The Nanshe Hymn

hymn to Nanshe A

Anonymous / tradition · c. 18th century BC (Old Babylonian copies of an older Sumerian composition) · Nippur (Iraq) · poetry

The goddess Nanshe is praised not only for fish and marshland but for ethical vigilance, weighing merchants' scales and judging the treatment of orphans and widows, arguing that divine authority rests on social justice as much as fertility.