Enheduanna
The earliest author known by name is a woman, and a priestess.
- When
- —
- Duration
- 35 years
- Known to
- ± 50 years
- Era
- Bronze Age, Holocene
Sargon's daughter, installed as high priestess of the moon god at Ur, composed a body of hymns to the goddess Inanna that survive in later copies and are signed — she names herself in the text and writes in the first person about her own experience, including her expulsion during a revolt. She is the first identifiable author in world literature by roughly 1,500 years, and she was writing devotional poetry, not administration.