The World's Oldest Literature: Studies in Sumerian Belles-Lettres - William W. Hallo - Google Books

http://books.google.de/books?id=WjNqb1G88b0C&pg=PR23

Literature begins at Sumer, we may say. Given that this ancient crossroads of tin and copper produced not only bronze and the entire Bronze Age, but also by neccesity, the first system of record-keeping and the technique of writing. Scribal schools served…