Selection processThe highest officials in the temple hierarchy (en, lagar, lú-mah
̆
, eresˇ-digˆir, isˇib, egi-zi)
were said to be chosen by the gods to fulfil their particular duties. This selection process
was so momentous that years were named ‘the year that the x-priest of the
y-deity was chosen by divination (perhaps by extispicy, the reading of entrails)’. The
candidates for the other ranks of priesthood commonly inherited their offices through
family sinecures in which they had prebendary rights. This hereditary priesthood must
be distinguished from the vocational priesthood. For example, there are examples of
men from other professions entering the office of gala. The lower echelons, especially
the female votaries, were dedicated by their families for a religious life.
GENDERIC ROLES
In Mesopotamia, as described above, there existed a functionally differentiated sacer-
dotal priesthood composed of members of both genders. Men and women had ritual
roles that were central and indispensable to community cohesion and well-being. Both
mediated between the divine realm and the human world. A major obstacle in our
understanding of the roles of men and women in Sumerian cult is the lack of gender
indication in the Sumerian language, which distinguishes between human and non-
human (personal/non-personal) rather than between masculine and feminine. In
Sumerian, the gender of the religious mediators was not marked and thus the extent
of female involvement and participation in the cultic rituals is difficult to judge. The
Sumerian dictionary lists fifty-nine different terms for priests but only twelve for
priestesses. Those few are proven by reference to them as ‘women’. However, since the
language is not gender specific, women would probably have held some of the fifty-
nine unmarked offices; many of the listed religious specialists would have been of either
gender.
There is universal agreement that there existed priestesses as well as priests as ritual
officiants in the Archaic and Early Dynastic periods. The issues revolve around their
titles, roles and functions. A generalised disparity in status of female priestesses as lower
than their male compatriots in the Archaic and Early Dynastic periods has been posited
by Steinkeller ( 1999 : 117 – 122 ). He maintains that en-ship was defined by its holder
being the consort of the deity, that only male ensexisted as consorts of the gods,^29 and
that female religious personnel were merely servants of their deities, acting rather as
chief attendants or companions of the respective deities. This thesis undermines the
conception of complementary gender between deity and mediator. Nevertheless, in the
absence of explicit factual evidence, neither the symmetry nor the asymmetry of the
positions of the male and female clergy can be demonstrated conclusively.
A studied avoidance of allusion to gender in the inscriptions of certain en-priestesses
has been noted (Lion 2009 ). Lion suggests that their status was equivalent to a change
in gender ( 2009 : 169 ).
According to Sallaberger and Huber Vulliet ( 2003 – 2005 : 628 ), when there was a
high priestess of any sort (en, eresˇ-digˆir, egi-zi), there was a necessity of a male adjutant
(lagarand lú-mah
̆
). However, as we have seen the evidence does not support this
contention.–– The ministering clergy ––