Instructions of Shuruppak
Practical wisdom passed from father to son, on farming, speech, and neighbors, is the oldest literary genre humanity chose to preserve.
- wisdom as inheritance
- proverb as social instruction
- the scribal school's oldest curriculum text
- link to the flood-hero tradition
A collection of proverbs and moral instructions framed as advice from Shuruppak to his son Ziusudra, the flood hero of later Sumerian tradition. Copies survive from Abu Salabikh and later Old Babylonian schools, making it one of the oldest attested pieces of literature rather than pure administration.
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