Abstract

Mesopotamia, the land between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, has yielded thousands of written sources about many facets of its inhabitants’ lives. ¹ Among others, the roles and positions which women held in society are well documented (e.g., Stol 1995: 123). Archaeological and artistic evidence is also informative, as successfully demonstrated, for example, by J. Asher-Greve (1997) and Z. Bahrani (2001). It is, however, important to note that most of this evidence was produced by men, usually for men, and, in the case of art, it was most likely commissioned by men. Indeed, none of the extant documents was deliberately written or created with the intent to document Mesopotamian women’s gender roles (pace Harris 2000a).