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Women and Communication in the Ancient Near East

Author(s): Samuel A. MeierSource: Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 111, No. 3 (Jul. - Sep., 1991), pp. 540-547Published by: American Oriental SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/604270 .Accessed: 17/11/2013 10:33

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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 Mesopotamiawith 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 distributionof 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 oversubstantial distances in the ancient Near East wasachieved through a symbiosis of scribe and messenger.'A correspondent achieved two desirable results whenemploying simultaneously a messenger and a writtenletter: 1) precision of the written text and 2) explicationof the text through the messenger.2 This long-lived

insistence upon redundancy in communication-thatis, the reliance on both messenger and document-inthe ancient world suggests that in general both mem-bers provided the ideal format for communication.3 A2nd-millennium B.C. treaty already underscores thisfeature 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), thisdiscussion is confined only to verbal communication where atleast 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 individualsare acting at another's behest, often deliberately to subvertcommunication (e.g., Jud 16:4-22; Ruth 3:1-18; 2 Sam 14:1-

20;1

Kgs14:1-18). 1 Kgs 2:13-25 is similarly peripheral, for

there Bathsheba is functioning in a capacity well attested forqueens; she could not be described as a messenger, for nowhereis a messenger known to act for one who is of lesser socialstatus.

2 Cf. Andrew Ellis and Geoffrey Beattie, The Psychology ofCommunication (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1986),200-202. Messengers minimized the misunderstandingspawned by selective perception (cf. Werner Severin and JamesTankard, Jr., Communication Theories [New York: Hastings

House, 1979], 128-29) and the demonstrated impoverishmentof the communication process when information is transmitted

only in written form. Receiving information is by far the moredifficult 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 essentiallydouble communication points to the serious problems associ-ated with communication in the ancient Near East. The morenoise in a channel, the greater the need for redundancy; andthe more redundancy, the less information a channel canconvey (see Severin and Tankard, 46-47). The elaborateepistolary forms and stereotypical content of late Bronze Ageinternational letters point in this same direction. The variedgrammars reflected in the Amarna letters underscore that notall 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, forexample, 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 ashort-circuit in the communication process.4

The evidence for men in both the roles of messengerand scribe is abundantly documented; that for womenconsiderably 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 theseroles? In a recent colloquium dedicated to women inthe ancient Near East, it is surprising to find J. C.Greenfield observing that "by the nature of thingswomen would not serve as scribes."5 It is not quiteclear what the "nature of things" is, but female scribesare certainly a feature of Mesopotamian culture. Al-though the evidence for female scribes spans the periodfrom 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 inSumerian to distinguish women from men in occupa-tions which both shared: a scribe in Sumerian wassimply d u b - s a r, whether the title referred to a male orfemale, and it was only under the cultural influence of

the Akkadians that a formal distinction was introducedin 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 ascribe with no determinative marking gender (A.BA-ta),but in another text she appears as a scribe with themale determinative (LfJ.A.BA-t6).8 The Old BabylonianIshtar-ummi prefers to employ the bare form DUB.SARto describe herself when writing contracts,9 in contrastto her sister scribes from the same community, who usethe feminine determinative.'1

Women were responsible for inscribing other cunei-form texts now housed in museums, but the anonymityof much of the evidence prevents us from discriminat-ing between male and female scribes. As a rule, scribesdo not identify themselves in letters-in contrast to thepractice of formal colophons on literary texts, fromwhich most information about scribes is derived. In theformat of legal texts-the only locus so far where oneis able to identify with confidence the actual work offemale scribes-the formating and technique is indis-tinguishable from that of male scribes. But this veryambiguity is a significant datum in that it affirms acontinuity 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. Thepersons of scribe and messenger were rarely merged. Somemessengers were qualified as scribes (e.g., Akapurhe in HSSXIII 175.4,11; Asali in EA 24.IV.36-37; Balatu in GCCI1 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 asscribes. 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 andScribes: The s6pir and mal'dk in the Old Testament," VT 24

[1974]: 366-70) that the biblical s6pir was the institutionalizedmessenger of the Israelite monarchy (p. 369). Since manyofficials functioned as messengers, the fact that a s6pir couldso behave does not, therefore, make every s6pir in the king'semploy a messenger. The etymological identification of theAkkadian root spr with the Hebrew root spr is inappropriatelydefended by recourse to a later Assyrianism. When the West-Semitic root infiltrated Neo-Babylonian, it had nothing to dowith messenger activity (sepiru "to write alphabetic script";sepTru "scribe writing alphabetic script" [CAD S 225]). Nomore eloquent testimony of the distinction is possible than thescribal denigration of the messenger in "The Satire of theTrades" M. Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature Berkeleyand 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 dela XXXIIIe Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale (Paris,7-10 Juillet 1986), ed. Jean-Marie Durand (Paris: EditionsRecherche 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 aswitnesses (pp. 163-65).

7 P. Steinkeller, "Two Sargonic Sale Documents ConcerningWomen," Or 51 (1982): 358-59. A s al-du b - s ar appears in abroken and undated Ur III text listing provision disbursementsto various women and men (A. L. Oppenheim, Catalogue ofthe Cuneiform Tablets of the Wilberforce Eames BabylonianCollection in the New York Public Library [New Haven:American Oriental Society, 1948], 21-22, pl. VII-VIII; col. II1. 10).

8 S. Dalley and J. N. Postgate, The Tablets rom 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 pertainingto education in ancient Mesopotamia"1 and Israel."2Since much of the textual data from Mesopotamiacomes from school-texts, it follows that school activi-

ties are among the more readily demonstrable aspectsof antiquity.13 It is remarkable how much of recentdiscussion has focused upon the male: it is generallythe "schoolboy" who is the paradigm of such studies.Surely it is a serious oversight to neglect the significanteducational investment in women, which was not on asmall scale. When one considers the fourteen femalescribes so far attested in just one Old Babylonian city,Sippar, 14 another grouping of nine named femalescribes in an oil ration list from the Mari palace in the

same period,'5 or a Neo-Assyrian personnel list thatmentions six female scribes associated with the palace,16it is evident that the female scribe was not merely anancillary phenomenon and that the training of womenmust 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 isoften overlooked in this regard. The Sumerian composi-tion that A. Sjoberg edited as "In Praise of the ScribalArt" begins with the significant imagery, "The scribalart is the mother of orators(?), the father of masters""7in 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 senseof one's literal parents or merely as a metaphor,18 heimagery echoes the female personification of wisdom inProverbs 1-9, a woman who gathers students to hearher instruction. We even hear the voice of the queengiving instruction in Proverbs 31:1-9; and Proverbs31:10-31 has been described as "un programme d'&du-cation pour des files d'un certain milieu social, appeleesa assumer un certain nombre de responsabilites soitseules soit aux cotes de leur mari."'9 It is, therefore, farfrom a foregone conclusion that women played no rolein 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, NippurNeighborhoods, 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 distributedto 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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potamian" instruction, a fact that corresponds withthe degree to which males dominated in the communi-cation network. But women were not locked out. Theabove factors, along with other elements, suggest atleast some predisposition to the integration of the

feminine in instruction.23 We agree with Lang thatWisdom may be perceived as "the divine patroness ofthe Israelite school system"24 and that the book ofProverbs is a literary legacy of the Israelite schoolsystem. If so, it testifies to an impressive feminineinfluence in instruction. There were not only wise menin Israel (hkmym) but wise women as well ('sh hkmh in2 Sam 14:2; 20:16) who are associated with specificlocales which may represent educational centers forwomen.25 The presence of female scribes is a fact; thelocus of their training, although elusive, is not entirelyalien to certain strains in wisdom literature and mayreasonably be sought in that direction.

It is curious that although the tutelary deity of theMesopotamian scribe in the late period is the maledeity Nabu, in the early period his predecessor is fe-male-the goddess Nisaba. She is not only the goddesswho superintends the scribes and their craft, but in

numerous texts she (along with other goddesses withsimilar attributes)16 s 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 kingswho were trained in the scribal art, such as Shulgi, thereis pride in the assertion that "I am a wise scribeof Nisaba."31 Even in the late period, the perceptionof a female among the scribes persists when bothNabu and Nisaba together are identified in the colo-phon of an incantation text as the masters of thescribal school (academy? workshop?; Nabz2 u Nisababelle bTt mumme).32 Whatever the psychological or his-torical processes behind the conception of a femaledeity 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 designationdu mu equally to males and females, the momentum of tradi-tion would not find in this statement a necessary exclusion ofwomen.

23 The hostile attitudes of some later rabbinic traditionstoward the education of females should not be read back intothe earlier period. Although R. Eliezer was uncompromisingin forbidding a father to teach Torah to his daughter (Sotah3.4), an attitude reflected in the general minimizing of educa-tion for daughters (BT Qiddushin 29b-30a), the golden age ofHezekiah's day was described as a period in which men andwomen were equally well educated (BT Sanhedrin 94b).

24 Bernhard Lang, Wisdom and the Book of Proverbs: AHebrew Goddess Redefined (New York: Pilgrims, 1986).

25 Note Abel-beth-Maacah's reputation for wisdom in 2 Sam20:16-22; 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, themasculine form of which is broadly attested in Aramaic per-sonal names. (In addition to the citations in J. Stark, PersonalNames in Palmyrene Inscriptions [Oxford: Clarendon Press,1971], 102, see Walter Kornfeld, Onomastica aramaica ausAgypten, Osterreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften 333[Wien, 1978], 64.) In either case, this is the only explicitreference 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 inSumerian Literature," JCS 27 [1975]: 217-18, 1. 24) and the"scribe of the gods" ( uprgarratul 9a ildni; Erich Ebeling, Todund 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 "chiefscribe" (DUB.SAR.MAH; R. C. Thompson, The Devils and EvilSpirits of Babylonia [London, 1903], 33 11. -5); Ningeshtin isthe "great scribe" tupsgarrati abTti Henri Limet, Les Legendesdes 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.

28V. 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 deitywho is the inventor of writing-Seshat (cf. Naissance del'ecritures cuneformes et hi&oglyphiqes, 4th edition [Paris:Editions de la Reunion des Musees Nationaux], 342). TheEgyptian scribe s? has a rare feminine counterpart sit, alsoidentified with a palette ideogram. But it is not clear if thisfemale is always to be understood as a female scribe or onewho managed accounts (Henry George Fischer, EgyptianTitles of the Middle Kingdom: A Supplement to WilliamWard's Index [New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art,1985], 86) or as a cosmetician ("Maquilleuse en Egyptien,"


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between a goddess of fertility and the necessary accountlists that record inventories,34 or as the goddess ofgrowing plants who is therefore present in the reedstylus of the scribe),35 he omnipresence of the patronessof 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 taughtis unknown.36

The fluctuating socio-political mystique of themother-goddess, which underwent a transformation inthe course of Mesopotamian history, may be directlyrelated to a shift in orientation from female to malepriority in institutionalized learning. Complex pro-cesses were at work in population redistribution andeconomic reorientation in early Mesopotamia, but thereclearly was a pronounced shift in power from female tomale from the third millennium to the beginning of thesecond millennium B.C.37 This shift is dramatic, forexample, in the competition between Enki and themother 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 goddessin the cosmic hierarchy proved untenable, and slowlyshe had to yield before a male god who, as she herself,represented numinous power in giving form and givingbirth, 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 goddessin the ranking of the highest gods . . . and eventuallyher name was completely replaced by that of Enki.38

As a concomitant of such restructuring a part of theupheavals set in motion by the urban revolution in thefourth millennium B.C. (when writing first appears)-the earlier perception of the feminine dimension inwriting was modified. The ideology of the pen was not

impervious to the changes that were redefining socialand economic structures elsewhere in society.39

It is not quite clear how much can be gleaned fromthe presence of female scribes as to the social positionthat such individuals enjoyed. Often one reads generousstatements to the effect that scribes in Mesopotamiawere "members of a privileged elite who might lookwith contempt on their fellow citizens,"40 or that "thescribes, 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 privilegedin certain respects, the life of even the most skilledscribe was hardly enviable; scholarship is generally notthe prelude to the luxurious life, and the same perspec-

42tive seems to surface from evidence in Mesopotamia.It of course remains true that the scribal professionseems to have been limited to those of adequate meanswho could afford the leisure and monetary costs associ-ated with the educational process. Scribal training mayhave required, but did not necessarily lead to, leisureand surplus wealth.

Our perception of the scribal mystique has beenunduly influenced by evidence that unfairly-allowsfor 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 factthat we read this perspective already prejudices thecase. Were there available apologies for the potter orthe metal-worker, it is certain that they would exalteach profession at the expense of the others, much asthe numerous examples of the disputation genre attestthe genuine skill of the ancients in playing off againsteach 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 byP. 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," n 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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female messenger in the employ of men, but a womanwould presumably be less suspicious in passing throughenemy lines. Elsewhere in the Bible, the female mes-senger appears in the employ of other women. Whenpersonified Wisdom summons fools to her banquet to

be satisfied with her gifts, the invitation is mediated byher maids: "She has set her table; she has sent out hermaidens (Salhadh nacarote'h); she calls from the topsof the heights of the city" (Prov 9:2-3).48

Female messengers and scribes tend to function inareas where women are already functioning as influen-tial power figures. The only texts that can so far beidentified as the work of female scribes are from thecloister of the naditu women in Old Babylonian Sippar.These texts record economic transactions by the nadituwomen, such as property rentals or land and propertypurchases. The emerging picture suggests that thesewomen "appear to have been largely drawn from thewealthier echelons of society"49 and exercised consider-able economic leverage in the community. The exis-tence of the naditu institution in both Nippur andSippar has been thought to result from the interestsof a patriarchal society intent on preserving its owneconomic autonomy.50 Ironically, the resulting concen-tration of economic control that clustered around con-

gregations of naditu women resulted in the subversionof the patriarchy by facilitating the development of theeconomic 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 attestedin the nadTtu environment is eloquent testimony to thesymbiosis of economic power and the control of com-munication channels.

The reality of this control is evident also from thepoint of view of the receptors of the communication.By measuring the number of people who are exposedto the information flow,51 and in this case the varietiesof individuals affected, one can establish a rudimentaryindex of the extensiveness or effectiveness of the com-munication. In Mesopotamia, female scribes and mes-sengers were continually confronting men, and it isconsequently inappropriate to perceive the femaleworld as an isolated entity, dialogically involved onlywith itself. Although to a large degree it exercised acertain autonomy, the harem, for example, did com-municate with the world outside the walls of thepalace,52 and men who dealt with the female scribes ofboth palace and cloister were often in debt to thewomen, having taken loans or rented fields.

In all other references to female scribes and mes-sengers in Mesopotamia, the same principle seems tobe 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 communicationprocess, whether they be scribes or messengers. Therubric of the Mari text noted above, which lists oilrations 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 queenreceives from men the payment of loans owed to thequeen (see above n. 8).

The lack of primary data apart from literary texts, inaddition to a different cultural environment, makes thegeneralization less convincing for Israel. But as theevidence above argues, the literary texts do allow forfemales functioning with and trained in communicativeskills. The historical reality of the power of the harem

48 The imagery employed by Second Isaiah in describingZion as a bringer of good news is, therefore, probably nota metaphor completely divorced from reality. Jerusalem is amebasseret, "a woman who bears good news," an epithetrepeated twice in this verse, which records as well the messagewhich God commissions her to relay: "say to the cities ofJudah, 'Here is your God "' (Isa 40:9). It is remarkable that awoman is found as God's envoy, in light of the general patternof female messengers in the employ of females. On the otherhand, a predisposition toward the feminine dimension of the-ology is not uncharacteristic of Second Isaiah. John PairmanBrown, "The Role of Women and the Treaty in the AncientWorld," 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. Theplace of females in the highly structured Old Babylonianpatriarchal society, and particularly provision for femaleswho have no male voices to speak for them, is well docu-mented by I. M. Diakonoff in "Women in Old Babylonia NotUnder Patriarchal Authority," JESHO 29 (1986): 225-38.Middle Assyrian society was even more stifling for a womannot identified with a man (Claudio Saporetti, The Status ofWomen 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. (NewYork: Hastings House, 1976), 265.

52 E. F. Weidner, "Hof- und Harems-Erlasse assyrischerKonige aus dem 2. Jahrtausend v. Chr.," AfO 17 (1954-1956):257-93.


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and the queen mother in Israel53 allows for the paralleldevelopment in Israel of the same feminine institutionsattested 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, thoughattested 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 realreflection of the patriarchal structures of society. Onthe other hand, there is the remarkable fact of thesimple presence of such figures functioning in the cross-roads of communication, individuals who require sub-

stantial investment in terms of education and whorequire commitments of trust as alternatives in a male-dominated communication arena. The fact that womenwere not simply an (admittedly rare) alternative but apreferred choice in certain contexts points to significantareas where, in spite of patriarchal patterns, womenwere successful in a limited fashion in carving outniches 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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