Sumerian Proverb Collections

Anonymous / tradition (Old Babylonian scribal school compilations) · c. 18th century BC (Old Babylonian scribal curriculum) · Nippur (Iraq) · philosophy

Roughly two dozen numbered proverb collections, copied by trainee scribes at Nippur, Ur, and beyond, argue that a scribe's professional literacy was inseparable from moral instruction, since memorizing sayings about fools, dogs, wealth, and marriage was folded into the same curriculum as memorizing cuneiform signs.