like Queen Hatshepsut of Egypt.  Women, therefore, were not rigidly excluded from official life.  Dungi II, an early Sumerian king, appointed two of his daughters as rulers of conquered cities in Syria and Elam.  Similarly Shishak, the Egyptian Pharaoh, handed over the city of Gezer, which he had subdued, to his daughter, Solomon’s wife.[27] In the religious life of ancient Sumeria the female population exercised an undoubted influence, and in certain temples there were priestesses.  The oldest hymns give indication of the respect shown to women by making reference to mixed assemblies as “females and males”, just as present-day orators address themselves to “ladies and gentlemen”.  In the later Semitic adaptations of these productions, it is significant to note, this conventional reference was altered to “male and female”.  If influences, however, were at work to restrict the position of women they did not meet with much success, because when Hammurabi codified existing laws, the ancient rights of women received marked recognition.

There were two dialects in ancient Sumeria, and the invocatory hymns were composed in what was known as “the women’s language”.  It must not be inferred, however, that the ladies of Sumeria had established a speech which differed from that used by men.  The reference would appear to be to a softer and homelier dialect, perhaps the oldest of the two, in which poetic emotion found fullest and most beautiful expression.  In these ancient days, as in our own, the ideal of womanhood was the poet’s chief source of inspiration, and among the hymns the highest reach of poetic art was attained in the invocation of Ishtar, the Babylonian Venus.  The following hymn is addressed to that deity in her Valkyrie-like character as a goddess of war, but her more feminine traits are not obscured:—­

    HYMN TO ISHTAR

To thee I cry, O lady of the gods, Lady of ladies, goddess without peer, Ishtar who shapes the lives of all mankind, Thou stately world queen, sovran of the sky, And lady ruler of the host of heaven—­ Illustrious is thy name...  O light divine, Gleaming in lofty splendour o’er the earth—­ Heroic daughter of the moon, oh! hear; Thou dost control our weapons and award In battles fierce the victory at will—­ crown’d majestic Fate.  Ishtar most high, Who art exalted over all the gods, Thou bringest lamentation; thou dost urge With hostile hearts our brethren to the fray; The gift of strength is thine for thou art strong; Thy will is urgent, brooking no delay; Thy hand is violent, thou queen of war Girded with battle and enrobed with fear...  Thou sovran wielder of the wand of Doom, The heavens and earth are under thy control.

    Adored art thou in every sacred place,
    In temples, holy dwellings, and in shrines,
    Where is thy name not lauded? where thy will
    Unheeded, and thine images not made? 
    Where are thy temples not upreared?  O, where
    Art thou not mighty, peerless, and supreme?