Who was Enheduana?

Leon, Vicki. "Enheduana of Sumer." Outrageous Women of Ancient Times. N.p.: n.p., n.d. N. pag. 

Print. 

Who was Enheduana? 

Enheduana was a royal daughter who was the daughter of King Sargon. King Sargon started off as a farmer's son then became a cup bearer then became king! She also had two twin brothers, Rimush and Manishtusu. Enheduana was best known for being the first writer ever to put her name on her pieces of writing. She wrote many poems and hymns about the gods and godesses of the Sumerian religion, since she was assigned the high priestess of King Sargon's empire. She lived at the very top of a temple or ziggurat to be as close as possible to the gods. She was the first "best-selling" author as well. Enheduana was highly respected by most people and performed rituals and sacrifices to please the gods. Later, she started to write a lot about the moon-godess Inanna. After a few years, Inanna became the supreme or ultimate godess of Akkad and Sumer. A few years later there was a revolt against King Sargon and the rebels exiled Inanna from her temples. King Sargon managed to stop the revolt and forced his people to respect Inanna as the Ultimate godess. King Sargon then died and one of Enheduana's twin brothers, Rimush took over his empire. Then rimush was over thrown by his twin bother, Manishtusu. Both twin brothers were hated by a lot of people and both were killed by palace enemies. Enheduana's nephew grew to power and exiled Enheduana to he desert forever. Enheduana was very important to better understand this time period. It is rare to find written down emotions, thoughts, and beliefs from a woman during almost any time period. Her literature also helped us better understand the religion. The gods, godesses, rituals, and stories/tales. Since her literature was written on clay tablets, it was preserved for thousands of years. 

Cuneiform Writing Activity Reflection

Cuneiform Writing Activity Reflection 

by Tyler Monestel 

In class we did a fun activity in which we had to write a sentence about Mesopotamia in the Ancient Sumerian language of cuneiform. After that we needed to read another persons sentence and translate into English. I think this activity introduced us to the language of cuneiform, which is way different than most modern day languages, especially English. Since cuneiform is based more on shape than text, it is particularly hard to translate since English is more text or phonetic based. A good example is that English uses text like letters A,B,C,D,and E while Cuneiform is based on shapes like triangles  ► ▼.I think that writing the language was harder than reading. Writing took a long time and effort just to make a few words. I personally think that cuneiform is a lot harder than writing and reading most modern languages like English, German, Spanish, French, and so on.  

Did Hammurabi's Code mark the development of law and order?

Did Hammurabi's Code mark the development of law and order? 

I personally think that Hammurabi's Code did mark the development of order. Hammurabi was the first peron to ever create a big set of laws for an empire, which was Babylonia. Hammurabi's code was a set of 282 laws which covered many topics such as divorce, assault, theft, and more. His code had a variety of laws that covered many situtations. I believe that most of Hammurabi's Laws were fair. For example one of his fair laws are: If someone helping to put out a fire loots (steals something from the premises), that individual may be thrown into the fire. I think this is a fair law for two reasons, one, that person was looting, which is already a crime by itself. The second reason is that the person is not only looting, but also is stealing while they should be helping to out the fire. Another fair law is: A person who lies while serving as a witness in a case involving death penalty, that person might also be put to death. Even today if you lie in court you can get a penalty. Lying in court is almost as bad as committing the crime because you are not wanting to help the government find the culprit.  

Some people say that Hammurabi's code was strict.  Well he had to be strict. This was during the times of Babylon, not today, so things were harsher. If you ever want for crime levels to drop you have to make people frightened to commit crimes. If you have strict laws people will see that by committing a crime you might get harsh punishments that may involve ending their life. Even though I think most of hammurabi's laws are fair, there are some that are unfair. An example is: A builder who sells a poorly built house that kills it's owner, maybe put to death. If the collapse kills the son of the owner, than the builder's son is punished. I think this is a very unfair law. First of all, even well built houses can collapse over time. So the builder should not receive a punishment unless it is a fairly new house. The second part is even more unfair! Why does the engineer's son get punished!? He had nothing to do with the incident. If he did, then he should be punished. Even though some of Hammurabi's laws were strict, overall it helped bring order and justice to Babylon. 

Citation:

Landau, Elaine. "Hammurabi's Babylonia." The Babylonians. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 

2010. 39-44. Print.