The autograph letters of Khammurabi, the Amraphel of Genesis, have come down to us, and we even have letters of his time from a lover to his mistress, and from a tenant to his landlord, whom he begs to reduce his rent.

Boys went to school early, and learning the cuneiform syllabary was a task that demanded no small amount of time and application, especially when it is remembered that in the case of the Semitic Babylonian this involved also acquiring a knowledge of the dead language of Sumer.

One of the exercises of the Sumerian schoolboy bids him "rise like the dawn, if he would excel in the school of the scribes." Purely literary texts were numerous, especially poems, though nothing corresponding to the Egyptian novel has been met with.

The epic of Gilgames, composed by Sin-liqi-unnini, has already been referred to.

Its twelve books answered to the twelve signs of the Zodiac, and the eleventh accordingly contains the episode of the Deluge.