On Climate in Life, Science, and Fantasy

I must admit, I've discovered over the last few years that January is a difficult month for me. The joy and companionship of the holidays seems to crash too quickly into unremarkable routine. The cold days of a northern winter demand isolation from the world outside with heavy coats and thick sweaters; the nights are long, and altogether too quiet.

My dislike of January is exacerbated by the absence of my husband, who, like many migratory creatures, heads south for the winter to spend the coldest weeks of the year with his family in the much more amenable climate of the tropics. I would gladly go with him if I could, but the academic calendar demands I stay in a place where trees lose their leaves and all the truly smart animals hibernate.

Still, we are three days into the new semester, and it is looking to be a good one.  Today, I ran my first ever environmental science lab at Avila University.  We simulated aspects of global climate mechanisms, and got to play with all kinds of fun toys like inflatable globes (I was very impressed that the class did not immediately disintegrate into a game of beach ball) and vials filled with convection fluids (which inspired multiple comparisons to lava lamps, and one request to search for "lava lamp" on YouTube so that students who had never seen one would know what that is).

Climate mechanisms have been on my mind for other reasons as well. 

A few days ago, for example, I sat down to sketch out my first map of Selenia's world (from Creatures of Light).  I've always had a vague idea of the location of her home city Talagna relative to other places of interest, such as the coastal city of Al'Panura and the jungle river of Ornoco.  Recently, I've decided to insert a high mountain range (something on the order of the Andes), with accompanying paramos and deserts.  Someday I'd like to take Selenia to all these places (although as you may know, it's going to be tough to get her across the sea alive, since women in her world are routinely thrown overboard to appease the sea god Mikrotus, but I'll cross that bridge -- or plunge into those depths -- when I get there). 

Part of building my dream of Selenia's voyage was manifested by drawing the map, and in drawing the map I had to think, once again, about latitudes, wind currents, land and water masses, and everything else that goes into climate.  It's a really fun puzzle to play with. 

One of my most popular posts of all time -- indeed, THE most popular post until this past fall, when my short piece on Hypatia went viral -- was Biogeography and Fantasy, published in July of 2011.  This post was inspired as I was trying to figure out the logic of the climate of Westeros, the stage upon which George RR Martin's A Game of Thrones plays out.  I extended the discussion to take into account various factors fantasy authors should keep in mind when building their worlds.  If you'd like to read more, you can visit the post here.

And just out of curiosity, here are a few questions you might like to comment on:

When you think about what you've read, what worlds come to mind that are particularly well articulated in terms of climate, geography, and distribution of resources?  Is it clear when some authors have put a lot of thought into this, and others have not?  Is it even necessary to get as geeky-obsessive as I do when laying out mountain ranges and major bodies of water?  All perspectives are welcome.  I'm looking forward to hearing your thoughts.

In other news, this week on Heroines of Fantasy, Mark Nelson has written a wonderful post on the power of play.  Read his thoughts and share yours, as we venture into the New Year remembering the importance of the lighter side of life. 

Another Day, Another Destiny

Embrace the magic in 2013!

Yes, I have Les Miserables on my mind.  I saw the film last week with my sister and mother, and I cannot help but recommend it.  Highly.  It's a beautiful, heart-wrenching rendition of Victor Hugo's classic tale; one of those stories that, like Romeo and Juliet, I keep wanting to go differently every time I see it.  The entire cast gives a stellar performance; even Russell Crowe holds his own as a singing actor. Anne Hathaway is simply stunning, and Hugh Jackman . . . Wow.  All I can say is, I have new respect for that man.  Not everyone can shed the skin of a character like Wolverine and become a completely different entity on the big screen. I would like to see Hathaway and Jackman nominated for an Oscar.

I could go on and on, but you should just go enjoy it for yourself, if you haven't already.

I hope everyone had a marvelous holiday, and that you are in for a great 2013.  I was blessed with a festive Christmas and peaceful New Year's Eve.  We celebrated my father's 75th birthday with a big post-Christmas surprise party at my sister's house.  We had beer, wine, champagne, a great spread of delicious food, and an accordian player.  Most of all, we had lots of family and friends. It does not get much better than that. 

A week from today, the spring semester starts at Avila.  I am very excited about the classes I'm teaching this semester.  One of my favorites, Plant Biology, is cycling back onto the roster.  I am also teaching a new course, Introduction to Environmental Science, that will include a lecture and lab section.  I'm considering writing a series of posts linked to one or both of these courses, like I did for Women and Science last fall. Whether or not I decide to do that, I'm sure you'll be hearing about our on-campus adventures from time to time. 

2013 promises a lot of excitement on the writing side of things.  The wheels are starting to turn toward the publication for High Maga, the companion novel to Eolyn. The exact release date hasn't been set, but we are almost certainly looking at spring of 2014, or thereabouts. 

Over the holidays, I had the opportunity to read High Maga from beginning to end.  I made a lot of edits -- rearranged chapters, split up a few things, trimmed off some 3000 words.  That may sound formidable, but really in the end, they were minor changes.  The novel as a whole is done -- truly done -- and I must admit, I am very proud of it.  I am really looking forward to being able to share it with all of you.

The success of my recent short story, Creatures of Light, has me considering other short stories for 2013.  Last week, I pulled a project out of the dustbin; a tale set in Eolyn's world, about a generation or so before the novel begins.  This has been one of my more problematic projects; I keep giving up on it, throwing it away, then pulling it back out.  But I suspect that this time around, I may have solved the riddle as to how to make the story work. A new-and-improved draft will be farmed out to my writers groups in the coming weeks, and if it survives that trial, you may very well see it in eprint before the year's end. 

And of course, I'll be starting on the next big project.  Most likely, this will be the third and final novel of the Eolyn series; but I've also considered undertaking a novel based on Creatures of Light. Either way, you will be hearing more about my next adventure in writing during the coming months.

That's the news for the moment.  This week on Heroines of Fantasy, Terri-Lynne DeFino has a fun post about mean friends, all related to her awesome new novel Beyond the Gate. Stop by and join the discussion when you have a chance. 

Again, Happy New Year!  I'm looking forward to all the new adventures we will share in 2013.

Welcome to My Annual Christmas Reading!

This year for may annual reading, I've decided to do an excerpt from High Maga. 

The manuscript for High Maga was finished in the fall of 2012, and is now undergoing final edits in preparation for publication. I don't have a release date yet. It's possible High Maga will be released toward the end of 2013; more likely that you will see it in print early in 2014. In either case, stay tuned to this site for updates, previews, and giveaways. 

For the Christmas reading, I always try to find cozy scenes.  That was something of a challenge this year, as High Maga has relatively few scenes that could be called "cozy".  After some thought, I settled on this excerpt from Chapter 8, a scene between Eolyn and her youngest student, Ghemena.  It takes place at Eolyn's Aekelahr, the humble home of her new coven in the highlands of Moehn.  In this passage, Ghemena has just woken up from a nightmare, and Eolyn comforts her with a story and a very special gift.

If you're looking for more fun things to do between now and New Year's, stop by Heroines of Fantasy and help us build a story with the Brothers Grimm.  While you're at it, you can register to win a holiday ebook bundle, including four novels by HoF authors.  The winners of the holiday giveaway will be announced January 31st. 

I hope you enjoy this reading, and the rest of the holiday season. I will be taking a break from my blog and other on line activities until the New Year, but will be back in action starting January. I look forward to seeing you then.

Wishing you a very Merry Christmas, and all the best in the New Year.

If you would like to know more about the novel High Maga, you can preview it here. 

A World of Wonder in 5000 Words

The cover art for Creatures of Light is taken
from Claude Lorrain's 17th century painting,
"Embarkation of the Queen of Sheba."

Hadley Rille Books has released a Kindle edition of my short story Creatures of Light, and has made it available for free download today and tomorrow.

Creatures of Light provides a glimpse into the life of Selenia, a brilliant and ruthless woman scientist, and her lover Nicolas, intrepid explorer of the high seas.  They live in a fantasy age of exploration, an imaginary world that mixes the art and politics of Renaissance Italy with the wonder inspired by  17th and 18th century European explorers.  Theirs is an unapologetically imperialistic and misogynistic society, and Selenia has learned to do whatever it takes to establish and maintain a place of power in the context of this brutal world. 

I've had many sources of inspiration for Creatures over the years.  The first seed was probably planted when I read A Naturalist in La Plata by WH Hudson, which chronicles the 19th century biologist's journey through the Pampas of Argentina. 

Since then, many more books have crossed my path.  Biographies of powerful women of the 16th and 17th century, such as Lucrezia Borgia, Isabella de Medici, and Catherine de Medici.  Stories of 17th and 18th century women scientists such as Maria Gaetana Agnesi and Maria Sybilla Merian. 

Additional chronicles of exploration have also fed into the mix, such as the extraordinary adventures of Alexander von Humboldt in South America.  Most recently, I started The Age of Wonder by Richard Holmes, which documents the discoveries of 18th century scientists such as Joseph Banks and Caroline Herschel, as well as the colorful, romantic, and disturbing times in which they lived. 

Holmes historical account had little influence on the short story Creatures of Light (since I picked it up long after the short story was written), but it is providing a lot of fodder for the imagination as I prepare to write a full-length novel by the same name.

Creatures of Light emerged as a short story about three years ago, when my local writer's group did a holiday story exchange.  It first appeared for the world at large in the Fall 2010 issue of Adventures for the Average Woman.  Now Hadley Rille Books has picked it up and made it a stand-alone short story available on Kindle, complete with its own beautiful cover.  And for FREE, no less!  At least for the first couple of days of its release. 

I hope you enjoy reading Selenia's story as much as I enjoyed writing it.  I am certain you will.

~*~

Enter Eolyn's Winter Book Blast Giveaway for your chance to win a FREE signed copy of the beautiful hardcover edition of the nove Eolyn.

Visit authoer DelSheree Gladden's Blog to enter the Winter Book Blast Grand Prize Giveaway, including 18 novels across various genres.

Stock Up on Your Holiday Reading!

The holiday season is here, and with it multiple chances to win FREE books for your winter bookshelf! 

Heroines of Fantasy is sponsoring a holiday giveaway this month. Enter to win an ebook bundle with four novels by HoF authors, including

Eolyn by Karin Rita Gastreich,

The Poets of Pevana by Mark Nelson,

Your choice of Finder or A Time Never Lived by Terri-Lynne DeFino, and

Your choice of The Song and the Sorceress or The Northern Queen by Kim Vandervort.

It's easy to enter; just comment on one of our weekly posts, or choose from other entry options, such as liking the Facebook page for Hadley Rille Books.  The giveaway will run until the end of the month; winners will be announced on January 31st.  Visit Heroines of Fantasy to find out more, and enter to win!

If ebooks are not your thing -- or if you're looking to enter multiple raffles this December -- check back on this blog later this week for the Winter Book Blast.  Enjoy an nine-day virtual tour of great titles across many genres, including romance, mystery, historical fiction, fantasy, and young adult. 

The Winter Book Blast is being organized by author DelSheree Gladden.  It will include a Grandprize Giveaway of 18 novels, as well as individual giveaways sponsored by participating authors.  Visitors to the blog for Eolyn will have the opportunity to win one signed copy of the beautiful hardcover edition.  Enter away -- you never know when you might get lucky!

Last but not least, as my personal gift to you, this month I have at last posted a preview to High Maga, the companion novel to Eolyn.  My annual Christmas reading, which will be posted on December 24th, will be an excerpt from the new book.  Come January, you can look forward to more previews, updates, and giveaways for this story of war, courage, endurance, and triumph.

That is the news for this week.  Again, please check back December 15th thru 23rd to register for your chance to win free novels as part of the Winter Book Blast. 

Happy holiday reading!

Enter to win a signed copy of the beautiful hardcover edition of Eolyn:

Visit Heroines of Fantasy and enter to win an ebook bundle of four fantasy novels by HoF authors.

Visit DelSheree Gladden's Winter Book Blast to browse multiple giveaways, including a grand prize giveaway of 18 novels.

Guest Author: Karen L. Azinger

Friday, December 7, is the last day of classes at Avila!  One week more of finals (and grading grading grading), and we are DONE. 

I am very excited about the weeks between now and Christmas Eve, as we have a lot going on both here and on Heroines of Fantasy.  There will be games, giveaways, blog hops and more surprises; opportunities for you to win books of all genres -- even book bundles! --as we get closer to the year's end.  It is shaping up to be a very exciting holiday season, so please stay tuned to learn how you can join the fun.
 

Today, it's my pleasure to welcome Karen L. Azinger, author of The Silk and Steel Saga. 

Karen has always loved fantasy fiction, and always hoped that someday she could give back to the genre a little of the joy that reading has always given her. Ten years ago on a hike in the Columbia River Gorge, she realized she had enough original ideas to finally write an epic fantasy. She started writing and never stopped. The Steel Queen is her first book, born from that hike in the gorge.

Before writing, Karen spent over twenty years as an international business strategist, eventually becoming a vice-president for one of the world's largest natural resource companies. She's worked on developing the first gem-quality diamond mine in Canada's arctic, on coal seam gas power projects in Australia, and on petroleum projects around the world. Having lived in Australia for eight years she considers it to be her second home. She's also lived in Canada and spent a lot of time in the Canadian arctic. She lives with her husband in Portland Oregon, in a house perched on the edge of the forest. The first four books of The Silk & Steel Saga have already been written and she is hard at work on the fifth and final book.

Please join me in welcoming Karen L. Azinger.

What's in a Name?

 

What’s in a name? Everything! Names evoke mystery, menace, magic and wonder. Whisper a single name and readers are instantly transported to another time and place. Arthur…Camelot…Excalibur…Frodo…Mordor…Voldemort, these names shimmer in our hearts and dreams like magical touch-stones. Some evoke wonder while others embody dread. More than any other genre, fantasy tasks authors to create unique and interesting names, but these names should not be a jumble of alphabet soup, impossible to pronounce and even harder to remember. For my medieval epic fantasy, The Silk & Steel Saga, I took great care in choosing the names for my main characters, striving for names that are both unique and memorable and reflective of my characters’ prominent traits.

Liandra, the Queen of Lanverness, is one of my favorite names in the saga. Naming this character was one of my top priorities. After discarding half a hundred mundane names, inspiration finally struck. As soon as I thought of Liandra, I knew I had the perfect name. Lyrical and feminine, yet it has an underlying strength, a fitting name for a queen who uses “beauty to beguile, spies to foresee, and gold to control.” Liandra is a unique name, one I’ve never seen used in fantasy, perfect for my Spider Queen.

Kath, the princess of Castlegard, is a strong female character who is often underestimated and frequently overlooked. Because she is ignored and overlooked, I wanted her to have a common girl’s name, but I also wanted my character to be bold enough to name herself. Katherine is her birth name, the name her father calls her, the name of a princess destine to wed for the good of her kingdom, but my character rejects that destiny and therefore rejects that name, choosing instead to be called Kath, a unique and catchy twist on an otherwise common name.

The Mordant is the name for my darkest character. This name pays homage to the land of Mordor in Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, but instead of an eye wreathed in flame, the Mordant is a very real, very complex character who has lived for over a thousand years. One of the unique aspects of The Silk & Steel Saga is the way the reader gets to view the world from the perspective of a very malevolent evil. It is through the Mordant that my books explore the mechanisms of evil.

Sir Blaine is my classic knight, always striving to be worthy, determined to be a sword wielding hero. This character required a very “knightly” name. When naming a knight, one instantly thinks of the Knights of the Round Table, but authors need to steer clear of stereotypical names like Lancelot, Galahad, Gwaine, Percival and Tristan. Instead I chose a name that sounds like it belongs among Arthurian legends yet is fresh and unique. Blaine rhymes with Gwaine, the perfect original name for my classical knight.

In epic fantasy, the names of settings deserve just as much thought as the character names. If you get stuck, just glance at any world map for inspiration. For example, Inverness is a city in Scotland and also in New Zealand. I’ve never visited either place yet the name always struck me as lyrical, magical, even mystical. Putting my own twist on the name, Inverness becomes Lanverness, the only kingdom of Erdhe ruled by a queen. For the capital city of Lanverness, I chose the name Pellanor, a twisted spelling of Pellinore, a king from Arthurian legend who is famous for hunting the Questing Beast. Choose the names of your kingdoms, cities, and castles with care. Names can instill a touch of classical legend in your epic fantasy.

And last but certainly not least, writers must choose the names for their books. A book’s name should infuse an instant sense of genre. The name should attract attention, create expectation, and be easy to remember while being distinctive. The name of my first book, The Steel Queen, was chosen by my London editors. They wanted a name that could work as a cross-over title to attract both fantasy and historical fiction readers. After a month of e-mailing long lists of names back and forth, they finally settled on The Steel Queen. Once I broke free from my London editors and reclaimed the rights to my books, I chose the rest of the titles as well as the saga name. To “brand” the titles and identify them as part of a saga, I patterned all the titles after first book, resulting in, The Steel Queen, The Flame Priest, The Skeleton King, and The Poison Priestess.

Choosing a saga name is similar to choosing a book name, but with an added twist. In the fantasy genre, epic sagas are often referred to by their acronym, so The Lord of the Rings becomes LOTR. One of the things I love most about my saga name, The Silk & Steel Saga, is that the acronym is SASS. I hope my readers will agree that the women in my saga have a lot of sass!

What’s in a name? Everything! Choose wisely!

 

About The Poison Priestess

While Kath and her companions chase the Mordant into the far north, the southern kingdoms erupt in Flames. The Lord Raven marches south, unleashing a holy war against Lanverness. Vastly outnumbered by a ruthless enemy, Queen Liandra spins desperate gambits in a dire struggle to save her kingdom. New alliances and new awakenings hatch deeper levels of intrigue. The Oracle Priestess and the Lord Raven form a tenuous alliance, while deep in the Southern Mountains the Kiralynn monks stir, revealing more than prophecy. Armies clash, battles rage, and cities fall, as lives, loves and crowns hang in the balance, but swords are not the only way to wage war. Treachery, deceit, assassins, and the power of seduction will face-off against steadfast courage, forgotten magic, and the power of truth. The Poison Priestess is the fourth book in this epic tale of Light versus Dark.

Women and Archeology: The Queens of Ancient Ur

The course Women and Science has two areas of emphasis. One of these focuses on the obstacles women scientists encounter due to gender dynamics, as well as the many contributions women have made despite these obstacles. The other area of emphasis examines how gendered perspectives influence the substance of science: How scientists see the world through a gendered lens, and how gender biases can influence our interpretation the data. 

Earlier in the semester, as the class was reading Londa Schiebinger's Has Feminism Changed Science?, I was reflecting on Schiebinger's discussion of how the archeological record is often subject to interpretation based on contemporary gender stereotypes.  Schiebinger's attention to this topic reminded me of the Archeology Series, a special collection of historical fiction published by Hadley Rille Books, wherein the lives of ordinary women are reconstructed based on sound archeological evidence.  I decided to contact the author of one of these novels, Shauna Roberts, and to my delight she was willing to provide a guest post that touches upon this topic.

Shauna Roberts, Ph.D., is a novelist, short-story writer, and editor in California.  She writes primarily science fiction, fantasy, and historical fiction. A 2009 graduate of the Clarion Writers' Workshop, she won the 2011 Speculative Literature Foundation's Older Writers Grant.  Her publications include short stories, and the historical novel Like Mayflies in a Stream, based on the "Epic of Gilgamesh". Her new fantasy novel Ice Magic, Fire Magic will be released from Hadley Rille Books in 2013. You can visit Shauna at http://shaunaroberts.blogspot.com.

As a side note, I also want to let our readers know that Hadley Rille Books will celebrate its birthday this weekend, and that ALL its electronic titles, including the Archeology Series, will be on sale for $0.99 (Kindle and Nook editions). Browse Hadley Rille's great collection of historical fiction, science fiction, and fantasy, for quality gifts and great holiday reading.

~*~

Did Queens Sometimes Rule Ancient Ur?

Even the greatest archaeologists can be led astray by the prejudices of their era. Sir Leonard Woolley, who with colleagues excavated the ancient city of Ur in Mesopotamia from 1922 to 1934, was ahead of his time in the carefulness of his excavations, the exactitude of his notes, and his respect for his Arab workers.

Even so, some of his practices and interpretations have not stood the test of time. His correlations of his finds with events in the Bible were often invalid. After excavating 2,000 graves at Ur, Woolley threw out almost all of the skeletons, never guessing that radiology, computed tomography (CT), DNA analysis, isotope analysis, and other technologies would one day make skeletons priceless goldmines of information. Woolley also assumed that all rulers in ancient Mesopotamia were male. Thus, when he excavated the “Royal Graveyard” at Ur, he labeled the elite men as kings and the elite women as wives or relatives of kings.

Headdress and jewelry of Queen Puabi
as reconstructed and displayed by the
University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.
Object 17711. Courtesy of the Penn Museum.
http://www.penn.museum

That interpretation was challenged in 2008 by Kathleen McCaffrey (1), then a graduate student at University of California at Berkeley. Her reanalysis of the graves and/or grave goods of three women suggests that they were ruling queens, not queen consorts.

The sixteen burials Woolley designated “royal tombs” at Ur date to 2600 to 2450 B.C.E. Each burial included one person of obviously high status: The person occupied a separate chamber within the tomb and wore jewelry of gold and precious stones. The small chamber often contained an identifying cylinder seal (which was used to “sign” legal, accounting, and other documents) and luxury goods.

The main portion of the tomb contained more luxury goods and food … as well as one or more adult bodies carefully positioned and aligned with compass points. Recent CT scans of two skulls revealed that these grave attendants were killed by blunt force trauma to the head, perhaps from being hit by a battle axe (2). This study and another recent study (3) of the alignment of bodies suggested that after death, the grave attendants were washed, dressed, and added in separate groups to the tomb.

McCaffrey noticed that in Woolley’s itemized records of the contents of tombs, the gender of the grave goods did not always match the sex of the presumably royal body. According to McCaffrey, Woolley inventoried royal graves accurately, but his interpretations were founded in stereotypes of sex and gender. In cases of sex-gender mismatch, he came up with ad hoc explanations for the mismatches, “normalized” the artifacts (for example, referring to weapons as “tools” when they accompanied an elite woman), and/or avoided talking about the mismatched grave goods.

In three cases, graves that would ordinarily have been identified as belonging to kings were not, because the elite occupants were women.

Case 1. The elite woman in tomb RT/1054 wore a dagger at her waist. Her grave goods included some male-gendered items such as a bronze axe, a whetstone, a bronze hatchet, a spare man’s gold headdress, and a king’s seal bearing the name Meskalamdug. Woolley assigned ownership of most of the male-gendered items to attendants—even though the items were made of precious imported metals, the attendants were poorly dressed, and Woolley had repeatedly asserted that attendants were buried with no grave goods of their own. Woolley concluded that the royal seal in tomb RT/1054 could not belong to its occupant because she was a woman.

Cosmetic box lid buried with Queen Puabi. The box was made
of silver. The lid is made of shell and lapis lazuli and
shows a lion eating a ram. Object B16744A.
Courtesy of the Penn Museum. http://www.penn.museum

Case 2. Queen Puabi (tomb RT/800) had a lavish burial with incredible wealth and 26 attendants. Her grave goods included gold and silver spears, axes, daggers, saws, and chisels and were nearly identical to those of a man Woolley identified as a king. However, Woolley and others assumed that Puabi was not a ruler, both because she was a woman and because her seals identified her as a nin. Archaeologists usually translate nin as “queen” in the sense of “the wife of a king.” However, the meanings of the word “nin” are far more nuanced and complex (4).

Case 3. Tomb RT/1050 was stripped by looters in ancient times. However, the robbers missed a cylinder seal. The text on the seal is in the standard format for a king’s seal: The first line of text lists the king’s name, the second line lists the city name, and the third line identifies him as lugal (king, owner, master). A rule follows, and the fourth line lists a name and identifies that person as the spouse. The seal read:

            A-u-sikil-am₆

            (of) Ur
            the lugal
            —————
            A-kalam-dug, his/her spouse

However, that’s not the translation Woolley’s linguist, Eric Burrows, published. A-u-sikil-am₆ is a female name, and A-kalam-dug is a male name. Burrows found it easier to believe that the sealmaker made three major errors in engraving the seal than that a woman could have been lugal. So he rearranged the lines and published the translation as:

            A-kalam-dug, his/her spouse

            —————
            (of) Ur
            the lugal
            A-u-sikil-am₆

We know that Burrows’ translation was rearranged because Woolley and his colleagues followed the good practice of publishing the rationales for their interpretations. As a result, scholars today can look back at their evidence, logic, and conclusions and decide for themselves whether the reasoning was sound. Unfortunately, not all current scholars follow the same good practice.

McCaffrey concluded that Meskallumdug, Puabi, and/or A-u-sikil-am₆ were ruling queens of Ur. She said, “scholars project current assumptions about gender into the past when analyzing mortuary remains…. We see the binaries of our own gender logic in the material record because deeply ingrained preconceptions prevent us from seeing anything else.”

We can look to other cities in the ancient Near East for possible supporting evidence. Archaeologists from Johns Hopkins University have discovered a possible royal cemetery at Umm el-Marra in western Mesopotamia (present-day Syria) dating to 2300 B.C.E. (5). Some of the people buried with riches and attendants are women. Their graves raise the same questions—and may have the same answers—as the graves at Ur.

Also, according to the Sumerian King List (6), a woman was lugal of the city of Kish and ruled Sumer sometime between 2500 and 2300 B.C.E. This woman, a former tavernkeeper called Kug-Bau in Sumerian-language sources and Kubaba in Akkadian-language sources, must have done a memorable job: Her son and grandson succeeded her as lugal, she was deified after her death, and shrines to worship her sprang up in Mesopotamia and later in other areas.

Kug-Bau’s example makes clear that women did rule in Mesopotamia. A fresh look at the tombs of Ur suggests Kug-bau was not the only ancient lugal.

 

References and Footnotes

(1) McCaffrey, Kathleen. “The Female Kings of Ur.” In Diane Bolger, Editor. Gender through Time in the Ancient Near East. Lanham, Maryland: AltaMira Press, 2008, pp. 173–215.

(2) Baadsgaard, Aubrey, Janet Monge, Samantha Cox, and Richard L. Zettler. “Human Sacrifice and Intentional Corpse Preservation in the Royal Cemetery of Ur.” Antiquity 85:27–42, 2011.

(3) Vidale, Massimo. “PG 1237, Royal Cemetery of Ur: Patterns in Death.” Cambridge Archaeological Journal 21: 427–451, 2011.

(4) The word “nin” was sometimes used as a title for gods, both male and female. John Alan Halloran’s Sumerian Lexicon (Los Angeles: Logogram Publishing, 2006) defines nin as queen, mistress, proprietress, lady, and lord. The etymology of nin suggests that it may have originally meant a person who is much feared or respected. Even more confusing, the cuneiform character for nin (MUNUS.TÚG) also meant eresh. Halloran defines eresh as lady, mistress, proprietress, queen, and wise one. Its etymology is complicated; it may have derived from the combination of e (speaking, prayer), ri (to throw, to cast, to expel, to beget, to inundate, and several other verbs), and isi (mountain). Scholars continue to debate both the difference between the two words and when to read MUNUS.TÚG as nin and when to read it as eresh.  University of Pennsylvania researchers currently believe that eresh is the correct reading Puabi's title.  Even though McCaffrey based her argument on reading MUNUS.TÚG as nin, I believe her general point is still valid:  We do not yet understand the full meaning of Puabi's title, so we cannot say it excludes her as ruler of Ur. 

(5) See page 3 of the project’s Website at http://neareast.jhu.edu/uem/index.html.

(6) http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/section2/tr211.htm. Note that although this translation (and all others) uses “he” and “son,” the characters so translated meant “he, she, it” and “child” in the original Sumerian. Thus, Kug-Bau may not be the only woman ruler on the list.