A clay plaque shows a man and a woman (a prostitute?) having sex. The woman sips beer through a long straw. This was a popular motif throughout Mesopotamia. There are many different variations on this theme. The plaques were made in molds for mass production. It was the Mesopotamian version of pornography.
Is he wearing a hat?
Munus-kin = woman-work = prostitute
Yes, munus (woman) is exactly what it looks like, turned on its side.
The signs for man and woman were originally pictographs of their genitals, which probably saved a lot of gender confusion.
The man is uncircumcised, by the way.
Clay impression from a cylinder seal. Notice the frantic husband on the right. He has just caught his wife cheating on him. I call this picture, In Flangrante Delictio.
When I was trying to translate Tablet BE 31,28, the story of
The Princess Wife, I had to look up the Sumerian word for “prostitute”. I was
surprised when I couldn’t one on the ePSD (the electronic Pennsylvania Sumerian
Dictionary). All the references to prostitutes (kar-kid) were listed in the Old
Babylonian period, after the end of Sumerian civilization. I thought, "Really?" How could the Sumerians not
have a word for prostitute? After all, it is the "world's oldest
profession".
I had assumed that munus-kin was the Sumerian word for
"prostitute".
r6 lu2-zuh!- ir- ra nu-nus munus-kin du3 [...] man-rob-plunder-for woman prostitute all
This is line r6 of Tablet BE 31,28, the story of The
Princess Wife. It translates as "All women are prostitutes (munus-kin) for
men who rob and plunder." Within the context of the story, it means that all women
willingly prostitute themselves to rich and powerful men (within and without
marriage) in exchange for money.
I was convinced that munus-kin was the Sumerian word for
prostitute. The problem is, Tablet BE31,28 is dated in the Old Babylonian
period. I wondered if there was an earlier Sumerian
citation for the word that hadn’t yet been discovered, so I kept looking.
Prostitutes in
Mesopotamian art
There are many examples of nude or semi-nude women cupping their breasts in a provocative "come hither" pose. See another example. They are commonly labeled simply as "women", but I suggest, more specifically, that they're actually prostitutes.
Other women who are more demure are just "nudes". They are like wives and girlfriends. They are not prostitutes because they do not perform the specific gesture of cupping.
This woman is fully clothed, but also cupping her breasts. I suggest this is how you could recognize a prostitute on the streets of ancient Sumer. She wore clothes in public, of course. She didn't parade around in the nude, as suggested by the prostitute seen above. Cupping her breasts in her hands was a signal to a prospective client that she was a prostitute, ready and available. The signal may have been subtle when the authorities were around, or not so subtle when the coast was clear.
Getting back to the subject at hand...
Munus-kin: “woman-to work”. Like
I said, I think this is the Sumerian word for “prostitute”. This definition doesn't appear in the ePSD, the ETCSL, or the Sumerian Lexicon. The only occurrence of the signs on the CDLI is an inscription on a statue of Gudea (P431884, lines 54 – 58). These lines describe the people that Gudea cast out of the city during the dedication of the holy temple of Ningirsu:
The sexually impure persons who inspire fear, the [...] man, {lu2 si gi4-a, the man who “deflowers” women?} he with a shriveled(?) penis, and the woman who had been in labor(?), {munus-kin} he sent out of the city.
The question mark after “the woman who had been in labor(?)” shows that the translator had serious doubts about this interpretation of munus-kin. Rightfully so, because if Gudea banished all the women who had once been in labor, then most women would end up outside the city walls. Plus, Gudea wouldn't banish (and disgrace) all the mothers who had given birth to the citizens of his kingdom.
Notice how the other people mentioned on the list can be described as “sexual deviants”. That means munus-kin also has a sexual connotation. So perhaps woman-work is like “working girl” in English, a euphemism for a prostitute. KIN also means to love or to seek. A “woman to love” and a “woman to seek” both suggest a prostitute. Now it makes sense that Gudea banished the prostitutes from the city during the dedication of a new temple. He didn't want them plying their trade during this solemn and dignified occasion.
This kind of hanky-panky would be quite unseemly during the dedication of a holy temple.
This line has the same translation as r6 in the story of The Princess Wife, "All women are prostitutes for men who rob and plunder." In each story, this is the only translation of munus-kin that makes any sense, and it fits perfectly within the context of both stories.
It also fits perfectly within the Gudea translation. That's a total of three different citations.
I therefore suggest that munus-kin means
"prostitute". It shows that the Sumerians
had a specific word for prostitute.
The day after I posted this page, a colleague informed me
that kar-kid is often used to mean prostitute. I pointed out that all citations on the ePSD are dated in the Babylonian period, after the
Sumerians. He replied, “Not all citations show up on the ePSD.”
That got me
thinking about kar-kid.
I started looking for kar-kid on the CDLI. I found three tablets
(CDLI #(s) P010764, P011028, and P011031) from the Early Dynastic III period of
Sumerian history (2600 - 2340 BC). They are accounting tablets that record the distribution
of rations (wages) for various workers. They specifically mention “geme2-kar-kid”.
Geme2 (munus-kur) means “a female worker, servant, or
slave”. It designates a profession, a job title. This leaves no doubt that a kar-kid was indeed a professional prostitute, someone
who did it for a living.
After I read the transliteration, I looked at a picture of the
tablet to see how the signs were written.
When I saw the signs, I said, “Whoa!”
I was expecting to see the signs that are shown above.
What I saw was this:
I wondered if I was looking at the same signs.
Notice that the original version of geme2 is very different
than the later standardized version. In the archaic form of geme2, the kur sign is
written within the interior of the munus sign, and the horizontal line is moved to the
exterior.
The horizontal line would be blotted out by the
kur sign, so it's moved to the outside to preserve it. This shows it was originally
part of the munus sign, thus maintaining the meaning of the sign. It also shows
that the line is accounted for, and it wasn’t omitted out of carelessness simply
because the scribe forgot to write it (like forgetting to cross a “T”).
It is difficult to write geme2 this way on a small scale, so
after the ED III period, kur was written beside munus rather than within it.
The other noticeable difference between the two versions of kar-kid
is that the original Sumerian version is written with the sign ak rather than
kid.
Ironically, an alternative pronunciation of ak is kid3 (I know it’s confusing, but that’s
just the way Sumerian is). This is why I couldn’t find a Sumerian citation for
prostitute. Kar-kid and kar-kid3 do not show up in the same searches on the
CDLI.
I personally think that original Sumerian version of
prostitute (kar-kid3) should be denoted as kar-ak, to distinguish it from the
later versions, but that’s just my opinion.
In any case, Sumerian prostitutes have been there all along.
Igi-gun5, a female
name.
Munus-kin, kar-ak. This means there has always been two
Sumerian words for prostitute.
They've been around for more than 4,000 years.
Which isn’t very surprising when you come to think about it.
After all, it's the world's
oldest profession, in the world's oldest civilization.
Munus-kin = woman-work = prostitute
Igi-gun5, a female
name.
