Datenbank sumerischer Streitliteratur: Corpus

The texts that are now grouped together as disputation literature were previously, following Miguel Civil, known as precedence debates or dialogues and Edubba'a texts, and grouped into distinct categories. However, all these texts share certain characteristics:

• The events center around two protagonists
• The text is structured as a dialogue between both protagonists and consists mainly of direct speech
• The performance of a verbal contest forms the focus of the text, at the end of which one of the contestants is declared the winner.

Three subgroups of disputation literature are now distinguished, with the following text attributions:

• Precedence debates (= Adamin): Bird and Fish, Copper and Silver, Ezinam and Ewe (= Sheep and Grain), Hoe and Plough, Tree and Reed, Winter and Sommer, Enmerkara and Ensukukešdana, Dumuzi and Enkimdu, (Date Palm and Tamarisk)
• School disputations: Dialogue 1, Dialogue 2, Dialogue 3, Edubba'a D
• Women's disputations: Two Women A (= Dialogue 4), Two Women B (= Dialogue 5)

Set apart from the disputation literature, the Edubba'a literature offers satirical depictions of school life. Edubba'a A, Edubba'a B, Edubba'a C, Edubba'a E and Edubba'a R belong to this group. The texts conventionally known as Diatribes, whose number has been increased to five thanks to the research of Jana Matuszak, form an additional group, connected to the disputation literature by the vocabulary used.

Several texts are currently in preparation and will be added to the database in the coming years: Two Woman B, Two Woman A as well as Diatribe D and Diatribe E by Jana Matuszak and Winter and Summer by Irene Deubelbeiss. A score text of Tree and Reed is in preparation by Emmanuelle Bender.

Further reading:

Mittermayer, Catherine. 2019. 'Was sprach der eine zum anderen?' Argumentationsformen in den sumerischen Rangstreitgesprächen [https://www.degruyter.com/view/title/542975]. UAVA 15. Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter.

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