Nadita

Naditu is the name of legal status for women in Babylonian society and for Sumerian temple slaves. The latter were mainly involved in business activities and had the right to property.

Researchers have different opinions about whether nadit was engaged in ritual prostitution . Earlier, a positive answer was given to this question, but this point of view was formed under the influence of biblical views on paganism: the religion of Mesopotamia was considered to be based on sex. Since the roles of the priestesses were unclear, it was suggested that the priestesses participated in fertility rites associated with prostitution. However, most Naditu priestesses came from noble families, and such women were expected to be chaste. The authors who studied the sources to clarify the functions of these priestesses came to the conclusion that this point of view is not confirmed ^[1] . According to Auden, the main source of ritual prostitution in Mesopotamia is not credible ^{[2] [3]} .

Mostly nadita were special women who were not included in the patriarchal family, which was the norm in Babylonian society. Nadita lived in monasteries, but in reality they had their own homes inside these complexes, and Nadita lived independently. They could enter into contracts, borrow money and carry out other business operations, which was usually forbidden for women; records show that they were very active. Usually these women came from the elite, often from royal families ^[4] .

Financial independence was ensured by their dowries, which they could not transfer to men; the dowry was compensation for the impossibility of receiving the inheritance transmitted through the male line. It is not entirely clear whether all nadit were allowed to marry or was this right only for the nadit of the Marduk temple. According to some sources, celibacy was compulsory for the nadita of the Shamash temple, or at least they should not have children, which is reflected in the literal meaning of the word nadita - “uncultivated” (land). After the death of Nadita, the dowry passed to her brothers or other relatives.

Among nadita there were many scribes. According to The Epic of Gilgamesh , scripture is an attribute of the goddess. One of the first cuneiform tablets was found in the temple of Inanna in Uruk , they date back to the 4th millennium BC. e. Many nadita lived in this temple as priestesses.

Along the Tigris and Euphrates, temples are still discovered in which Inanna was worshiped and where nadit was served. The ancient 5000-year-old temple in Uruk (Biblical Erech) is the largest of them, it was regularly rebuilt and expanded. There were found a sculptural image of a female head and a well-known vase from Varka (now located in a museum in Baghdad), relief images on which relate to the archaic cult of the Mother Goddess: sacred objects, forests, men gathering crops, goats - symbols of social structure in those times.

Later, during the Greek antiquity, getters received a similar status in the patriarchal society of that time. The status of hierodul servants was noticeably lower, as in those at a lower level of training.

In Sumer , legal differences were fixed between an ordinary prostitute and a “nadit” (hierodule), whose reputation was protected by the same law in the Hammurabi Code , which protected the good name of married women ^[5] . The Hammurabi Code protected property rights to “nadita”, which in the Code is called the “sister of God” or “dedicated woman” ^[6] . The Hammurabi Code indicates that there were various categories of “nadita”, for which different names were used ^[7] .