Enheduanna, Installed
The best documented instance of an entu installation belongs to Enheduanna, daughter of Sargon of Akkad, who was installed as entu priestess of the moon god Nanna at Ur, one of Sumer's oldest and most prestigious religious centers, in the twenty third century BCE. The appointment served an obvious political purpose, binding the newly conquering Akkadian dynasty to the religious establishment of a conquered but venerable Sumerian city through the person of the king's own daughter, but Betty De Shong Meador's translation of Enheduanna's surviving hymn compositions shows the office was lived, and written about, as a genuine and demanding religious vocation rather than only a political appointment.
Enheduanna's own poetry, particularly the hymn conventionally titled The Exaltation of Inanna, describes a period in which she was driven from her temple during unrest at Ur and pleads for restoration to her office, giving modern readers an unusually direct, first person account of what the entu's installation and standing meant to the woman who actually held it, making her very likely the earliest named author in world literature whose surviving work we can read at all.
An Office That Outlasted Its First Holder
The entu office continued well beyond Enheduanna's own lifetime, most notably at Sippar, where entu priestesses served the sun god Shamash and resided in a walled cloister called the gagu alongside other consecrated women, including the related class known as naditu. Old Babylonian legal and economic archives from Sippar document these women's property rights, business dealings and legal standing in considerable practical detail, showing the entu's installation opened onto a real, materially significant institutional life rather than a purely ceremonial or symbolic role.
Jeremy Black and Anthony Green's dictionary of Mesopotamian religion places the entu among the most senior ranks of Mesopotamian priesthood open to women, and Enheduanna's own writing, still read as a foundational text of Mesopotamian devotional literature, ensures that the installation rite which placed her in that rank remains one of the very few Mesopotamian religious ceremonies known partly through the words of the person who actually underwent it.
Cross-Tradition Connections
Associated With
The rite's own origin-period-start-year fact names Enheduanna, daughter of Sargon of Akkad, as its attested worked example, and its article "Enheduanna, Installed" is about her installation specifically.
Sin, Deities The rite's own origin-period-start-year fact names Enheduanna's installation as entu priestess of "the moon god Nanna at Ur"; Sin is this family's single entity for the Sin/Nanna pair.
Belongs to Tradition
The entu installation is documented at Ur through Enheduanna and at Sippar through Old Babylonian cloister archives.
Sources
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