A shockingly high number of clay tablet receipts for certain transactions bear the names of religious women living outside the patriarchal system. Was the naditum the lady tycoon of Ancient Mesopotamia?
Oh, and fun fact: it’s also a brand of fashionable leather bags and luxury goods! I’m not kidding, they were inspired by the example of the ancient naditum – awesome, right? Check it out at naditum.com.
Don’t forget to subscribe, rate, and review. Support the show on Patreon at www.patreon.com/btnewberg. Research, writing, editing, and production by B. T. Newberg. Logo Design by Rachel Westhoff. Animation by Maxeem Konrardy. Additional credits, references, and more at www.historyofsexpod.com.
References
Assante, Julia. “Men Looking at Men: The Homoerotics of Power in the State Arts of Assyria.” In: Zsolnay, Ilona. Being a Man: Negotiating Ancient Construct of Masculinity. New York: Routledge, 2017.
Bachvarova, Mary R. “Sumerian Gala Priests and Eastern Mediterranean Returning Gods.” In: Lament: Studies in the Ancient Mediterranean and Beyond, ed. by Ann Suter, Oxford University Press, 2008.
Bottéro, Jean. Everyday Life in Ancient Mesopotamia. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2001.
Bullough, Vern, and Bullough, Bonnie. Women and Prostitution: A Social History. New York: Prometheus Books, 1987.
Gabbay, Uri. “The Kalu Priest and Kalutu Literature in Assyria.” Orient, Vol. 49, 2014.
Guinan, Ann. “Auguries of Hegemony: The Sex Omens of Mesopotamia.” Gender & History, Vol. 9, No. 3, 1997, November: pp. 462-479.
Guinan, Ann. “Erotomancy: Scripting the Erotic.” In: Parpola, Simo and Whiting, R. M., Eds. Sex and Gender in the Ancient Near East: Proceedings of the 47th Recontre Assyriologique Interntionale, 2002.
Jacobsen, Thorkild. The Harps That Once…: Sumerian Poetry in Translation. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1987.
Kramer, Samuel Noah. The Sumerians: Their History, Culture, and Character. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1963.
Lahtinen, Sarah. “The Naditum as Businesswoman: The Economic Role of the Naditum in Old Babylonian Sippur.” Thesis. Uppsala University. (n.d.)
Oshima, Takayoshi. Babylonian Poems of Pious Sufferers: Ludlul Bel Nemeqi and the Babylonian Theodicy. Tübingen, Germany: Mohr Siebeck, 2014.
Stuckey, Johanna. “Inanna and the ‘Sacred Marriage.'” MatriFocus: Cross-quarterly for the Goddess Woman, Imbolc, Vol. 4-2, 2005.
Taylor, Patrick. “The Gala and the Gallos.” In: Collins, Bachvarova, and Rutherford (Eds.), Anatolian Interfaces, 2008, pp. 173-180.
Zsolnay, Ilona. Being a Man: Negotiating Ancient Construct of Masculinity. New York: Routledge, 2017.
Audio Credits
Podcast theme music mixed from “Gregorian Chant”, “Mystery Sax”, and “There It Is” by Kevin MacLeod.
Image Credits
Ishtar Terracotta Relieffrom Wikipedia
Falling Cash from Pixabay.com
Dollar Sign Bling from Needpix.com
The History of Sex 
