Sumerian Quotes

Don't touch me, Daimon. You're not worthy. (Kessar)
Up yours, asshole. I don't want the Sumerian slime pit stench on me anyway. Take your girlfriends and get the hell out of our casino. (Damien) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon

A writing exercise from a school in ancient Mesopotamia discovered by modern archaeologists gives us a glimpse into the lives of these students, some 4,000 years ago: I went in and sat down, and my teacher read my tablet. He said, 'There's something missing!' And he caned me. One of the people in charge said, 'Why did you open your mouth without my permission?' And he caned me. The one in charge of rules said, 'Why did you get up without my permission?' And he caned me. The gatekeeper said, 'Why are you going out without my permission?' And he caned me. The keeper of the beer jug said, 'Why did you get some without my permission?' And he caned me. The Sumerian teacher said, 'Why did you speak Akkadian?'fn1 And he caned me. My teacher said, 'Your handwriting is no good!' And he caned me.4 ~ Yuval Noah Harari

Rife's key realization was that there's no difference between modern culture and Sumerian. We have a huge workforce that is illiterate or alliterate and relies on TV-which is sort of an oral tradition. And we have a small, extremely literate power elite-the people who go into the Meatverse, basically-who understand that information is power, and who control society because they have this semimystical ability to speak magic computer languages. ~ Neal Stephenson

According to the English scholar Richard Lloyd-Jones, some of the clay tablets deciphered from ancient Sumerian include complaints about the deteriorating writing skills of the young. ~ Steven Pinker

In many parts of the world, you will find people of the
same ethnic group, living a few miles apart in similar valleys under similar
conditions, speaking languages that have absolutely nothing in common with each
other. This sort of thing is not an oddity -- it is ubiquitous. Many linguists
have tried to understand Babel, the question of why human language tends to
fragment, rather than converging on a common tongue?" "Has anyone come up with
an answer yet?"
"The question is difficult and profound," the Librarian says. "Lagos had a
theory."
"Yes?"
"He believed that Babel was an actual historical event. That it happened in a
particular time and place, coinciding with the disappearance of the Sumerian
language. That prior to Babel Infopocalypse, languages tended to converge. And
that afterward, languages have always had an innate tendency to diverge and
become mutually incomprehensible -- that this tendency is, as he put it, coiled
like a serpent around the human brainstem."
"The only thing that could explain that is --" Hiro stops, not wanting to say
it.
"Yes?" the Librarian says.
"If there was some phenomenon that moved through the population, altering their
minds in such a way that they couldn't process the Sumerian language anymore.
Kind of in the same way that a virus moves from one computer to another,
damaging each computer in the same way. Coiling around the bra ~ Neal Stephenson

You have to remember that what we're dealing with here are Sumerian gallu demons. The next to the lowest form of demon on the demon food chain. They're simple demons really. Lowly. You know ... morons. (Jaden) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon

The image of the Serpent, because of its association with life, rejuvenation, fertility, and regeneration, was a symbol of immortality. The coiled Serpent with its tail in its mouth was a circle of infinitude indicating omnipotence and omniscience. The Serpent, depicted in several successive rings, represented cyclical evolution and reincarnation. In ancient philosophy or mythological systems, creation and wisdom were closely bound together, and the Serpent was a potent symbol of both. It is in this capacity that the Serpent appears in the Babylonian and Sumerian mythologies, which contain elements akin to the Genesis story. The Serpent has the power to bestow immortality but also has the power to cheat humankind. In many of the ancient Near Eastern stories - for instance, the Gilgamesh Epic and myth of Adapa - the Serpent holds out the promise of immortality but then cheats man at the last minute. ~ Mary Condren

Sumerian scribes invented the practice of writing in cuneiform on clay tablets sometime around 3400 B.C. in the Uruk/Warka region in the south of ancient Iraq. [The etymology of 'Iraq' may come from this region, biblical Erech. Medieval Arabic sources used the name 'Iraq' as a geographical term for the area in the south and center of the modern republic.] ~ John A. Halloran

We shall see that the problems we have to face concern the possible influence of Babylon, rather than of Egypt, upon Hebrew tradition. And one last example, drawn from the later period, will serve to demonstrate how Babylonian influence penetrated the ancient world and has even left some trace upon modern civilization. It is a fact, though one perhaps not generally realized, that the twelve divisions on the dials of our clocks and watches have a Babylonian, and ultimately a Sumerian, ancestry. For why is it we divide the day into twenty-four hours? We have a decimal system of reckoning, we count by tens; why then should we divide the day and night into twelve hours each, instead of into ten or some multiple of ten? The reason is that the Babylonians divided the day into twelve double-hours; and the Greeks took over their ancient system of time-division along with their knowledge of astronomy and passed it on to us. ~ Leonard W. King

True, but there was a plaque depicted in the painting, hung around the figure's neck, and on it was writing in Sumerian cuneiform. As you know, in addition to my other studies, I am an amateur necrolinguist - "

"It means the likes to lick the dead," explained Henri.

"It means he studies dead languages," corrected Lucien. ~ Christopher Moore

What we finally do, out of desperation ... is go on an impossible, or even forbidden, journey or pilgrimage, which from a rational point of view is futile: to find the one wise man, whomever or wherever he may be; and to find from him the secret of eternal life or the secret of adjusting to this life as best we can. ~ Herbert Mason

What makes one Sumerian city better than another one? A bigger ziggurat? A
better football team?"
"Better me."
"What are me?"
"Rules or principles that control the operation of society, like a code of laws,
but on a more fundamental level."
"I don't get it."
"That is the point. Sumerian myths are not 'readable' or 'enjoyable' in the
same sense that Greek and Hebrew myths are. They reflect a fundamentally
different consciousness from ours. ~ Neal Stephenson

Her assignment had been to write a simple Sumerian code for preserving a jar of pickled eggs. (To the programming-inclined reader, this is the magical equivalent of "HELLO WORLD.") ~ Sorin Suciu

Occasionally, you will come across a wise crack by a pseudoliberal who will refer to God as "she," as if that is the most revolutionary idea known to man, that God could be feminine. Never in such a context is the history of the sexuality of God elucidated, as if it was so obvious to all that God could only be masculine, until the author came along and declared by fiat its femininity. In fact, there did exist matriarchal societies extending from the unknown past into the early historical period. It appears they existed along the "highland zone" which is the foothills extending along the mountainous region from the Pyrenees to the Himalayas. These matriarchal societies influenced the early Sumerian civilization and to a large extent the Minoan civilization, which was one of the few, if not the only matriarchal civilization. These societies were largely overrun and dissipated by invasions of the northern, patriarchal groups but these latter groups did incorporate some matriarchal aspects which exist to this day. For example, although the chief deities of Greece and Rome were masculine, there continued to be a panoply of feminine gods. Or take for example, the history of the Basque people of SW France. Also, when masculine Judaism moved from the Levant to Rome via moderate Christianity and the reconciling Paul, it eventually grafted in the idea of Virgin Mary the Divine. A distant version of this idea stands in New York harbor with her head and torch held high, neither bull dyke ~ Scott Mckee

We are coming up on the Sumerian apokalypsi–. (Artemis)
I don't think they use that word. (Kat)
Who cares what word they use? End of the world is end of the world regardless of whatever term you use for it! (Artemis) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon

I was the Sumerian god of fertility. You know what that means, don't you? (Sin)
You have a lot of penis envy over the other fertility gods? Don't worry. I won't tell the other gods about your small penis problem. (Kat) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon

Of all the awful things demons do, keeping Latin alive when it deserves to be a dead language might be the worst.
To say nothing of ancient Sumerian. And ancient Sumerian translated into Latin? Diabolic. ~ Kiersten White

Though we nearly lost everything last month, when the mainframe got possessed by Sumerian demons, and we had to call in a technodruid to exorcise it. I'd never heard language like that before, and even after it was all over, the office still smelled of burning mistletoe for weeks. And I might add that the computer Helpline people were no bloody use at all. ~ Simon R. Green

Having to accept hominoids as real will require having to acknowledge that the prehuman fossil record is comprised entirely of their bones, rather than ours. ~ Lloyd Pye

One Archeology and Decipherment
Two History: Heroes, Kings, and Ensi's
Three Society: The Sumerian City
Four Religion: Theology, Rite, and Myth
Five Literature: The Sumerian Belles-Lettres
Six Education: The Sumerian School
Seven Character: Drives, Motives, and Values
Eight The Legacy of Sumer
APPENDIXES
A. The Origin and Development of the Cuneiform System of Writing
B. The Sumerian Language
C. Votive Inscriptions
D. Sample Date-Formulas
E. Sumerian King List
F. Letters
G. Dit lla's (court decisions)
H. Lipit-Ishtar Law Code
1. Farmers' Almanac
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY ~ Samuel Noah Kramer

Every decade archaeologists discover another few forgotten scripts. Some of them might prove to be even older than the Sumerian scratches in clay. But most of them remain curiosities because those who invented them failed to invent efficient ways of cataloguing and retrieving data. What set apart Sumer, as well as pharaonic Egypt, ancient China and the Inca Empire, is that these cultures developed good techniques of archiving, cataloguing and retrieving written records. ~ Yuval Noah Harari

Yeah his being Sumerian to this group would go over like an Ozzy Osbourne/Marilyn Manson duet at the Southern Baptist Convention's annual meeting. He might as well be wearing a shit that said "Kibbles and Bits," with a heavy emphasis on the "bits" part ... ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon