Antiquity Studies

Sumerian Proverbs as Wisdom Literature

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Abstract

Sumerian proverbs are lists of sayings of various kinds – more than 25 such collections are currently recognized. In the past these sayings have been categorized as ‘Wisdom Literature’, with the understanding that they represent genuine proverbs that were used in every-day Sumerian and that encode the moral outlook of its speakers. This contribution argues that the wisdom embodied in the proverbs is the wisdom of the Old Babylonian scribal school where they were copied. This wisdom had less to do with moral teachings, and more with a deep knowledge of the Sumerian language, its writing system and its literary heritage.


Open access | Peer reviewed

Submitted: Dec. 5, 2023 | Accepted: March 4, 2024 | Published July 9, 2024 | Language: en

Keywords Analogical reasoning • Sumerian proverbs • Heritage • Wisdom • Scribal school

Copyright © 2024 Niek Veldhuis. This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction is permitted, provided that the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. The license allows for commercial use. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

Permalink http://doi.org/10.30687/978-88-6969-776-0/011


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