Now, I swear by the sun god Utu on this very day - and my younger brothers shall be witness of it in foreign lands where the sons of Sumer are not known, where people do not have the use of paved roads, where they have no access to the written word - that I, the firstborn son, am a fashioner of words, a composer of songs, a composer of words, and that they will recite my songs as heavenly writings, and that they will bow down before my words......
King Shulgi
(c. 2100 BC)
on the future of Sumerian literature