Position in chronology
Proverbs: from Nibru
Translation — scholar edition
ETCSL2 lines fragmentary ...... his hand ....... 2 lines fragmentary ...... the go-between's fee ...... lion ...... 1 line fragmentary ...... not ...... wife ...... 1 line fragmentary unknown no. of lines missing Get on with (?) your assigned work! ...... more than a house ...... field ....... The dragon doesn't ...... its rival. In building a house ...... 1 line fragmentary ...... of the strong man. ...... its roar, the lion won't cease ....... 3 lines fragmentary ...... follow the merchant. The palace's water is coming out ....... 3 lines fragmentary unknown no. of lines missing ...... not ...... to the house. He will not found a city.
Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature — scholar edition (Oxford, Black/Cunningham/Robson/Zólyomi).
Spotted an error? Suggest a correction — confirmed corrections feed the engine's knowledge base.
Scholarly note
Composition c.6.2.1 in the ETCSL catalogue. Sumerian literary text reconstructed from multiple cuneiform manuscripts, the great majority Old Babylonian (c. 1900–1600 BCE). Translation reproduced from the ETCSL edition.
Attribution
Image: .
Translation excerpted from ETCSL c.6.2.1: Proverbs: from Nibru. Black, J.A., Cunningham, G., Robson, E. & Zólyomi, G. (eds.), The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature, Faculty of Oriental Studies, University of Oxford. https://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/cgi-bin/etcsl.cgi?text=c.6.2.1.
Related tablets
Related sources
A window into the world's first total state. The Ur III administration tracked every animal, every worker, every shekel — for a population in the millions. The level of paperwork was not exceeded until the modern era.
Part of the earliest known body of international diplomatic correspondence. Akkadian, written in cuneiform on clay, was the lingua franca of Late Bronze Age statecraft — used between Egypt, the Hittites, Mitanni, Babylon, Assyria, and the Levantine vassals.