The Gecko Wears A Tiara

November 5, 2009 10:34 PM

The Gecko Wears A Tiara
My selection of the most amusing ancient Sumerian proverbs, taken from The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature, (which I learned of from this Metafilter post.) Warning: PDF.
posted by msalt (11 comments total)

This project was posted to MetaFilter by jaduncan on November 6, 2009: A book is like a garden carried in the pocket.

Delightful! Now I know where a gardener's sex appeal is (it was obvious in retrospect).
posted by spaghettification at 10:44 PM on November 5, 2009

Thank you for these, msalt! Many of them are truly keepers.
posted by darkstar at 12:50 AM on November 6, 2009

A male aroused eats salt. A female aroused is dragged in the mud.

Those Sumerians must have had some amazing house parties.
posted by him at 1:49 AM on November 6, 2009

I love these.
posted by litlnemo at 5:54 AM on November 6, 2009

Thanks! While some are just so odd, there are some real nuggets of wisdom that ring true today. One of my favorites:

He who says "I will live for today" is bound like a bull with a leash tied to his nose-ring.
posted by msalt at 9:39 AM on November 6, 2009 [1 favorite]

Those Sumerians must have had some amazing house parties.

Don't choose a wife during a festival!
posted by YoBananaBoy at 11:32 AM on November 6, 2009

Nice but, err, this;
...a number contain real nuggets of wisdom. Than again, Sumeria was what we now call Iraq, so take that wisdom with a grain of salt.

Seems to say that Iraqi wisdom is unlikely. Seems a bit iraqi-ist?
posted by Luddite at 1:04 PM on November 8, 2009

Unfaithful penis matches unfaithful vagina.

This proverb for make my day. Thanks!
posted by Carius at 4:17 PM on November 8, 2009

I'm sorry I didn't catch this earlier - there's no such place as 'Sumeria'. It's 'Sumer'.
posted by cobaltnine at 12:14 PM on November 10, 2009

Thanks -- I'll fix it. I'd really like to convert the whole thing to HTML, but time's a little tight right now.
posted by msalt at 1:12 PM on November 10, 2009

OK, not a proper website yet (still PDF), but I fixed the Sumer/Sumeria thing. Thanks and good catch.
posted by msalt at 11:21 AM on December 6, 2009