User:SomeGuyWhoRandomlyEdits/Instructions of Shuruppak
 Fragments of the Instructions of Shuruppak | |
| Translator |
|
|---|---|
| Language | Sumerian |
| Set in | c. Early-third millennium BCE |
Publication date | c. 26th century BCE |
| Publication place | Sumer (ancient Iraq) |
Published in English | 1974 |
| Media type | Clay tablets |
| Text | Instructions of Shuruppak at the Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature |
The Instructions of Shuruppak[a] are a significant example of Sumerian wisdom literature.[1] Wisdom literature, intended to teach proper piety, inculcate virtue, and preserve community standards, was common throughout the ancient Near East. The text is set in great antiquity by its incipit: "In those days, in those far remote times, in those nights, in those faraway nights, in those years, in those far remote years." The precepts are placed in the mouth of a king Šuruppak (SU.KUR.RUki), son of Ubara-Tutu. Ubara-Tutu is recorded in most extant copies of the Sumerian king list as being the final king of Sumer prior to the deluge. Ubara-tutu is briefly mentioned in tablet XI of the Epic of Gilgamesh. He is identified as the father of Utnapishtim, a character who is instructed by the god Ea to build a boat in order to survive the coming flood.[2] Grouped with the other cuneiform tablets from Abu Salabikh, the Instructions date to the early third millennium BCE, being among the oldest surviving literature.
The text consists of admonitory sayings of Šuruppak addressed to his son and eventual flood hero Ziusudra (Akkadian: Utnapishtin). Otherwise named as one of the five antediluvian cities in the Sumerian tradition, the name "Šuruppak" appears in one manuscript of the Sumerian King List (WB-62, written SU.KUR.LAM) where it is interpolated as an additional generation between Ubara-Tutu and Ziusudra, who are in every other instance father and son. Lambert reports that it has been suggested the interpolation may have arisen through an epithet of the father ("man of Shuruppak") having been taken wrongly for a proper name.[3] However, this epithet, found in the Gilgamesh XI tablet, is a designation applied to Utnapishtim, not his father.
The Abu Salabikh tablet, dated to the mid-third millennium BCE, is the oldest extant copy, and the numerous surviving copies attest to its continued popularity within the Sumerian/Akkadian literary canons.[1]
Counsels in the three conjoined lists are pithy, occupying one to three lines of cuneiform. Some counsel is purely practical: You should not locate a field on a road; .... You should not make a well in your field: people will cause damage on it for you. (lines 15–18). Moral precepts are followed by the negative practical results of transgression: You should not play around with a married young woman: the slander could be serious. (lines 32–34). Community opinion and the possibility of slander (line 35) play a major role, whether the valued opinion of "the courtyard" (line 62) or the less valued opinion of the marketplace, where insults and stupid speaking receive the attention of the land. (line 142).
The Instructions contain precepts that reflect those later included in the Ten Commandments, and other sayings that are reflected in the biblical Book of Proverbs.
See also
[edit]References
[edit]Notes
[edit]- ^ Or Instructions of Šuruppak, son of Ubara-tutu (Hesiod 2006, p. xlvi; Lambert 1996, p. 92).
Citations
[edit]- ^ a b Beaulieu 2007, p. 4.
- ^ George 2003.
- ^ Lambert 1996, p. 92.
Sources
[edit]Bibliography
[edit]- Alster, Bendt (1974). The Instructions of Suruppak: A Sumerian Proverb Collection. Denmark: Akademisk Forlag. ISBN 9788750015000. Retrieved 2022-10-14.
- Beaulieu, Paul-Alain (2007). Clifford, Richard J. (ed.). Wisdom Literature in Mesopotamia and Israel. Netherlands: Society of Biblical Literature. ISBN 9781589832190. Retrieved 2022-10-14.
- Biggs, Robert D.; Hansen, Donald P. (1974). Inscriptions from Tell Abū Ṣalābīkh (PDF). Oriental Institute Publications. United Kingdom: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0226622029. Archived from the original on 2015-04-20. Retrieved 2022-10-14.
- George, Andrew R. (2003). The Epic of Gilgamesh: The Babylonian Epic Poem and Other Texts in Akkadian and Sumerian. Penguin Books. ISBN 9780140449198. Retrieved 2022-10-14.
- Grimbly, Shona (2000). Encyclopedia of the Ancient World. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 9781579582814. Retrieved 2022-10-14.
The earliest written literature dates from about 2600 BC, when the Sumerians started to write down their long epic poems.
- Hesiod, T. (2006). Most, Glenn Warren (ed.). Hesiod: Theogony, Works and days, Testimonia. United Kingdom: Harvard University Press. ISBN 9780674996229. Retrieved 2022-10-14.
- Hayes, John Lewis (1990). A Manual of Sumerian: Grammar and Texts. Malibu, California: Undena Publications. ISBN 9780890031971. Archived from the original on 2013-07-17. Retrieved 2022-10-14.
- Lambert, Wilfred G. (1996). Babylonian Wisdom Literature. Eisenbrauns. ISBN 9780931464942. Retrieved 2022-10-14.
- Woods, Christopher (2010). Visible Language: Inventions of Writing in the Ancient Middle East and Beyond (PDF). Chicago: The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. ISBN 9781885923769. Retrieved 2022-10-14.
External links
[edit]- Alster, Bendt (1974–2005) [c. 2600 BC]. Zólyomi, Gábor; Black, Jeremy Allen; Robson, Eleanor; Cunningham, Graham; Ebeling, Jarle (eds.). "Instructions of Shuruppak". ETCSL. Translated by Wilcke, Claus; Civil, Miguel; Römer, Willem H.Ph.; Krecher, Joachim (revised ed.). United Kingdom: Oxford (published 1974–1999). Retrieved 2022-10-14.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)
Further reading
[edit]Language
[edit]- Black, Jeremy Allen; Baines, John Robert; Dahl, Jacob L.; Van De Mieroop, Marc. Cunningham, Graham; Ebeling, Jarle; Flückiger-Hawker, Esther; Robson, Eleanor; Taylor, Jon; Zólyomi, Gábor (eds.). "ETCSL: The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature". Faculty of Oriental Studies (revised ed.). United Kingdom. Retrieved 2022-09-23.
The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature (ETCSL), a project of the University of Oxford, comprises a selection of nearly 400 literary compositions recorded on sources which come from ancient Mesopotamia (modern Iraq) and date to the late third and early second millennia BCE.
- Renn, Jürgen; Dahl, Jacob L.; Lafont, Bertrand; Pagé-Perron, Émilie (2022) [1998]. "CDLI: Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative" (published 1998–2022). Retrieved 2022-09-23.
Images presented online by the research project Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (CDLI) are for the non-commercial use of students, scholars, and the public. Support for the project has been generously provided by the Mellon Foundation, the National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), the Institute of Museum and Library Services (ILMS), and by the Max Planck Society (MPS), Oxford and University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA); network services are from UCLA's Center for Digital Humanities.
- Sjöberg, Åke Waldemar; Leichty, Erle; Tinney, Steve (2022) [2003]. "PSD: The Pennsylvania Sumerian Dictionary" (published 2003–2022). Retrieved 2022-09-23.
The Pennsylvania Sumerian Dictionary Project (PSD) is carried out in the Babylonian Section of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Anthropology and Archaeology. It is funded by the NEH and private contributions. [They] work with several other projects in the development of tools and corpora. [Two] of these have useful websites: the CDLI and the ETCSL.