Yoram Cohen

Wisdom from the Late Bronze Age Yoram Cohen

This volume presents the original texts and annotated translations of a collection of Mesopotamian wisdom compositions and related texts of the Late Bronze Age (ca. 1500 1200 B. C. E.) found at the ancient Near Eastern sites of Hattu a, Emar, and Ugarit. These wisdom compositions constitute the missing link between the great Sumerian wisdom corpus and early Akkadian wisdom literature of the Old Babylonian period, on the one hand, and the wisdom compositions of the first millennium B. C. E., on the other. Included here are works such as the Ballad of Early Rulers, Hear the Advice, and The Date-Palm and the Tamarisk, as well as proverb collections from Ugarit and Hattu a. A detailed introduction provides an assessment of the place of wisdom literature in the ancient curriculum and library collections.