Sumerian Proverbs
Via @drhingram via @JaredParker, Oxford University’s “Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature” has a trove of proverbs:
You should not cut the throat of that which has already had its throat cut.
“Though I still have bread left over, I will eat your bread!” Will this endear a man to the household of his friend?
You don’t speak of that which you have found. You talk only about what you have lost.
Whatever it is that hurts you, don’t talk to anyone about it.
Wealth is far away, poverty is close at hand.
He who possesses many things is constantly on guard.
Possessions make trust of crucial importance.
Barley flour, in the fields, is meat fat.
The lives of the poor do not survive their deaths.
In the city where there are no dogs, the fox is boss.
He who eats too much cannot sleep.
An unfaithful penis matches an unfaithful vagina.
To be sick is acceptable; to be pregnant is painful; but to be pregnant and sick is just too much.
Tell a lie and then tell the truth: it will be considered a lie.
May you find the response to an insult hurled at you in a dispute.
Putting unwashed hands to one’s mouth is disgusting.
A heart which does not know accounting – is that a wise heart?
In respect of both expenditures and capital goods, the anus is well supplied.
The dog understands “Take it!”, but it does not understand “Put it down!”
What will the dog do about what the fox is doing?
Strength cannot keep pace with intelligence.
He who insults is insulted. He who sneers is sneered at.
He is fearful, like a man unacquainted with beer.
A fettered dog is quarrelsome.
A fox urinated into the Tigris. “I am causing the spring flood to rise,” he said.
He who shaves his head gets more hair. And he who gathers the barley gains more and more grain.
The horse, after throwing off his rider, said: “Were my load to be like this forever, how weak I would become!”
A dog which is played with turns into a puppy.
Like a hyena, he will not eat it unless it stinks.
To be wealthy and demand more is an abomination to one’s god.
A child without sin was never born by his mother. The idea was never conceived that there was anyone who was not a sinner. Such a situation never existed.
Earth is greater than heaven. Who can destroy it?
By following craftiness, one learns how to be crafty. By following wisdom, one learns how to be wise.
Link: http://io9.com/musicians-recreation-of-ancient-sumerian-songs-will-hau-1676603467
Soundcloud: https://m.soundcloud.com/newsweek-tech-science
Apparently these people didn’t watch Evil Dead. You don’t read things written in dead languages, certainly you don’t sing them!
Apkallu from the Fortress of Sargon
The Apkallu are seven Sumerian sages, demigods who are said to have been created by the god Enki to establish culture and give civilization to mankind. They served as priests of Enki and as advisors or sages to the earliest kings of Sumer before the Gilgamesh flood. They are credited with giving mankind the Me (moral code), the crafts, and the arts.Apkallu reliefs also appear in Assyrian palaces as guardians against evil spirits, like the modern gargoyle. They are one of the more prominent supernatural creatures that appear in the art of Sargon II (722 – 705 BC). They appear in one of three forms, bird-headed, human-headed or dressed in fish-skin cloaks.
The Fortress of Sargon (Dur-Sharrukin) in modern day Khorsabad, northern Iraq, was the Assyrian capital in the time of Sargon II of Assyria. The fortress or palace was built at the confluence of the Tigris and the Greater Zab rivers. The great city was built entirely in the decade preceding 706 BCE. After the unexpected death of Sargon in battle, the capital was shifted 20 km south to Nineveh by his successor Sennacherib.
Sumerian Silver Lyre, from Ur, southern Iraq, c. 2600-2400 BC
This lyre was found in the ‘Great Death-Pit’, one of the graves in the Royal Cemetery at Ur. The burial in the Great Death-Pit was accompanied by seventy-four bodies - six men and sixty-eight women -laid down in rows on the floor of the pit. Three lyres were piled one on top of another. They were all made from wood which had decayed by the time they were excavated, but two of them, of which this is one, were entirely covered in sheet silver attached by small silver nails. The plaques down the front of the sounding box are made of shell. The silver cow’s head decorating the front has inlaid eyes of shell and lapis lazuli. The edges of the sound box have a narrow border of shell and lapis lazuli inlay.
When found, the lyre lay in the soil. The metal was very brittle and the uprights were squashed flat. First it was photographed, and then covered in wax and waxed cloth to hold it together for lifting. The silver on the top and back edge of the sounding box had been destroyed. Some of the silver preserved the impression of matting on which it must have originally lain. Eleven silver tubes acted as the tuning pegs.
Such instruments were probably important parts of rituals at court and temple. There are representations of lyre players and their instruments on cylinder seals, and on the Standard of Ur being played alongside a possible singer.
