Born: Unknown, Iraq (assumed)
Died: Unknown
Country most active: Iraq
Also known as: NA
This biography was originally published in the World History Encyclopedia and was written by Joshua J. Mark. It is shared in line with the Encyclopedia’s policies under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Ama-e was a successful Sumerian businesswoman of the city of Umma who, though married, ran her own business under her own name. Scholar H. J. Marsman writes:
In early Mesopotamian society, women appear to have acted quite independently [and] could stand surety for someone else [as with] the businesswoman Ama-e, who lived in Sargonic Umma. She engaged in trade involving grain, wool, and metals (401).
She used some of the profits to invest in real estate and building projects and oversaw a widespread trade network. These details were preserved in the records of the family business, but nothing of her life is known except that she was married to a man named Ur-Sara.