The Great Fatted Bull
Introduction
Tablet #36
Translation
Annotations
Transliteration
Sumerian Images
Sumerian History
The Royal Tombs of Ur
The "Standard" of Ur?
Standard of Ur:  Narrative
Eannatum
Vulture Stele Translation
Sumerian War Chariots
War Chariot Deconstructed
Sumerian Chariot  Model
Gudea Translation
The Face of Gudea
Unknown Portrait of Gudea
The Face of Ur-Ningirsu
The Face of Lugal-agrig-zi
Ur-Namma Translation
The Face of Ur-Namma
Face of Ur-Namma, part II
I am Ur-Namma
Shulgi
The Face of Shulgi
Who Were the Sumerians?
Other Sumerian Kings
The Princess Wife
Princess Wife sequel
Princess Wife whole story
The Great Fatted Jackass
Mesopotamian Prostitutes
Sumerian Queens
Unknown Sumerian Queen
Another Sumerian Queen
Pu-abi, the Queen?
A Sumerian Princess
Sumerian Lukurs
The Divine Right to Rule
Sargon's Victory Stele
Helmet: the King of Kish
The Standard of Mari?
The Battles of Ishqi-Mari
Miscellaneous
The Gebel el-Arak Knife
Hierakonpolis Tomb 100
Idiot
Queen Ku-Baba
Copy of the Std of Ur?
Mace or Vase?
The Invention of Writing
Adventures in Cuneiform
The Sumerian Scribe
A Masterpiece
Links
FAQs, Copyrights, etc
Contact
Site Map
   
 


The barmaid who became a princess, a queen, a king, and a goddess.



The Sumerian King List is a clay prism covered with cuneiform writing. It is a record of the kings who ruled in ancient Mesopotamia.

On the King List, the section for Ku-Baba (also known as Kug-Bau) begins at line 223:

In Kish, Ku-Baba, the woman tavern-keeper, who made firm the foundations of Kish, became king; she ruled for 100 years. Puzur-Sin, the son of Ku-Baba, became king; he ruled for 25 years. Ur-Zababa, the son of Puzur-Sin, ruled for 6 years. 131 are the years of the dynasty of Ku-Baba.

That’s the sum total of everything we know about Ku-Baba.

From these few lines, however, we can surmise several important facts about her:

The King List calls her lugal (king) and not eresh (queen). This leaves no doubt that she actually governed the kingdom and she wasn’t merely the wife of a king. She ruled
in her own right. As such, Ku-Baba is the first female ruler in recorded history. Credit for
the first female ruler sometimes goes to Sobekneferu, the female pharaoh who ruled Egypt
from 1806 to 1802 BC. Ku-Baba predates Sobekneferu by 600 years. In reading the story
of Ku-Baba, it should be remembered that she lived at the dawn of civilization. To put things into proper perspective, she lived 1,000 years before Tutankhamun.

Ku-Baba was a commoner, so the only way she could become a queen (and then later become a king after the death of her husband) is by marrying into the royal family. It is
usually assumed that Ku-Baba married the king, but this is not correct. There’s no way
that Ku-Baba was a barmaid on one day and then Queen of the Realm on the next.

A king usually married for wealth and power. He married a noblewoman for her rich dowry
and to create a strategic alliance with her powerful family, or he married the daughter of a
rival king to unite the two kingdoms and thus cancel the threat of a potential enemy.

A rash marriage to a young commoner is not the action of a reigning king. Instead, it is the action of a young prince, a prince in love. Ku-Baba married a prince who later became the king. In this way she was like Theodora (500 - 548 AD). Theodora was a commoner who married young Justinian when he was just a prince. He later became the emperor of Byzantium. Theodora thus became the empress.

This explains Ku-Baba's rise to power. Being a princess taught Ku-Baba how to be a queen. Being a queen taught her how to be a king.

As a commoner who married a prince, Ku-Baba is the first Cinderella in world history. She is
a real Cinderella, and not just a character in a fairy tale. It should be borne in mind that Cinderella had a fairy godmother to help make things happen. Ku-Baba did it all on her own. Her husband (we don't know his name) is the first Prince Charming. Theirs is the first love story in recorded history. We know he loved her because he risked everything to marry her - his wealth, power, prestige, and even his throne.

There are several other facts about Ku-Baba that we can surmise:

She was beautiful. She had to be, to capture the attention of the prince. Ku-Baba’s beauty may have gotten her noticed by the prince, but it’s her personality that won his heart.
There was much more to Ku-Baba than just her looks. A prince, as the future king,
usually married for wealth and power. The prince could be induced to wed a commoner,
and thus forego a more advantageous marriage, only if the woman was beautiful, and only if
he loved her

Ku-Baba was illiterate, but that isn’t saying very much because at this time in history
almost everyone was illiterate, even among the nobility. Cuneiform writing was still in the
process of being invented. It was very difficult to read and to write, and it was comprehensible to only a few profession scribes (less than 1% of the population). Ku-Baba never spent a day in school. Poor people weren’t educated because scribal school was very expensive and only the rich people (noblemen and wealthy merchants) could afford it.


Ku-Baba was named for her personal goddess, Baba, the goddess of healing. Ku-Baba’s name literally means “precious (or dear) to Baba.”
The sign {d} is dingir. It symbolizes the divinity of the goddess Baba. It is not pronounced when the word is said aloud. The numerical subscripts are modern conventions that denote
the different meanings of a sign. Needless to say, they are not pronounced.   


Ku-Baba was young. If she were any older, her parents would have already married her off to a local boy. So Ku-Baba was just below the usual age for marriage when she met the prince. Perhaps 16 - 18 years old, just a teenager. The same was true of her future husband.
If he were any older, he would already be wedded to a royal princess in a prearranged, dynastic marriage.

Ku-Baba’s rise to power is all the more remarkable considering her profession. The King List describes Ku-Baba as munus-lu2-kurun-na. It translates as “a female keeper of a tavern.”
It is also translated as “wine-maid” and “alewife.” Throughout Mesopotamia, a barmaid was typically considered to be a woman of loose morals, freely available to the patrons of the bar, and little better than a prostitute. This means Ku-Baba wasn’t just a commoner, she was a lowly commoner at that.


A clay plaque. This is the ancient version of pornography. A man and a woman have sex
in a tavern while the woman drinks beer through a long straw. In Mesopotamian art, there are many depictions of men consorting with prostitutes in taverns. It was a common motif.

Taverns, not brothels, were the main centers of prostitution in ancient Mesopotamia. Of the eight literary works from Mesopotamia that mention prostitutes, six of them also mention taverns and inns.

People assume Ku-Baba was the owner of a tavern. They try to describe Ku-Baba as an
early example of an independent businesswoman, suggesting that owning a tavern was
one of the few business opportunities that were open to women. However, it seems unlikely
that women were encouraged to operate a tavern because it was a disreputable business.
If a woman was a tavern owner, it probably means she inherited the business from her
parents or her husband. A female tavern owner would probably be middle-aged, making her unattractive to a royal suitor. If she wasn't a widow, she would already be married, perhaps
with children of her own. Children born outside of the royal family would disqualify her from
marriage to a prince. Besides, a female tavern owner would by necessity have to be a tough old broad, if she ever hoped to control a room full of drunken men.

I suggest that Ku-Baba worked in a tavern, but she did not own it. The tavern belonged to
her parents. This is an important consideration because under her parents’ watchful eyes
she did not engage in the kind of promiscuous behavior that is commonly associated with
tavern wenches. This leads us to another important fact:

Ku-Baba was a virgin − contrary to the stereotypical image of a lusty barmaid. A prince
wasn’t interested in marrying a woman who had slept around. This was true for most men.
A man expected his wife to be sexually faithful to him after marriage, so he could be sure
that any child born into his household was his own. He certainly didn’t want to raise the
child of the man who cuckolded him. The sexual fidelity of a wife was especially important
for a prince/king because the stability of the realm depended on it. If his son, the heir to
the throne, was even rumored to be the product of his wife’s adultery, the line of succession would be called into question. This could result in a civil war when rival noblemen dusted off their own impeccable genealogies and reasserted their claims to the throne. A prince
wouldn’t risk the welfare of the kingdom (and his own dynasty) by marrying a woman with
a known sexual history, regardless of how besotted he was by her beauty. If Ku-Baba was promiscuous, she would end up as his concubine, not his wife, and we never would have
heard of her.

Nonetheless, the widespread prejudice against her profession was something that Ku-Baba needed to overcome when she was introduced into the royal court.

In reading the story of Ku-Baba, we must remember that she didn’t have the slightest idea
how to be a princess. In the modern era, there are lots of books and movies about life in a
royal court. Ku-Baba didn’t have this advantage. She had never met a lord or lady, never
been inside the palace. She had never read the Cinderella story (of course) nor even seen
a picture book. She didn’t have the faintest idea what she was getting into.

Little did she know, she was about to be tossed into a nest of vipers.

Throughout history, throughout the entire world, royal courts were like snake pits – all of
them, without exception. A royal court is a small little world where noble men and women
fight for every shred of wealth and power that they can grab. It is a world of intrigue, of constantly shifting alliances, of plots, lies, and betrayal. It is a world of smiling enemies
and false friends, where everyone has a hidden agenda, and nobody says what they mean.
It is a world of promiscuity that could shock a peasant, and drunkenness that would shock
a woman who grew up in a bar. It is a claustrophobic world of beauty and sophistication,
where petty little hatreds and jealousies can instantly turn violent, even murderous, with ramifications that rippled throughout the entire kingdom.

This was the world that the naive young Ku-Baba stepped into.

Being a commoner, Ku-Baba was already at a distinct disadvantage, but this was the
least of her problems. Ku-Baba didn’t know it at the time, but all the lords and ladies
of the kingdom already hated her, sight unseen, before they even met her.

Her fairy tale marriage was a huge scandal.

The titled lords and ladies highly resented this young peasant upstart. They earned their
proud titles of nobility through generations of service to the kingdom. Now this pert little peasant girl waltzes in and wants to be treated as their equal? Even their superior?
It’s easy to imagine how they felt about that. They would find it distasteful to show her the signs of respect that her rank deserved. They would find it galling to bow down before her.

Apparently, they underestimated Ku-Baba. She wasn’t just another pretty face. There was something extraordinary about Ku-Baba. In this regard she was like Joan of Arc, another teenage peasant girl who changed the history of the world. Joan was extraordinary because
of her deep religious convictions. Ku-Baba was extraordinary because she had to be,
just to survive. In a way, Joan had the easier option. She merely had to prove herself on the bloody battlefield of France. Ku-Baba had to prove herself on a different, far more dangerous kind of battlefield – the royal court. (The royal court was the downfall of Joan of Arc.)

Yet Ku-Baba somehow managed to prevail in the royal court, which had been the graveyard of many a seasoned courtier. Ku-Baba thrived as princess and she became a popular queen. After the death of her husband, she became a successful king of Kish.

Kish was the most powerful city-state in the nation of Akkad (modern day Iraq). The king of Kish was called “The King of Kings” because he held hegemony over all the other Akkadian kings and they owed him at least a nominal allegiance. So Ku-Baba wasn’t merely a king, which by itself is a remarkable achievement for a woman, she was the king who ruled
all other kings.

Being a king of Kish was a dangerous job. It seems that Kish was always under attack by somebody or another. Sometimes it was a rival Akkadian king. Sometimes it was a
barbarian king. More often than not, it was a Sumerian king. Sumer was Akkad’s neighbor
to the south. During this period in history, many ambitious Sumerian kings sought to conquer Kish so they could be the new King of Kings, the king who ruled all of Sumer and Akkad.


Detail from the Standard of Ur. The king of Ur defeats the king of Kish in personal combat.
He has wounded the king of Kish, taken him captive, and stripped him of his clothes.
He has the skirt of the king draped over his arm and he holds the king’s robe in his hand.
The "dis-robing" of the king is symbolic of victory.

Look at the square box between the legs of the king of Kish. This is his royal standard,
just like the Standard of Ur. The fallen standard symbolizes the abject defeat of the captive king of Kish.


Detail of the formal surrender ceremony depicted on the Standard of Ur: The victorious Sumerian king is on the left. In front of him is a captive king of Kish. His clothes have been restored to him for the surrender ceremony. He is guarded by a Sumerian soldier. Behind them, Sumerian noblemen proudly display for their king the Akkadian lords that they personally captured in battle. The Akkadian lords are naked, bound, and bleeding, with ropes around their necks.

This scene occurred just a few moments before the king of Kish and all of his lords were executed. This was the inevitable fate for any unsuccessful king of Kish.


The King List tells us that Ku-Baba “made firm the foundations of Kish.” This means she resored the power and prestige of Kish. She returned Kish to its former glory. Kish remained safe and secure during her kingship.

We are told that Ku-Baba “ruled for 100 years.” Obviously, this isn’t true. The number was deliberately exaggerated to emphasized the importance of her reign.

We know it was a very successful reign. It had to be. Any female pretender to the throne
who didn’t do an excellent job would quickly find herself in the middle of a coup d’état.
Ku-Baba was capable enough, and respected enough, to stay in power and establish a dynasty. The dynasty continued for two more generations with her son Puzur-Sin and her grandson Ur-Zababa.

After her death (circa 2375 BC), Ku-Baba was deified as a goddess. Every king and queen
in Mesopotamia thought of themselves as “living gods” with a divine right to rule, but
Ku-Baba was the first person (male or female) to be included in the Akkadian pantheon of
the immortal gods.

As a goddess, Ku-Baba had temples dedicated to her worship. Priests and priestesses
were appointed to conduct religious ceremonies on her behalf. The worship of Ku-Baba
spread throughout Mesopotamia, and beyond. As a commoner, Ku-Baba was beloved
by every single commoner in ancient Mesopotamia (and Anatolia). She was a goddess
they could gladly worship. It is reasonable to assume that one time, there were altars
to Ku-Baba in every common household in the region.


Ku-Baba, the goddess. This is the Hittite version of Ku-Baba as a goddess. The Hittite Empire (1400 – 1190 BC) was in Anatolia, about 700 miles north of Kish. This bas-relief was created about 1,000 years after the reign of Ku-Baba.

As a princess/queen/king/goddess, and the first female ruler in recorded history, it seems
that Ku-Baba should be just as famous as Nefertiti and Cleopatra. You may be wondering,
“If Ku-Baba was so great, why hasn’t anyone ever heard of her?”

I believe I know who is to blame. I see Sargon's fine Italian hand in all of this.

Sargon destroyed Ku-Baba's dynasty, then he tried to slander her and destroy her legacy.


Sargon


Two clues are given on the King List.

The first clue is when we are informed that Ur-Zababa was Ku-Baba’s grandson. At the time,
Ur-Zababa was a vassal king of the Sumerian king Lugalzagesi. Kish, which had been
restored to its former glory by Ku-Baba, was once again under the control of the Sumerians. Lugalzagesi had conquered all of Sumer and Akkad, and beyond (see Lugalzagesi on this website).

Sargon was the Cupbearer for Ur-Zababa, in charge of the drinks cupboard. It sounds like
a menial job, but it was a position of great responsibility. It was reserved for members of the
king’s court. It also displays Ur-Zababa’s total trust in Sargon, since a cupbearer could easily poison the king.

The story of Sargon and Ur-Zababa, undoubtedly written at Sargon’s behest, gives an
unflattering portrait of Ur-Zababa. Unlike Sargon, “the creature of the gods,” Ur-Zababa is
portrayed as petty and devious, weak and fearful. He chews his lip in apprehension. He has
a scary dream that completely unhinges him, “Like a lion he urinated, sprinkling his legs,
and the urine contained blood and pus. He was troubled, he was disturbed…”

Ur-Zababa was Sargon’s rightful king. If Sargon portrayed Ur-Zababa this way, why should he have any qualms about slandering Ur-Zababa’s grandmother?

Sargon had his own dream:

“The sleeping Sargon groaned and gnawed the ground. When King Ur-Zababa heard about
this groaning, he was brought into the king's holy presence. Sargon was brought into the
presence of Ur-Zababa (who said:) 'Cupbearer, was a dream revealed to you in the night?' 
Sargon answered his king: 'My king, this is my dream, which I will tell you about: There was
a young woman [the war goddess Inanna] who was as high as the heavens and as broad
as the earth. She was as firmly set as the base of a wall. For me, she drowned you in
a great river, a river of blood.'"  (ETCSL, Sargon and Ur-Zababa, lines 12 -24)

Apparently it all came to pass. Sargon usurped the kingdom of Kish from Ur-Zababa after a
bloody battle. Ur-Zababa was captured and executed (murdered) by Sargon. It’s only fair
to mention that Ur-Zababa had previously tried to kill Sargon – twice. The first time is when
he ordered his chancellor to throw Sargon into some clay construction molds “like a statue.”
The other time is when he sent Sargon to deliver a letter to Lugalzagesi. The letter said:
"Kill the messenger." Supposedly, Lugalzagesi's wife fell in love with Sargon and saved him from being murdered by her husband. Anyway, that’s how Sargon tells the story.
 


The death of Ur-Zababa, the grandson of Ku-Baba. Sargon holds a net full of prisoners.
They are the Akkadians who defended Ur-Zababa. Their heads are half-shaven as a sign of punishment. Ur-Zababa struggles to escape from the net. Sargon clubs him with a mace
(see Sargon’s Victory Stele on this website).

Sargon was a usurper because he had rebelled against his lawful king. Like all usurpers,
Sargon was self-conscious about how he came to power. Even his name, which translates as "rightful (or legitimate) king," is an attempt to justify his overthrow of Ur-Zababa.

Other than his name, how could Sargon claim he was the “legitimate king”?  How could he
justify plunging Kish into a bloody civil war?  Obviously, Ur-Zababa was the rightful king,
the third king of his dynasty. He was named for the god Zababa, the patron deity of Kish.
Yet Sargon thought his own right to rule was superior to Ur-Zababa’s.

This leads us to the second clue given by the King List. Line 266 mentions, “Sargon,
whose father was a gardener…” (??!!)  So Sargon was a commoner, just like Ku-Baba.
This tells us several important facts about Sargon.

First, the only way Sargon could get a noble title is to join the army and rise through the ranks because of his military exploits. He thus attained a title in the minor nobility and he probably married a noblewoman. This how he gained access to Ur-Zababa’s court.

Second, as a cupbearer, he could easily poison Ur-Zababa, if killing the king was Sargon’s
sole intent. Sargon had bigger plans. He wanted to take over Ur-Zababa’s kingdom as well.
He could only do this if he had the support of the nobility because of his reputation as a
military commander. The noblemen were disgruntled because Kish, under the ineffectual
leadership of Ur-Zababa, was now a vassal state of the Sumerians. In Ur-Zababa's defense,
it should be noted that many capable kings, Sumerian and Akkadian alike, found themselves
under the control of Lugalzagesi, the King of Kings. 

Third, this was not merely a coup d’état confined within the palace walls. It was a bloody
civil war, led by Sargon. It proves that he had already established his military credentials.
Sargon’s abilities as a military commander were confirmed by subsequent events. He later
conquered the rest of Akkad, all of Sumer, and most of Mesopotamia. He thus created the
Akkadian Empire. The empire would last for 180 years.

The Sumerian king Lugalzagesi met the same fate as Ur-Zababa at the hands of Sargon.
After he was captured, Lugalzagesi was forced to watch the construction of a victory stele commemorating his own defeat, and then he was executed. Ironically, Lugalzagesi's wife
saved Sargon from being murdered by her husband, but she could not save her husband
from being murdered by Sargon. Allegedly, Sargon then forced her to marry him so he could unite the two countries under a single dynasty.


The bodies of Lugalzagesi's Sumerian soldiers are devoured by vultures and war dogs after a battle with Sargon (see Sargon's Other Victory Stele on this website).


You may be wondering, “What does any of this have to do with Queen Ku-Baba?”  Okay,
I’m getting to it.

Sargon could not justify his claim to the throne by waving around the exalted pedigree of his
father the gardener. If Sargon wanted to declare he was the legitimate king, he had to prove
that Ur-Zababa was not. Ur-Zababa was obviously the lawful king of Kish and the third king
in a dynasty, so Sargon could not challenge him on these grounds. To discredit Ur-Zababa,
Sargon first needed to discredit Ku-Baba, the founder of the dynasty.

Sargon could not discredit Ku-Baba because she was a commoner. The aristocrats would quickly remind him, “You are a commoner too, so what’s your point?” The fact is, everyone already knew that Ku-Baba was not a princess of royal birth. A high-born nobleman could discredit Ku-Baba for being a commoner, but Sargon could not. However, there was
something else that he could do.

Sargon was a brilliant propagandist. His victory stele commemorating his overthrow of
Ur-Zababa is a masterpiece of lies. He actually portrays himself as a hero for usurping
the crown of his lawful king. The same is true for the story of Sargon and Ur-Zababa.
Again he is the hero of the story, beloved by the wife of Lugalzagesi, while Ur-Zababa
is portrayed as a weak and frightened little man. Sargon explained his own humble origins by saying his parents found him as an infant in a reed basket floating on the river, implying
he was the son of an unknown nobleman who had to abandon Sargon to protect him. It is the same story as Moses, long before Moses was born. Sargon wasn't the first propagandist in Mesopotamia, but he was certainly the best. Everything about Sargon is propaganda, even his name is propaganda.

For propaganda purposes, Sargon smeared Ku-Baba with the same brush he used to smear everyone else. He resurrected an old joke, rumor, or allegation that Ku-Baba was a bawdy
tavern queen and he bandied it about as if it were true (there must have been a lot of
negative commentary swirling around the first female ruler in history), In this way, Sargon
demeaned her character, and in so doing, he robbed her of the dignity and gravitas
that is essential to the legacy of any monarch. More to the point, and I believe this was
his intention all along, he implied that her son Puzur-Sin was illegitimate. By extension,
so was Puzur-Sin’s son, Ur-Zababa. Sargon by his very name was the "legitimate king”;
therefore Ur-Zababa was the "illegitimate king.” According to Sargon, the alewife Ku-Baba
and her bastard progeny were the real usurpers in this story, not him. He was merely
restoring dignity and morality to the kingdom of Kish.

It was not enough for Sargon to claim that Ur-Zababa himself was illegitimate. Even if true,
the kingship would pass to the highest-ranking male of Ku-Baba's dynasty, which wouldn't
do Sargon a bit of good. To seize the throne, Sargon had to discredit the entire dynasty
of Ku-Baba. He didn't need to convince everyone of the veracity his claims. He just needed a pretext, and no one was willing to argue with Sargon, the man with the sword.

Through the machinations of Sargon, "Ku-Baba the daughter of tavern keepers" became
"Ku-Baba the female tavern keeper." It is a subtle distinction, but a damning one. The image
of a young girl working in her parents' shop is replaced by the image of a coarse, vulgar
middle-aged woman presiding over the kingdom as if it was a beer hall. Even today, in the Feminist Era, it is hard to take her seriously with the image of Ku-Baba the Tavern Queen etched into our minds. I believe this is the reason why she has never been given the respect and recognition that she truly deserves.

If there's any negative commentary about Ku-Baba, we know exactly who to blame: Sargon.
If Ku-Baba was a failure as a queen, everyone would know about it. She would be used
"to point a moral, or adorn a tale." She would be portrayed as either stupid or villainous, and her failure would justify the prevailing opinion that women were unfit to rule. Since Sargon
could not name any specific fault in Ku-Baba's reign, he and his crony noblemen had to
resort to character assassination, after her death, when she could not defend her reputation. The noblemen were happy to join Sargon in his efforts to overthrow the "commoner dynasty"
of Ku-Baba, and thus restore the nobility to their rightful place as the rulers of the kingdom. These noblemen got high-ranking positions in Sargon's new regime.

Ku-Baba is portrayed as a kindly woman in all the folklore stories about her. This suggests that Ku-Baba never lost the “common touch.” Ku-Baba was always “the people’s queen,”
which is yet another reason why Sargon sought to discredit her. She was beloved by the people, Sargon was hated.

If Sargon was the legitimate successor to Ur-Zababa, he would capitalize on the dynasty's popularity with the people. The worship of Ku-Baba would continue unabated throughout
the ages. It would have spread from Mesopotamia to Greece, and from Greece to Rome,
and from Rome to all of Europe. Today, everybody in the world would know about Ku-Baba.

Instead, Sargon destroyed Ku-Baba’s temples (or re-dedicated them to other goddesses)
and he prohibited the worship of her. Any loyalty to the memory of Ku-Baba was considered treasonous to the new regime. The worship of Ku-Baba quickly died out in all the lands that Sargon conquered, which included all of Mesopotamia. His empire lasted for 180 years.
Thus, Sargon almost completely eradicated the memory of Ku-Baba.

No trace of Ku-Baba remains in Mesopotamia, where she was a legend in her lifetime and
a goddess after her death. In a way, Sargon killed Ku-Baba.

Almost, but not quite. Sargon should have known that he cannot kill a goddess. Although
the memory of Ku-Baba has been greatly diminished, she will always be remembered,
because there has never been a woman quite like Ku-Baba.

Ku-Baba was a commoner who became a princess, then a queen, and then a king (the King
of Kings). Then she became a goddess. To do this, she not only had to overcome the prejudice against her gender, but also her social class, and even her profession. No woman
in history has accomplished so much in her lifetime.

No other woman has even come close.

Ku-Baba is truly the most extraordinary woman who ever lived.




         dingir                 ku3                 {d}                 ba                 ba6

As previously mentioned, the "{d}" in the middle denotes the divinity of Baba, the goddess
for whom Ku-Baba was named. It is not pronounced when the name is said aloud.

The dingir on the left denotes the divinity of Ku-Baba herself. In this case, it is pronounced.
The signs read, "Dingir Ku-Baba", (the) goddess Ku-Baba.

It has been more than 4,000 years since the signs were written this way.





August 4, 2022