The Instructions of Shuruppag, a series of directives written in Sumerian, are among the earliest proverbs in the world. Many different collections of Sumerian proverbs have survived. Although there are obvious similarities to the biblical collection in the book of Proverbs, there is no obvious concept of “wisdom” stemming from Sumerian proverbs, nor is there an easily identifiable and coherent ideological focus; in fact, many of the individual proverbs are often contradictory. They did, however, have a didactic purpose; through individual maxims, the reader was taught how to behave in society.