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 224:
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.
