Canadian Woman Studies

Dec-Feb 1996 v17 i1 p6-9

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Priestesses and "sacred prostitutes" in the ancient Eastern Mediterranean.

by Johanna H. Stuckey
COPYRIGHT 1996 Canadian Woman Studies Priestesses in ancient Mesopotamia

Cet article questionne lexistence et les liens entre les Rivkah Harris and other scholars have identified many pretresses, les cultes sexuels et la <<prostitution sacree>> Semitic and some Sumerian names for classes of de lancienne Mediterranee orientale. priestess: entu, naditu, ishtaritu, and qadishtu. These terms and other information about Mesopotamian A deep concern for the fertility of land and people was priestesses come from various places and periods, so that central to ritual activity in ancient Eastern Mediterranean any generalizations I make must be somewhat cultures, and, in some, cultic sexual intercourse speculative. constituted the mythic and ritual expression of that concern. The peoples of the area worshipped many The entu priestess, the Sumerian Nin-Dingir, meaning deities, among them powerful "fertility" goddesses. "Lady Deity" or "Lady Who Is Goddess," was probably the Further, their deities were usually members of female-male "high priestess." She had elevated social status, but, in pairs; this female-male complementarity normally law, was subject to a strict code of ethics. If the "Sacred extended to temple functionaries. In interpreting this Marriage Rite" involved human participants, she would concern with fertility and its sexual expression, scholars have incarnated the Goddess Inanna, later Ishtar, who had often state that these religions promoted sexual ritual intercourse with Her consort Dumuzi, later Tammuz. promiscuity and counted among their temple personnel Unfortunately, we cannot be sure what happened in the "sacred prostitutes." I will review what scholars know about temples ritual bed chamber. However, in his persuasive priestesses and about cultic sex in the ancient Eastern article on the "Sacred Marriage," Douglas Frayne argues Mediterranean and try to determine whether "sacred that, at least in earlier times, the king, incarnating Dumuzi, prostitution" was widespread. and the Nin-Dingirl entu, the Goddess on Earth, had sexual intercourse. In Mesopotamia and, perhaps, other ancient Eastern Mediterranean cultures, the sexual ritual that scholars call The "Sacred Marriage Rite" was undoubtedly crucial to "the Sacred Marriage" occurred in some form or other. If it early Mesopotamian kingship. However, Douglas Frayne involved human participants, they would have incarnated argues convincingly that the ritual was normally part of the deities. Neither would have been a prostitute! installation of a new high priestess, but he refrains from speculating on the significance of this connection. Now, According to the Concise Oxford Dictionary, "prostitution" since evidence points to a later kings having replaced an means: "The offering of the body for indiscriminate earlier high priest as the male in the ritual, I suggest that lewdness for hire . . .; whoredom, harlotry." By this Sumerian kings appropriated a ritual that originally definition, a prostitute is sexually promiscuous and, installed a high priestess, in order to associate themselves significantly, gets paid for sexual acts. Edwin Yamauchis with a Goddess fertility, Her power, and, to some extent, definition of "sacred prostitution," expanding on the Her divinity. dictionary one, is typical of scholarly pronouncements on the subject: "Cultic prostitution is a practice involving the By historical times, the "Sacred Marriage Rite" served to female and at times the male devotees of fertility deities, underpin kingship in Mesopotamia. In cities other than who presumably dedicated their earnings to their deity" Inannas Uruk, the Goddess participating in the ritual was (213). He sees the "Sacred Marriage Rite" as one of the usually the protector Goddess of the city or the consort of reasons for the practice, especially in Mesopotamia, where the citys protector God. Normally the ritual identified Her the king and "a temple prostitute" took the central roles. with Inanna/Ishtar in order to validate the citys ruler Obviously Yamauchi, as other scholars, is confusing ritual through his relationship with the powerful Goddess. For a sex and paid sexual acts, whether sacred or not. long time after the "Sacred Marriage Rite" and the office of high priestess had lost real significance, kings continued to Prostitutes could have been available for hire near temples call themselves "beloved of Inanna or Ishtar." in the ancient Eastern Mediterranean area, but the evidence on priestesses does not support the argument So important was the office of high priestess in that among them were "temple prostitutes." Further, the Mesopotamia that the conqueror of a city usually presentation of "cult prostitution" in the Hebrew Bible (Old appointed a family member to that office (or as high priest Testament) seems to be partly responsible for the concept of that citys protector deity). In this way, Enheduanna, of "sacred prostitution." perhaps the most famous Mesopotamian priestess, became high priestess of Moon God Nanna-Sin of the city - Reprinted with permission. Additional copying is prohibited. -

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Priestesses and "sacred prostitutes" in the ancient Eastern Mediterranean.

of Ur. Flourishing around 2300 BCE (Before Common Era, same as BC), Enheduanna was daughter of Sargon, the earliest empire-building Semitic king. Author of many hymns to Inanna / Ishtar, Enheduanna is the very first poet in history whose name we know. From the residence of the cloistered priestesses inside the temple-complex of the Moon God Nanna-Sin at Ur, archaeologists unearthed a damaged disc. One side of the disc depicted a ritual; the other carried an inscription. In the depiction, the tallest, thus most important, figure is a woman in a flounced dress like those that Goddesses wore; in addition, she wears a headdress reserved for priestesses. As another sign of rank, she supervises a naked male priest, who ritually waters a sacred tree. The inscription identifies "Enheduanna" as consort of Nanna-Sin and Sargons daughter. Together, inscription and image suggest that the central figure is Enheduanna, high priestess of Ur (see Winter). Significantly, the disc came from the cloister area; the high priestess may have been the senior naditu priestess, a kind of abbess. At the city of Sippar, between about 1880 and 1550 BCE, according to Rivkah Harris, naditu priestesses included royal and noble women. Harris argues that naditu derives from a root meaning "fallow, uncultivated." In some places, these priestesses could marry, but they could not bear children to their husband (see Jeyes). Perhaps this prohibition stemmed from the possibility that they were all potential high priestesses, on whom also there was a prohibition against child bearing, except, maybe, as a result of the "Sacred Marriage Rite." A naditu priestesss primary duty seems to have been to address daily prayers and offerings to her temples divine couple. At Sippar she made offerings twice daily and a special monthly offering. In addition, she took part in yearly initiations of new naditu priestesses and attended at least six other festivals. It is not clear exactly what she did at these festivals and rituals, but none of the available evidence suggests that her duties were in any way sexual. Such priestesses in some localities or periods may have practised ritual sex, but there is no evidence that they did. The many references to another class of priestess, the ishtaritu, meaning "devotee of Ishtar," sadly, give us little information. She appears to have been a dedicated woman, who was, probably, also prohibited from bearing children, even though she could marry. The same seems to have been true of the qadishtu, meaning "holy or tabooed or set-apart woman"; however, according to legal documents, qadishtu priestesses could bear children. As cult functionaries, they chanted at rituals, held up the deitys statue, and joined in various religious ceremonies. No evidence suggests that they performed sexual acts. Mesopotamian society, then, expected its female cult functionaries to be chaste, and none of them had a sexual function in ritual, with the likely exception of high priestesses. However, because they were female, they may have been essential at most rituals, for female-male complementarity in officiants, as in deities, seems to have been the norm. Priestesses in ancient Syro-Palestine and the Hebrew Bible Until recently, the scholarly consensus about Canaanite religion was that it was orgiastic and encouraged sexual promiscuity. The responsibility for this view lies primarily with the Hebrew Bible and, to some extent, with later sources, like Greek historian Heroditus (about 480 to about 425 BCE), Greek travel writer Strabo (about 64 BCE to 19 CE), and certain Christian writers. Heroditus and Strabo, as well as the Christian writers, described Mesopotamian customs, not Canaanite ones. However, earlier scholars found their remarks useful, because they discussed ritual sex. In addition, the name of one class of Mesopotamian priestess, the qadishtu, seemed helpful in the interpretation of the controversial term qedeshah in the Hebrew Bible; the term is usually translated as "sacred prostitute." The later writers describe customs that the contemporary Babylonians supposedly practised--customs that required a woman, once in her life, to have sexual intercourse at a temple with the first stranger who offered her payment; afterwards, she dedicated the payment to the temples Goddess. Of this "custom," Tikva Frymer-Kensky asserts: "No cuneiform text supports the idea that the women of Assyria or Babylon did this" (200). Significantly, as Yamauchi points out, these late commentaries are the "most explicit texts describing sacred prostitution in Mesopotamia" (216). Even if they were accurate--and scholars doubt that they were--what they describe does not fit the usual definition of "prostitution." Nonetheless, they had their influence on interpretations of the Hebrew Bibles references to the qedeshah. Greek satirical writer Lucian (about 115 to about 200 CE), also very influential, described similar customs that he located in Syro-Palestine: during mourning rites for Adonis, women who refused to shave their heads had, for one day, to sell themselves in a "foreigners-only market." The women offered their fees to the goddess Astarte. Of course, this evidence is also very late, and Lucian was a satirist!

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Priestesses and "sacred prostitutes" in the ancient Eastern Mediterranean.

Qdsh, the root of the Mesopotamian Semitic word qadishtu, means "holy, sacred"; the same root occurs in the Hebrew Bibles qedeshah. Thus, both words should mean not "sacred prostitute," but "holy or sacred woman." Fortunately, we can get help from other Syro-Palestinian material than the Hebrew Bible. Since 1929, archaeologists excavating Ugarit, an ancient city in Syria, have been recovering thousands of clay tablets, dating from 1550-1200 BCE, that contain mythic poems, god and offering lists, and lists of religious functionaries. This material suggests that Ugaritic religion was essentially similar to Canaanite religion and that cult practice at Ugarit was not orgiastic. Indeed, Ugarits fertility cult appears not to have been primarily sexual, nor is there unambiguous evidence for a "Sacred Marriage Rite" at Ugarit. Further, the tablets provide no suggestion of "cult prostitution." However, the Ugaritic tablets do contain titles of some religious functionaries, but, as de Tarragon says, none is grammatically in the feminine gender. This fact may mean only that the masculine gender form, at Ugarit as elsewhere, was understood to include both male and female. The qdshm, "holy men," seem to have been an important group of priests, for lists place them second only to the khnm, "priests." The group may have included women. The high-status qdshm could marry and establish families, and they could hold other offices. There is, in addition, no suggestion in the Ugaritic material that the qdshm had any sexual role in ritual, nor is there any evidence that they were "sacred prostitutes." As early as 1941, Beatrice Brooks questioned the usual translation of qedeshah as "sacred prostitute," but only recently have scholars begun to rethink the term. Phyllis Bird argues that most previous discussion accepted that "sacred or cultic prostitution" had actually occurred in the context of fertility cults. This assumption, she maintains, resulted from the Hebrew Bibles "deliberate" association of qedeshah, "holy woman," with zonah, "prostitute" (76). It seems likely, then, that an influential group of priestesses (the qedeshah) existed in Canaan. Otherwise, why would the writers of the Hebrew Bible take such trouble to discredit them? Their function in Canaanite religion is unknown, but they were almost certainly priestesses, as were their Mesopotamian counterparts. Conclusion Whether or not the Biblical qedeshah had a sexual function in ritual, it is highly likely that, in early ancient Mesopotamia, at least one category of female religious - Reprinted with permission. Additional copying is prohibited. functionary, the entu priestess, did engage in sexual intercourse as the central act of a crucial fertility rite. This priestess almost certainly incarnated a Goddess on earth. Around her clustered groups of priestesses whose functions probably varied widely and large numbers of whom were sworn to chastity. They were priestesses in a religious system with complementarity of female and male; the "Sacred Marriage Rite" was a case in point. Canaanite religion also was, as far as we know, one in which Goddesses and Gods were complementary and their complementarity necessary to the right ordering of the world. One example of the playing out of this complementarity on the human level comes from Ugarit. There, both the king and the queen had important roles in ritual, usually separate ones, but both necessary. It would be surprising to me if the same complementarity did not apply to the Canaanite religion that the Hebrew Bible describes. For instance, the Hebrew Bible understands the Canaanite Rain and Storm God Baal to be closely associated with the Goddess Ashtoreth (Astarte). In Mesopotamia, according to Gruber (142), the qadishtu priestesses had special connections to the worship of Adad (Baal Hadad). Is it possible that the "sacred women" of the Hebrew Bible were likewise associated with the cult of Baal? Since Baal was unquestionably the chief rival of the Israelite god, would it not make sense that the writers of the Hebrew Bible would want His special priestesses to share in His shame and degradation? This paper was presented at the Centre for Feminist Researchs "Conference on Female Spirituality: A Celebration of Worshippers, Goddesses, Priestesses, and Female Saints," held at York University in March 1996. Funding assistance from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) for the presentation and publication of this paper is gratefully acknowledged. Johanna H. Stuckey, Professor Emerita, Womens Studies and Religious Studies, York University, still teaches courses on ancient Goddess worship and is writing a book on the topic. Linda Macfarlane is a free-lance illustrator and artist. A native of B.C.s west coast, she has travelled extensively seeking the traces of our human history with particular emphasis on art, magic, and mysticism. Linda is also involved in on-going research into the circumstances of womens lives and the influence of women through the ages.

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