and in Mesopotamia Instructions were originally written by or for (potential) rulers, but with the rise of midlevel bureaucracy they were intended for a wider audience, and finally, in Egypt, at least, becoming entirely democratized. This early association of rulers with wisdom belongs to a hierarchical understanding in the ancient world whereby the god Enki (also called Ea) possessed wisdom and revealed it to seven primordial sages, called apkallu, and to postdiluvian sages, called ummanu, who in