Ennigaldi (Ennigaldi-Nanna)

Nabonidus, father of Ennigaldi-Nanna

Princess Ennigaldi (Ennigaldi-Nanna) was the daughter of Nabonidus (Nabu-na'id), the last Neo-Babylonian king and ruler of the city of Ur (modern Tell el-Muqayyar, Iraq).[1][2][3][4]

Life

Ennigaldi lived in the 6th century BCE. She had 3 careers. One was as a school administrator, running a school for priestesses that was already over eight centuries old when she took over. Another was as a museum curator. And still another was as a high priestess (the en-priestess).[3][4] Archaeologist Sir Leonard Woolley notes in his work that her father king Nabonidus called her Belshalti-Nannar when she became the High Priestess of Nannar at Ur.[5] Ennigaldi became high priestess in 547 BCE. Her grandmother (Adad-Guppi) was also a high priestess, but was at this time already deceased.[3]

Ennigaldi received her additional name of Nanna because she was a high priestess of the male god Nanna (equivalent to the Old Babylonian moon deity Sin).[3] She devoted much of her religious time in the evenings to Nanna in a small blue room on top of the Great Ziggurat of Ur.[3] This worship temple at Ur for Ennigaldi, the high priestess, was called Nanna-Suen and was rebuilt by her father (it was originally rebuilt by Enanedu in the reign of her brother Rim-Sin I).[6] This temple is also referred to as the "giparu" for the entu-priestess (high priestess) and was considered a sacred place for "private cultic use."[7]

The "giparu" was for the high priestess only (moon goddess) and men were strictly forbidden to enter it. The "giparu" was built and rebuilt several times following Early Dynastic times. Ennigaldi's father, King Nabonidus, rebuilt the "giparu" for Ennigaldi around 590 BCE, not knowing at the time that this would be the last time it was rebuilt.[7][8] He recorded on brick tablets

“ ...along the side of Egipar the house of Ennigaldi-Nanna, my daughter, entu-priestess of Sin, I built new.[9] ”

Works

Ennigaldi-Nanna's Museum

Ennigaldi is noted by historians as being the creator of the world's first museum,[1][10] a museum of antiquities.[11]

The priestess school Ennigaldi operated around 530 BCE was for upper-class young women. Ennigaldi spent much less time on corporal punishment because she had a devoted captive audience, even though otherwise her school resembled the other Sumerian scribal schools in its teaching techniques, curriculum, and student equipment. Literate women at her school were taught a special dialect called Emesal.[3]

References

  1. 1 2 Anzovin, item # 1824, p. 69 The first museum known to historians was that of Ennigaldi-Nanna, the daughter of Nabu-na'id (Nabonidus), the last king to Babylonia.
  2. ↑ Casey, p. "Public Museum"
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Leon, pp. 36-37
  4. 1 2 The New Encyclopaedia Britannica, Volume 2, p. 481
  5. ↑ Woolley, Excavations at Ur..., p. 235
  6. ↑ George, p. 92
  7. 1 2 Enheduanna, p. 64
  8. ↑ Weadock, pp. 101-128
  9. ↑ Weadock, pp. 113
  10. ↑ Harvey, p. 20 Princess Ennigaldi-Nanna collected antiques from the southern regions of Mesopotamia, which she stored in a temple at Ur - the first known museum in the world.
  11. ↑ Gathercole, p. 12

Sources

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