An Ox of One’s Own : Royal Wives and Religion at the Court of the Third Dynasty of Ur

Description

Shulgi-simti is an important example of a woman involved in sponsoring religious activities though having a family life. An Ox of One's Own will be of interest to Assyriologists, particularly those interested in Early Mesopotamia, and scholars working on women in religion. An Ox of One's Own centers on the archive of a woman who died about 2050 B.C., one of King Shulgi's many wives. Her birth name is unknown, but when she married, she became Shulgi-simti, "Suitable for Shulgi." Attested for only about 15 years, she existed among a court filled with other wives, who probably outranked her. A religious foundation was run on her behalf whereby courtiers, male and female, donated livestock for sacrifices to an unusual mix of goddesses and gods. Previous scholarship has declared this a rare example of a queen conducting women's religion, perhaps unusual because they say she came from abroad. The conclusions of this book are quite different. An Ox of One's Own lays out the evidence that another woman was queen at this time in Nippur while Shulgi-simti lived in Ur and was a third-ranking concubine at best, with few economic resources. Shulgi-simti's religious exercises concentrated on a quartet of north Babylonian goddesses. Table of Contents......Page 5 Preface......Page 9 Acknowledgements......Page 11 Chapter 1. Historical Introduction: The Reigns of Ur-Namma and Shulgi of Ur......Page 15 Chapter 2. Centers of Power, the Palaces and the Court......Page 43 Chapter 3. Queens and Concubines......Page 65 Chapter 4. Was There a Harem in Early Mesopotamia?......Page 83 Chapter 5. Lives of the Wives: Nin-kalla and Shulgi-simti......Page 113 Chapter 6. The Lives of Shulgi’s Wives: Ea-niša, Geme-Ninlilla and More......Page 151 Chapter 7. The Death of Shulgi and his Wives......Page 187 Chapter 8. The Shulgi-simti Archive......Page 201 Chapter 9. An Ox of One’s Own: Provisioners and Influence......Page 223 Chapter 10. Sacrifice: An Overview of the Cultic Events to which the Shulgi-simti Foundation Contributed......Page 251 Chapter 11. Belet-šuhnir and Belet-terraban and Religious Activities of the Queen and the Concubine(s)......Page 273 Chapter 12. A Wider Context: Temple Households and Changes in the Roles Played by Royal Wives in Early Mesopotamia......Page 301 Chapter 13. Conclusions......Page 317 Bibliography, An Ox of One’s Own......Page 321 Tablets from the Yale Babylonian Collection......Page 335 Index......Page 345