Women and Communication in the Ancient Near East

Author(s): Samuel A. Meier

Source: Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 111, No. 3 (Jul. - Sep., 1991), pp. 540-
547
Published by: American Oriental Society
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WOMEN AND COMMUNICATION IN THE ANCIENT NEAR EAST
SAMUEL A. MEIER
OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY
Data from Mesopotamia regarding female scribes and data from both Israel and Mesopotamia
with respect to female messengers are coordinated in an investigation of one aspect of the long-
distance communication process in antiquity. Although minimal in quantity, the broad distribution
of data-both geographically and temporally-for the role of women in the channeling of commu-
nication points toward an overlooked dimension in the perception of women in the ancient world.
Additional observations concern the social consequences of females functioning as vehicles for com-
munication and the educational process by which the communication network was maintained.
THE PRIMARY MEANS OF RELAYING information over
substantial distances in the ancient Near East was
achieved through a symbiosis of scribe and messenger.'
A correspondent achieved two desirable results when
employing simultaneously a messenger and a written
letter: 1) precision of the written text and 2) explication
of the text through the messenger.2 This long-lived
insistence upon redundancy in communication-that
is, the reliance on both messenger and document-in
the ancient world suggests that in general both mem-
bers provided the ideal format for communication.3 A
2nd-millennium B.C. treaty already underscores this
feature when it insists that if the words of the messenger
l For the generalizations see Samuel A. Meier, The Messen-
ger in the Ancient Semitic World, Harvard Semitic Mono-
graphs 45 (Atlanta: Scholars, 1988). Although messenger
activity may encompass more than simple transfer of verbal
communiques (including, for example, transferring movable
properties, escorting persons, acting as a legal agent), this
discussion is confined only to verbal communication where at
least two parties mediate a long-distance dialogue through a
messenger. One must exclude as a separate social phenome-
non cases where one party is not aware that certain individuals
are acting at another's behest, often deliberately to subvert
communication (e.g., Jud 16:4-22; Ruth 3:1-18; 2 Sam 14:1-
20; 1 Kgs 14:1-18). 1 Kgs 2:13-25 is similarly peripheral, for
there Bathsheba is functioning in a capacity well attested for
queens; she could not be described as a messenger, for nowhere
is a messenger known to act for one who is of lesser social
status.
2 Cf. Andrew Ellis and Geoffrey Beattie, The Psychology of
Communication (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1986),
200-202. Messengers minimized the misunderstanding
spawned by selective perception (cf. Werner Severin and James
Tankard, Jr., Communication Theories [New York: Hastings
House, 1979], 128-29) and the demonstrated impoverishment
of the communication process when information is transmitted
only in written form. Receiving information is by far the more
difficult communicative task (Dean C. Barnlund, "Communi-
cation: The Context of Change," in Perspectives on Com-
munication, ed. C. E. Larson and F. E. X. Dance [Madison:
Helix, 1968], 24-40).
3 The longevity of the high redundancy of this essentially
double communication points to the serious problems associ-
ated with communication in the ancient Near East. The more
noise in a channel, the greater the need for redundancy; and
the more redundancy, the less information a channel can
convey (see Severin and Tankard, 46-47). The elaborate
epistolary forms and stereotypical content of late Bronze Age
international letters point in this same direction. The varied
grammars reflected in the Amarna letters underscore that not
all parties are equally adept in employing a lingua franca,
overloading the channel with misleading or irrelevant input,
which may be further obscured by scribal ineptitude; see, for
example, Anson F. Rainey, "The Scatterbrained Scribe," in
Studies in Bible and the Ancient Near East Presented to
Samuel E. Loewenstamm on His Seventieth Birthday, ed.
Yitschak Avishur and Joshua Blau (Jerusalem: E. Rubenstein,
1978), 141-50.
540
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MEIER: Women and Communication in the Ancient Near East 541
do not agree with the words of the document, there is a
short-circuit in the communication process.4
The evidence for men in both the roles of messenger
and scribe is abundantly documented; that for women
considerably less so. Of what significance is this dis-
parity? Can one nevertheless assume that women func-
tioned as precise counterparts to males in this sphere?
And what determined the selection of females in these
roles? In a recent colloquium dedicated to women in
the ancient Near East, it is surprising to find J. C.
Greenfield observing that "by the nature of things
women would not serve as scribes."5 It is not quite
clear what the "nature of things" is, but female scribes
are certainly a feature of Mesopotamian culture. Al-
though the evidence for female scribes spans the period
from the end of the third millennium to the first mil-
lennium B.C., identifying female scribes is problematic.6
In the earliest period, there was no gender marking in
Sumerian to distinguish women from men in occupa-
tions which both shared: a scribe in Sumerian was
simply d u b - s a r, whether the title referred to a male or
female, and it was only under the cultural influence of
the Akkadians that a formal distinction was introduced
in the script (SAL.DUB.SAR for a woman).7 Even then,
the SAL female determinative was not rigidly applied.
The Neo-Assyrian woman Attar-palti in one text is a
scribe with no determinative marking gender (A.BA-ta),
but in another text she appears as a scribe with the
male determinative (LfJ.A.BA-t6).8 The Old Babylonian
Ishtar-ummi prefers to employ the bare form DUB.SAR
to describe herself when writing contracts,9 in contrast
to her sister scribes from the same community, who use
the feminine determinative.'1
Women were responsible for inscribing other cunei-
form texts now housed in museums, but the anonymity
of much of the evidence prevents us from discriminat-
ing between male and female scribes. As a rule, scribes
do not identify themselves in letters-in contrast to the
practice of formal colophons on literary texts, from
which most information about scribes is derived. In the
format of legal texts-the only locus so far where one
is able to identify with confidence the actual work of
female scribes-the formating and technique is indis-
tinguishable from that of male scribes. But this very
ambiguity is a significant datum in that it affirms a
continuity in educational instruction and the correspond-
ing maintenance of common social forms.
4
Ernst Weidner, Politische Dokumente aus Kleinasien,
Boghazkoi-Studien 8-9 (Leipzig, 1923): 108-9,11. 32-39. The
persons of scribe and messenger were rarely merged. Some
messengers were qualified as scribes (e.g., Akapurhe in HSS
XIII 175.4,11; Asali in EA 24.IV.36-37; Balatu in GCCI
1 327.5 [cf. YOS VI 22.12]; Sin-nadin-zer in AnOr 8 61.11).
But this is an oddity; most messengers are not identified as
scribes. In no case is it apparent that a single person func-
tioned as both scribe and messenger for the same communi-
que. This undermines A. D. Crown's thesis ("Messengers and
Scribes: The s6pir and mal'dk in the Old Testament," VT 24
[1974]: 366-70) that the biblical s6pir was the institutionalized
messenger of the Israelite monarchy (p. 369). Since many
officials functioned as messengers, the fact that a s6pir could
so behave does not, therefore, make every s6pir in the king's
employ a messenger. The etymological identification of the
Akkadian root spr with the Hebrew root spr is inappropriately
defended by recourse to a later Assyrianism. When the West-
Semitic root infiltrated Neo-Babylonian, it had nothing to do
with messenger activity (sepiru "to write alphabetic script";
sepTru "scribe writing alphabetic script" [CAD S 225]). No
more eloquent testimony of the distinction is possible than the
scribal denigration of the messenger in "The Satire of the
Trades" (M. Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature [Berkeley
and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1973], 188).
The equation Thoth = Hermes is a late perception.
5
J. C. Greenfield, "Some Neo-Babylonian Women," 75-80,
in La Femme dans le Proche Orient antique, compte rendu de
la XXXIIIe Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale (Paris,
7-10 Juillet 1986), ed. Jean-Marie Durand (Paris: Editions
Recherche sur les Civilisations, 1987), 79.
6
The study by Julia M. Asher-Greve (Frauen in altsumer-
ischer Zeit, Bibliotheca Mesopotamica 18 [Malibu: Undena,
1985]) identifies no female scribes in the pre-Sargonic period,
even though women are clearly attested in economic trans-
actions, where they buy and sell property and function as
witnesses (pp. 163-65).
7 P. Steinkeller, "Two Sargonic Sale Documents Concerning
Women," Or 51 (1982): 358-59. A s al-du b - s ar appears in a
broken and undated Ur III text listing provision disbursements
to various women and men (A. L. Oppenheim, Catalogue of
the Cuneiform Tablets of the Wilberforce Eames Babylonian
Collection in the New York Public Library [New Haven:
American Oriental Society, 1948], 21-22, pl. VII-VIII; col. II
1. 10).
8 S. Dalley and J. N. Postgate, The Tablets from Fort Shal-
maneser (Oxford: Alden, 1984), 39.3-5; 40.2-3. In the text,
where she appears as a scribe with the male determinative,
note how the tablet correctly uses the female determinative,
while the envelope employs the male determinative.
9
BE6/ 1 7.22; CT6 42a.34; 8 28a; 28b; 44a.38.
10
SAL.DUB.SAR in VAS 8.55.30; CT 4 50a; 6 24b; 6 35a.18
46.29; 8 45.37 46.55. DUB.SAR.SAL in CT8 47b.29.
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542 Journal of the American Oriental Society 111.3 (1991)
In this regard, considerable attention has been de-
voted of late to the investigation of the data pertaining
to education in ancient Mesopotamia"1 and Israel."2
Since much of the textual data from Mesopotamia
comes from school-texts, it follows that school activi-
ties are among the more readily demonstrable aspects
of antiquity.13 It is remarkable how much of recent
discussion has focused upon the male: it is generally
the "schoolboy" who is the paradigm of such studies.
Surely it is a serious oversight to neglect the significant
educational investment in women, which was not on a
small scale. When one considers the fourteen female
scribes so far attested in just one Old Babylonian city,
Sippar, 14 another grouping of nine named female
scribes in an oil ration list from the Mari palace in the
same period,'5 or a Neo-Assyrian personnel list that
mentions six female scribes associated with the palace,16
it is evident that the female scribe was not merely an
ancillary phenomenon and that the training of women
must have occupied the attention of at least some
schools to a not insignificant degree.
It will not suffice to reaffirm the obvious fact that
fathers taught their sons, without also placing the in-
struction of girls in this framework. The bivalent orien-
tation of many of the instructional and wisdom texts is
often overlooked in this regard. The Sumerian composi-
tion that A. Sjoberg edited as "In Praise of the Scribal
Art" begins with the significant imagery, "The scribal
art is the mother of orators(?), the father of masters""7
in a fashion reminiscent of the biblical book of Pro-
verbs, which encourages the neophyte to heed the in-
struction of both mother and father (Prov 1:8; 6:20).
Whether one understands this in the traditional sense
of one's literal parents or merely as a metaphor,18 the
imagery echoes the female personification of wisdom in
Proverbs 1-9, a woman who gathers students to hear
her instruction. We even hear the voice of the queen
giving instruction in Proverbs 31:1-9; and Proverbs
31:10-31 has been described as "un programme d'&du-
cation pour des files d'un certain milieu social, appelees
a assumer un certain nombre de responsabilites soit
seules soit aux cotes de leur mari."'9 It is, therefore, far
from a foregone conclusion that women played no role
in instruction.
There is no question that the primary object of atten-
tion is the male in Israelite,20 Egyptian,2' and Meso-
"
Robert S. Falkowitz, "Round Old Babylonian Tablets
from Nippur," AfO 29-30 (1983-84): 18-45; W. H. Hallo,
"The Expansion of Cuneiform Literature," Proceedings of the
American Academy of Jewish Research 46 (1979-80): 307-
22; M. Civil, "Sur les livres d'colier a l'6poque paleo-
babylonienne," in Miscellanea babylonica: Melanges offerts i
Maurice Birot, ed. Jean-Marie Durand and Jean-Robert Kup-
per (Paris: Editions Recherche sur les Civilisations, 1985),
67-78; A. Sjdberg, "The Old Babylonian Eduba," in Sumero-
logical Studies in Honor of Thorkild Jacobsen on His Seven-
tieth Birthday, AS 20 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1975), 159-79.
12 Two primary works are Andre Lemaire, Les Ecoles et
laformation de la Bible dans l'ancien Israel, OBO 39 (Gdttin-
gen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1981) and David William
Jamieson-Drake, "Scribes and Schools in Monarchic Judah:
A Socio-Archeological Approach" (Ph.D. dissertation, Duke
University, 1988). Congress Volume, Jerusalem 1986, ed. J. A.
Emerton, Supplements to VT 40 (1988) contains three crucial
articles that provide access to recent work: Menahem Haran,
"On the Diffusion of Literacy and Schools in Ancient Israel"
(pp. 18-95); E. Lipifiski, "Royal and State Scribes in Ancient
Jerusalem" (pp. 157-64); Emile Puech, "Les Ecoles dans
l'Israel preexilique: Donn~es 6pigraphiques" (pp. 189-203).
'3 Most helpful are texts such as the exams, which encapsu-
late the curriculum and some of the pedagogy employed; see
A. Sjoberg,
"Der Examenstext A," ZA 64 (1974-75): 137-76,
where he notes (p. 137), "Es unterliegt m.E. keinem Zweifel
dass 'Examenstext A' zum grossen Teil den Unterricht und
Lehrplan der altbabylonischen Schule (e- d u b - b a-a) wieder-
spielt." For the archaeological remains of such schools, see for
example the discussion of House F in Elizabeth Stone, Nippur
Neighborhoods, OIP 44 (Chicago: Oriental Institute, 1987),
56-57.
14
For references to thirteen of these women, see R. Harris,
Sippar, 197, with further discussion of some of them in R. Har-
ris, "Biographical Notes on the nadTtu Women of Sippar,"
JCS 16 (1962): 1-12. Add to her list a fourteenth, Samag-erig
(CT4 50a.30).
'5 M. Birot, "Textes 'conomiques de Mar (IV)," RA 50
(1956): 57-72, IV.19-29. Discrete categories of women are
noted preceding (e.g., priestess, king's daughters, singers, and
the kisalluhhatu-officials) and following (e.g., the abarakkatu-
stewardesses, bakers, brewers, and water-drawers) the female
scribes, with a general decline in the amount of oil distributed
to these groups as the text progresses from beginning to end.
16 B. Landsberger, "Akkadisch-hebra.ische Wortgleichun-
gen," in Supplements to VT 16 (1967), 202-3.
17 A. Sjdberg, "In Praise of the Scribal Art," JCS 24 (1972):
126-31.
18 See Alan Cooper, "On Reading Biblical Poetry," Maarav
4 (1987): 233-40.
'9
Lemaire, Lcoles, 43.
20 The vocative "My son" or "sons" (the plural is less fre-
quent; see Prov 4: 1; 5:7; 7:24) is ubiquitous in Prov 1-9, and
never does "my daughter" appear.
21 Ronald J. Williams, "Scribal Training in Ancient Egypt,"
JA OS 92 (1972): 214-21.
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MEIER: Women and Communication in the Ancient Near East 543
potamian" instruction, a fact that corresponds with
the degree to which males dominated in the communi-
cation network. But women were not locked out. The
above factors, along with other elements, suggest at
least some predisposition to the integration of the
feminine in instruction.23 We agree with Lang that
Wisdom may be perceived as "the divine patroness of
the Israelite school system"24 and that the book of
Proverbs is a literary legacy of the Israelite school
system. If so, it testifies to an impressive feminine
influence in instruction. There were not only wise men
in Israel (hkmym) but wise women as well ('sh hkmh in
2 Sam 14:2; 20:16) who are associated with specific
locales which may represent educational centers for
women.25 The presence of female scribes is a fact; the
locus of their training, although elusive, is not entirely
alien to certain strains in wisdom literature and may
reasonably be sought in that direction.
It is curious that although the tutelary deity of the
Mesopotamian scribe in the late period is the male
deity Nabu, in the early period his predecessor is fe-
male-the goddess Nisaba. She is not only the goddess
who superintends the scribes and their craft, but in
numerous texts she (along with other goddesses with
similar attributes)16 is also "the scribe"
(!ups'arratum)
when the
gods gather,27
"chief scribe
(d
ub - s ar m
ah)
of Anu"28 the "scribe of the land (dub-sar kalam-
ma),"29 and the one who holds stylus and tablet in
hand ready for composition.30 Among those kings
who were trained in the scribal art, such as Shulgi, there
is pride in the assertion that "I am a wise scribe
of Nisaba."31 Even in the late period, the perception
of a female among the scribes persists when both
Nabu and Nisaba together are identified in the colo-
phon of an incantation text as the masters of the
scribal school (academy? workshop?; Nabz2 u Nisaba
belle bTt mumme).32 Whatever the psychological or his-
torical processes behind the conception of a female
deity as the prototype of all scribes33 (e.g., a connection
22
"The scribe (dub-sar) examines his son (dumu-a-ni)"
(A. Sjoberg, "Der Examenstext A," ZA 64 [1974-75]: 137-76,
1. 1). But since Sumerian originally applied the designation
du mu equally to males and females, the momentum of tradi-
tion would not find in this statement a necessary exclusion of
women.
23 The hostile attitudes of some later rabbinic traditions
toward the education of females should not be read back into
the earlier period. Although R. Eliezer was uncompromising
in forbidding a father to teach Torah to his daughter (Sotah
3.4), an attitude reflected in the general minimizing of educa-
tion for daughters (BT Qiddushin 29b-30a), the golden age of
Hezekiah's day was described as a period in which men and
women were equally well educated (BT Sanhedrin 94b).
24
Bernhard Lang, Wisdom and the Book of Proverbs: A
Hebrew Goddess Redefined (New York: Pilgrims, 1986).
25 Note Abel-beth-Maacah's reputation for wisdom in 2 Sam
20:16-22; why does Joab send to Tekoa for the wise woman?
Tamara Eskenazi pointed out to me the possible relevance of
"the sons of the female scribe" bnce hass6peret (Ezra 2:55)
who returned from Babylon. The parallel passage in Neh 7:57,
by omitting the definite article, assumes a proper name, the
masculine form of which is broadly attested in Aramaic per-
sonal names. (In addition to the citations in J. Stark, Personal
Names in Palmyrene Inscriptions [Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1971], 102, see Walter Kornfeld, Onomastica aramaica aus
Agypten, Osterreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften 333
[Wien, 1978], 64.) In either case, this is the only explicit
reference to the notion of a female scribe in the Hebrew Bible.
26
Geshtinanna is the "queen of scribes" (ga-ga-an dub-
sar-ke; Bendt Alster, "Paradoxical Proverbs and Satire in
Sumerian Literature," JCS 27 [1975]: 217-18, 1. 24) and the
"scribe of the gods"
(!uprgarratul
9a ildni; Erich Ebeling, Tod
und Leben nach den Vorstellungen der Babylonier [Berlin &
Leipzig, 1931], 147-48); Belit-seri is the "scribe of the under-
world" (upgarrat ersetim; Gilgamesh VII.iv.51) or the "chief
scribe" (DUB.SAR.MAH; R. C. Thompson, The Devils and Evil
Spirits of Babylonia [London, 1903], 33 11. 4-5); Ningeshtin is
the "great scribe" tupsgarrati rabTti (Henri Limet, Les Legendes
des sceaux cassites [Bruxelles: Academie Royale de Belgique,
1971], 11.1).
27
Ivan Starr, The Rituals of the Diviner (Bibliotheca Meso-
potamica 12; Malibu: Undena, 1983), 30,37 1. 17.
28
V. Scheil, "La Deese Nisaba," OLZ 7 (1904): 253-55;
11. 10-11.
29
Carlos Alfredo Benito, "Enki and the World Order" (Ph.D.
dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 1969),1. 415.
30
Gudea A 5.22-23; Daniel David Reisman, "Two Neo-
Sumerian Royal Hymns" (Ph.D. diss., Univ. of Pennsylvania,
1969), 103, 115 11. 5-8 (cf. translation by T. Jacobsen, Trea-
sures of Darkness [New Haven: Yale, 1976], 10).
31 Shulgi A 12.
32
KAR 31 r.27 (see CAD M [2] 197-98).
33
A parallel phenomenon surfaces in Egypt, where a male
deity-Thoth-is the patron of scribes, but it is a female deity
who is the inventor of writing-Seshat (cf. Naissance de
l'ecritures cuneformes et hi&oglyphiqes, 4th edition [Paris:
Editions de la Reunion des Musees Nationaux], 342). The
Egyptian scribe s? has a rare feminine counterpart sit, also
identified with a palette ideogram. But it is not clear if this
female is always to be understood as a female scribe or one
who managed accounts (Henry George Fischer, Egyptian
Titles of the Middle Kingdom: A Supplement to William
Ward's Index [New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art,
1985], 86) or as a cosmetician ("Maquilleuse en Egyptien,"
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544 Journal of the American Oriental Society 111.3 (1991)
between a goddess of fertility and the necessary account
lists that record inventories,34 or as the goddess of
growing plants who is therefore present in the reed
stylus of the scribe),35 the omnipresence of the patroness
of writing easily permits the accommodation, if not in
great numbers, of women in the educational institu-
tions. The presence of female instructors (musahizdtu)
at Mari is a tantalizing datum, but the skill they taught
is unknown.36
The fluctuating socio-political mystique of the
mother-goddess, which underwent a transformation in
the course of Mesopotamian history, may be directly
related to a shift in orientation from female to male
priority in institutionalized learning. Complex pro-
cesses were at work in population redistribution and
economic reorientation in early Mesopotamia, but there
clearly was a pronounced shift in power from female to
male from the third millennium to the beginning of the
second millennium B.C.37 This shift is dramatic, for
example, in the competition between Enki and the
mother goddess, as Jacobsen notes:
The unquestioned traditional prominence of the god-
dess appears to have created difficulties . in patri-
archal political terms.... The position of the goddess
in the cosmic hierarchy proved untenable, and slowly
she had to yield before a male god who, as she herself,
represented numinous power in giving form and giving
birth, the god of the fresh water, Enki/
Ea. In the latter
half of the Isin-Larsa period his name begins to precede
that of Ninhursaga or other names of the birth goddess
in the ranking of the highest gods . . . and eventually
her name was completely replaced by that of Enki.38
As a concomitant of such restructuring a part of the
upheavals set in motion by the urban revolution in the
fourth millennium B.C. (when writing first appears)-
the earlier perception of the feminine dimension in
writing was modified. The ideology of the pen was not
impervious to the changes that were redefining social
and economic structures elsewhere in society.39
It is not quite clear how much can be gleaned from
the presence of female scribes as to the social position
that such individuals enjoyed. Often one reads generous
statements to the effect that scribes in Mesopotamia
were "members of a privileged elite who might look
with contempt on their fellow citizens,"40 or that "the
scribes, as a class, were of unusual importance in Ju-
dean culture."4' But Parpola's more balanced observa-
tions suggest that even though the scribe was privileged
in certain respects, the life of even the most skilled
scribe was hardly enviable; scholarship is generally not
the prelude to the luxurious life, and the same perspec-
42
tive seems to surface from evidence in Mesopotamia.
It of course remains true that the scribal profession
seems to have been limited to those of adequate means
who could afford the leisure and monetary costs associ-
ated with the educational process. Scribal training may
have required, but did not necessarily lead to, leisure
and surplus wealth.
Our perception of the scribal mystique has been
unduly influenced by evidence that unfairly-allows
for no evidence to the contrary. One reads in Meso-
potamia and Egypt of the superior benefits and prestige
accruing to those pursuing the scribal art. But the fact
that we read this perspective already prejudices the
case. Were there available apologies for the potter or
the metal-worker, it is certain that they would exalt
each profession at the expense of the others, much as
the numerous examples of the disputation genre attest
the genuine skill of the ancients in playing off against
each other the qualities of horse and ox, dog and fox,
Revue dIEgyptologie 21 (1969): 150-51). Since the writing
equipment of some female royal offspring has been discovered,
presumably at least such women had the opportunity to de-
velop literary skills (Norma Jean Katan, Hieroglyphs, the
Writing of Ancient Egypt [Revised; London: Trustees of the
British Museum, 1985], 25); cf. R. J. Williams, "Scribal Train-
ing," 220.
34 So V. Scheil, "La Deese Nisaba," 254.
"
So T. Jacobsen, Treasures of Darkness, 10.
36 ARM XXII 55.riii.5'-9', a tablet listing oil rations for
numerous women including the king's daughters. The mascu-
line form mugdhizu is broadly attested (CAD M [2] 254).
37 Mary K. Wakeman, "Ancient Sumer and the Women's
Movement: The Process of Reaching Behind, Encompassing
and Going Beyond," Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion
1/2 (1985): 13-14, 20-23.
3 Thorkild Jacobsen, "Notes on Nintur," Or 42 (1973): 294.
39 See M. Wakeman, "Ancient Sumer," 7-27.
40
C. B. F. Walker, Cuneiform (London: British Museum
Publications, 1987), 33. R. Harris (Sippar, 223) includes
scribes among the "well-to-do," and the study by P. Negri
Scafa points in the same direction ("Gli scribi di Nuzi in
funzioni diverse da redattori di testi: Osservazioni prelimi-
nari," Mesopotamia 21 [1986]: 249-59).
4' Richard S. Hanson, "Ancient Scribes and Scripts," Bibli-
cal Archaeologist 48 (1985): 86.
42 Simo Parpola, "The Forlorn Scholar," in Language, Litera-
ture, and History: Philological and Historical Studies Pre-
sented to Erica Reiner, ed. Francesca Rochberg-Halton (New
Haven: American Oriental Society, 1987), 257-78.
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MEIER: Women and Communication in the Ancient Near East 545
etc. In the case of the scribal art, however, it is only the
scribes who have left us a defence of their trade. In the
absence of comparable witnesses for other trades, which
also required years of apprenticeship and the nurturing
of skill, it is unwise to assume that the self-esteem of
the scribes was a perception shared by all. The status of
the Old Babylonian female scribe STma-ilat as another's
property among other purchased females clarifies that
the scribal skill did not guarantee economic or social
independence (ARM XXII 322.58).
Turning now to the messenger: in the same way
in which the female scribe was identified by a char-
acteristic grammatical modification of the noun which
identified males
(Qupsarru
> tupsarratu),43 the female
messenger was similarly so marked: mdr sipri > mdrat
Sipri. The persistence of the evidence for feminine ac-
tivity as messengers is comparable to that for female
scribes noted above; the Akkadian marat sipri is at-
tested from the Old Babylonian period down to the
Persian empire. Again, males are far more numerous
than females in the evidence available."
Ana-makanigu, in 535 B.C., is identified by this title
as a female messenger (SAL.DUMU sip-ri; Cyr. 177.14)
sent by another woman, a certain Qudasu. Qudagu can
be shown to be the mother of both the debtor (Iddin-
Nabu) and the guarantor (Nergal-etir) in the text in
which Ana-makanigu appears,45 sent to declare that
one and one-third mina of silver from the assets of the
crown prince Cambyses can be authorized for her son:
"Upon the order of Ana-makanigu, messenger of Qu-
dasu, the silver is delivered to Iddin-Nabu" (ina qibi sa
Ana-makdnisu mdrat sipri sa Qudasu kaspu ana Iddin-
Nabu' nadin; 1.14-15). The choice of a female in this
case was likely dictated by the sex of the sender, for a
woman sends a woman to represent her and speak her
words of approval for an economic transaction between
men, of whom one party was her son.
In the Old Babylonian period, a woman (Hannabna-
tum) records in a letter her dismay at having no female
messenger to send (DUMU.SAL Si-ip-ri).46 She specifically
cites in connection with this problem her inability to
send wood to her father, presumably a task which she
would entrust to female messengers if she had them.
The context of the letter also makes it clear that the
females whom Hannabnatum sends as messengers had
the status of slaves (amatum). Again, women employed
as messengers are found in the service of other women.
But one must not limit the discussion solely to
the lexical item mdrat sipri. One finds women sent on
missions implying messenger activity, even though
the description mdrat sipri does not appear. Erishti-
Shamash was accustomed to send her maid on mis-
sions, to judge from the advice of one man to whom
she was sent, "Don't send your maid again" (sruthlartaki
la- taturrima Id tasappari, AbB VII 25.8-10). The verb
employed here is not the usual tarddu, used to speak of
dispatching servants or merchandise, but sapdru, which
is limited in the Old Babylonian period to sending
someone with a message for another. Again, the female
messenger is in the employ of another woman.
The Bible also knows of women sent as messengers.
The named messengers Ahimaaz and Jonathan who
assisted David in his flight from Jerusalem before his
usurping son Absalom tend to be more prominent in
our minds. But their mission would have failed without
the unnamed female messenger who relayed the crucial
message from Jerusalem to En-Rogel (2 Sam 17:17).
She is identified only as "the maid": wehalkdh has-
siphdh wehiggiddh ldhem "and the maid would go and
tell them." Her task is described no differently from
that of the two men: wehc-m y-lgkuz wehiggidz2 lam-
melek ddwid "and they would go and tell King David."
The covert activity of these messengers in the face of
danger reflects a frequent reality of communication in
the ancient Near East.47
We noted above that female messengers functioned
in the employ of other females in Mesopotamia. This
biblical example is thus exceptional in identifying a
43 In addition to the appearance of the scribe in the lexical
lists that delineate occupations (MSL XII 34-35, 80-81),
female scribes also are noted, but curiously they are not noted
as the female counterpart to the male scribes at this point in
the lists (as is done with some occupations, where both men
and women are noted as fulfilling these tasks, e.g., MSL,
pp. 42, 44). Instead, already in the Old Babylonian period, the
female scribe is listed in sections devoted specifically to female
occupations (MSL, pp. 58, 66).
44
It is precarious to estimate the relative numbers of female
and male scribes and messengers. In OB Sippar, before the
decline of the cloister, present evidence indicates one female
to fifteen male scribes. But Sippar must not be taken as
paradigmatic, and the ratio at any given time and place was
likely a function of the vitality of other feminine institutions
that utilized the services of women scribes and messengers (as
will be pointed out below).
45 F. Peiser, Texte juristischen und geschaftlichen Inhalts,
KB 4 (Berlin: Reuther und Reichard, 1896), 272-73.
46 Samuel Greengus, Studies in Ischali Documents, Biblio-
theca Mesopotamica 19 (Malibu: Undena, 1986), 11.
47 S. Meier, The Messenger, 65-66, 76-80. Unlike the cases
cited above in n. 1, the communication is here a sustained
interchange between two parties.
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546 Journal of the American Oriental Society 111.3 (1991)
female messenger in the employ of men, but a woman
would presumably be less suspicious in passing through
enemy lines. Elsewhere in the Bible, the female mes-
senger appears in the employ of other women. When
personified Wisdom summons fools to her banquet to
be satisfied with her gifts, the invitation is mediated by
her maids: "She has set her table; she has sent out her
maidens (Salhadh nacarote'h); she calls from the tops
of the heights of the city" (Prov 9:2-3).48
Female messengers and scribes tend to function in
areas where women are already functioning as influen-
tial power figures. The only texts that can so far be
identified as the work of female scribes are from the
cloister of the naditu women in Old Babylonian Sippar.
These texts record economic transactions by the naditu
women, such as property rentals or land and property
purchases. The emerging picture suggests that these
women "appear to have been largely drawn from the
wealthier echelons of society"49 and exercised consider-
able economic leverage in the community. The exis-
tence of the naditu institution in both Nippur and
Sippar has been thought to result from the interests
of a patriarchal society intent on preserving its own
economic autonomy.50 Ironically, the resulting concen-
tration of economic control that clustered around con-
gregations of naditu women resulted in the subversion
of the patriarchy by facilitating the development of the
economic autonomy of these women. The male mono-
poly on communication channels was inevitably com-
promised as these women became responsible for the
maintenance and development of their economic assets.
The frequency with which the female scribe is attested
in the nadTtu environment is eloquent testimony to the
symbiosis of economic power and the control of com-
munication channels.
The reality of this control is evident also from the
point of view of the receptors of the communication.
By measuring the number of people who are exposed
to the information flow,51 and in this case the varieties
of individuals affected, one can establish a rudimentary
index of the extensiveness or effectiveness of the com-
munication. In Mesopotamia, female scribes and mes-
sengers were continually confronting men, and it is
consequently inappropriate to perceive the female
world as an isolated entity, dialogically involved only
with itself. Although to a large degree it exercised a
certain autonomy, the harem, for example, did com-
municate with the world outside the walls of the
palace,52 and men who dealt with the female scribes of
both palace and cloister were often in debt to the
women, having taken loans or rented fields.
In all other references to female scribes and mes-
sengers in Mesopotamia, the same principle seems to
be at work. Wherever the remaining evidence is un-
ambiguous, it is the women of the palace who account
for the presence of other women in the communication
process, whether they be scribes or messengers. The
rubric of the Mari text noted above, which lists oil
rations for female scribes along with other women,
concludes with the reference ekallum "palace" (rev i. 10;
see n. 15). The female scribe of the Neo-Assyrian queen
receives from men the payment of loans owed to the
queen (see above n. 8).
The lack of primary data apart from literary texts, in
addition to a different cultural environment, makes the
generalization less convincing for Israel. But as the
evidence above argues, the literary texts do allow for
females functioning with and trained in communicative
skills. The historical reality of the power of the harem
48
The imagery employed by Second Isaiah in describing
Zion as a bringer of good news is, therefore, probably not
a metaphor completely divorced from reality. Jerusalem is a
mebasseret, "a woman who bears good news," an epithet
repeated twice in this verse, which records as well the message
which God commissions her to relay: "say to the cities of
Judah, 'Here is your God!"' (Isa 40:9). It is remarkable that a
woman is found as God's envoy, in light of the general pattern
of female messengers in the employ of females. On the other
hand, a predisposition toward the feminine dimension of the-
ology is not uncharacteristic of Second Isaiah. John Pairman
Brown, "The Role of Women and the Treaty in the Ancient
World," Biblische Zeitschrift 25 (1981): 24.
49
Elizabeth C. Stone, "The Social Role of the Nadltu Wo-
men in Old Babylonian Nippur," JESHO 25 (1982): 66-67.
50 See E. Stone, "Social Role," and R. Harris, Sippar. The
place of females in the highly structured Old Babylonian
patriarchal society, and particularly provision for females
who have no male voices to speak for them, is well docu-
mented by I. M. Diakonoff in "Women in Old Babylonia Not
Under Patriarchal Authority," JESHO 29 (1986): 225-38.
Middle Assyrian society was even more stifling for a woman
not identified with a man (Claudio Saporetti, The Status of
Women in the Middle Assyrian Period, MANE 2.1 [1979],
17-20).
51
Heinz-Dietrich Fischer and John Calhoun Merrill, Inter-
national and Intercultural Communication, 2nd ed. (New
York: Hastings House, 1976), 265.
52
E. F. Weidner, "Hof- und Harems-Erlasse assyrischer
Konige aus dem 2. Jahrtausend v. Chr.," AfO 17 (1954-1956):
257-93.
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MEIER: Women and Communication in the Ancient Near East 547
and the queen mother in Israel53 allows for the parallel
development in Israel of the same feminine institutions
attested in Mesopotamia.
In summary, the visibility of female scribes and mes-
sengers noted in this discussion presents a curious as-
pect. On the one hand is the glaring fact that, though
attested for two millennia, women are so few, so cir-
cumscribed in their activities and infrequent in appear-
ance in the communication process. This fact is surely
not a fault of the accident of discovery but rather a real
reflection of the patriarchal structures of society. On
the other hand, there is the remarkable fact of the
simple presence of such figures functioning in the cross-
roads of communication, individuals who require sub-
stantial investment in terms of education and who
require commitments of trust as alternatives in a male-
dominated communication arena. The fact that women
were not simply an (admittedly rare) alternative but a
preferred choice in certain contexts points to significant
areas where, in spite of patriarchal patterns, women
were successful in a limited fashion in carving out
niches of influence in the patriarchal power structure.
53Tomoo Ishida, The Royal Dynasties in Ancient Israel,
Beiheft zur ZAW 142 (Berlin: DeGruyter, 1977), 155-58.
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