Instructions of Shuruppak
The Instructions of Shuruppak (or, Instructions of Šuruppak son of Ubara-tutu) are a significant example of Sumerian wisdom literature. 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. Grouped with the other cuneiform tablets from Abu Salabikh, the Instructions date to the early third millennium BC, being among the oldest surviving literature.
The context 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. However, this epithet, found in the Gilgamesh XI tablet, is a designation applied to Utnapishtim, not his father.
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