Ea-niša was a lesser wife of

Shulgi Shulgi ( dšul-gi,(died c. 2046 BC) formerly read as Dungi) of Ur was the second king of the Third Dynasty of Ur. He reigned for 48 years, from (Middle Chronology). His accomplishments include the completion of construction of the Great ...

, king of the

Third Dynasty of Ur The Third Dynasty of Ur or Ur III was a Sumerian dynasty based in the city of Ur in the 22nd and 21st centuries BC ( middle chronology). For a short period they were the preeminent power in Mesopotamia and their realm is sometimes referred to by ...

, at the end of the third millennium BC. Ea-niša is known from a large number of sources, making it possible to reconstruct to a certain extent her life. Very little is known about her family background. She had a brother called Iddin-Ea. A son is mentioned in a legal document. The reading of his name there is uncertain. Ea-niša is known from a large number of cuneiform texts, providing evidence for her position at the royal court and her economic power. She was head of an estate that was mainly administered by men. The estate included cattle, but there is also evidence of textile production there. She is attested in texts from

Uruk Uruk, the archeological site known today as Warka, was an ancient city in the Near East, located east of the current bed of the Euphrates River, on an ancient, now-dried channel of the river in Muthanna Governorate, Iraq. The site lies 93 kilo ...

and Ur and might have lived at both places. Ea-niša survived her husband and lived into the reign of Shu-Sin. It seems that she retired to an estate around

Umma Umma () in modern Dhi Qar Province in Iraq, was an ancient city in Sumer. There is some scholarly debate about the Sumerian and Akkadian names for this site. Traditionally, Umma was identified with Tell Jokha. More recently it has been sugges ...

, but she is still mentioned in festival lists, indicating that she participated in festivals at the royal court.T. M. Sharlach: ''An Ox of One's Own, Royal Wives and Religion at the Court of the Third Dynasty of Ur'', Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston 2017, ISBN 978-1-5015-1447-0, 140-157

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ea-nisa 21st-century BC people 21st-century BC women Third Dynasty of Ur