The

cuneiform Cuneiform is a Logogram, logo-Syllabary, syllabic writing system that was used to write several languages of the Ancient Near East. The script was in active use from the early Bronze Age until the beginning of the Common Era. Cuneiform script ...

U sign is found in both the 14th century BC Amarna letters and the ''

Epic of Gilgamesh The ''Epic of Gilgamesh'' () is an epic poetry, epic from ancient Mesopotamia. The literary history of Gilgamesh begins with five Sumerian language, Sumerian poems about Gilgamesh (formerly read as Sumerian "Bilgames"), king of Uruk, some of ...

''. It can be used for the alphabetic ''u'', instead of the more common 2nd u, (ú). It has two other uses, commonly. It can be used for the number 10 (especially the Amarna letters from

Tushratta Tushratta ( Akkadian: and ) was a king of Mitanni, 1358–1335 BCE, at the end of the reign of Amenhotep III and throughout the first half the reign of Akhenaten. He was the son of Shuttarna II. Tushratta stated that he was the grandson of A ...

Mitanni Mitanni (–1260 BC), earlier called Ḫabigalbat in old Babylonian texts, ; Hanigalbat or Hani-Rabbat in Assyrian records, or in Ancient Egypt, Egyptian texts, was a Hurrian language, Hurrian-speaking state in northern Syria (region), Syria an ...

, or Burna-Buriash II the king of Babylon), but its probable greater use is for the conjunction, ''u'', with any of the conjunction meanings: ''and'', ''but'', ''else'', etc. Of the three u's, by graphemic analysis (Buccellati, 1979), the commonness is as follows: : Ù (cuneiform), conjunction only (but also rare, for alphabetic "u") :

ú (cuneiform) The cuneiform sign ú is a common-use sign of the Amarna letters, the ''Epic of Gilgamesh,'' and other cuneiform texts (for example Hittite texts). It has a secondary sub-use in the Epic of Gilgamesh for šam. Linguistically, it has the alph ...

, alphabetic 'u' :u (cuneiform), alphabetic (minor), 10, conjunction (highest use) Both Ù (cuneiform) and ú are in the top 25 most used signs, but E (cuneiform) and "u (cuneiform)" are not; other vowels (or combination) in the 25 are: a (cuneiform),

i (cuneiform) The cuneiform i sign is a common use vowel sign. It can be found in many languages, examples being the Akkadian language of the ''Epic of Gilgamesh'' (hundreds of years, parts of millenniums) and the mid 14th-century BC Amarna letters; al ...

, and

ia (cuneiform) The cuneiform ia sign 𒅀, is a combined sign, containing i (cuneiform) ligatured with a (cuneiform); it has the common meaning in the suffix form ''-ia'', for the meaning of "-mine". In the Amarna letters, the letters written to the Pha ...

, (which has a secondary use as suffix, ''"-mine"'', or ''"my"'', thus in top 25 most used signs). Suffix ''"iYa"'' is used in the Middle East\Southwest Asia at present day to end placenames, or other names: "My Xxxxx".

Amarna letters uses

The use of ''u'' for numeral 10 has been explained above. It is used in the letters from Tushratta, speaking of the ancestral relations with former father kings: ''...my father loved your father (the Pharaoh) 10 times more, and I have 10 times more love now. May our relations... be forever "inter-related".'' ( Amarna letter EA 19, 2nd paragraph, setting up the letter of a 13 paragraph letter, topics about daughter for Pharaoh's wife, love, gold, etc.)

Amarna letter EA 252 Amarna letter EA 252, titled: ''Sparing One's Enemies,'' is a square, mostly flat clay tablet letter written on both sides, and the bottom edge. Each text line was written with a horizontal line scribed below the text line, as well as a vertical ...

Labaya Labaya (Labayu or Lib'ayu) was the ruler of Shechem and warlord in the central hill country of southern Canaan during the Amarna Period (c. 1350 BC). He lived contemporaneously with Pharaoh Akhenaten. Labaya is mentioned in several of the Amarna L ...

to Pharaoh, titled: ''Sparing One's Enemies'', explains his actions in defending 'his position', after cities have been overtaken. He states in idiomatic iconography: ''"....my parts are eaten!..(''.''U''.'')And..I am slandered!''. He continues in parable form: ''".....if an ant is attacked (pinched), should it just sit (take it), or bite (the) hand back!?"....'' He continues to then discuss the men who have taken a city, (and a cult statue), and defends his past, and future actions.

Partial list of signs beginning with wedge (u)

Partial list of signs beginning with ''u'', from the ''Epic of Gilgamesh'' (Parpola, 1971), and the Amarna letters: * Cuneiform-u--Sign No. 1----(conjunction use, and "10"; occasionally for ''u'') * Cuneiform- AMAR, ṣur, zur--Sign No. 2---;

Sumerogram A Sumerogram is the use of a Sumerian cuneiform character or group of characters as an ideogram or logogram rather than a syllabogram in the graphic representation of a language other than Sumerian, such as Akkadian, Eblaite, or Hittite. Th ...

: '' See!-(AMAR)'' (Akkadian, "amāru")-(''Note: minus the vertical stroke'') * Cuneiform- di--Sign No. 3--- * Cuneiform- ki--Sign No. 4--- * Cuneiform- mi-(Sign 5) * Cuneiform- ši, lim, or IGI ("in 'face' of", "before"

)--Sign No. 6-----(Abdi-Ashirta), Abdi- A- Ši- iR- Ta, (wedge-sign, 4th sign) * Cuneiform-u--Sign No. u-1--- * Cuneiform- ú--Sign No. u-2----(approximate: ''only 3 verticals'' for ú, (the common alphabetic u)) * Cuneiform- Ù-(u-3)--Sign No. 7--- ** (With an added horizontal, , after the left vertical) Also: * Cuneiform- ar, ( Shuwardata of

Amarna letter EA 282 Amarna letter EA 282 is a relatively short ovate clay tablet Amarna letter, located in the British Museum, no. 29851. The letter contains only 16 lines of cuneiform text, in Akkadian language, Akkadian, with lines 12 to 16 covering half of the ta ...

) * Cuneiform- nim-(''nem, nim, num'', and

s NIM, NUM) ( EA 34)

References

Citations

Bibliography

* Buccellati, Giorgio, (Ugarit-Forschungen 11, 1979). ''Comparative Graphemic Analysis of Old Babylonian and Western Akkadian'', pp. 95–100. * Moran, William L. 1987, 1992. ''The Amarna Letters.'' Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987, 1992. 393 pages.(softcover, ) * Parpola, 1971. ''The Standard Babylonian

'', Parpola, Simo,

Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project The Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project is an international scholarly project aimed at collecting and publishing ancient Assyrian texts of the Neo-Assyrian Empire and studies based on them. Its headquarters are in Helsinki in Finland. State Archives ...

, c 1997, Tablet I through Tablet XII, Index of Names, Sign List, and Glossary-(pp. 119–145), 165 pages. *Ugarit Forschungen (Neukirchen-Vluyn). UF-11 (1979) honors

Claude Schaeffer Claude may refer to: People and fictional characters * Claude (given name), a list of people and fictional characters * Claude (surname), a list of people * Claude Callegari (1962–2021), English Arsenal supporter * Claude Debussy (1862–1918) ...

, with about 100 articles in 900 pages. pp 95, ff, "Comparative Graphemic Analysis of

Old Babylonian Old Babylonian may refer to: *the period of the First Babylonian dynasty (20th to 16th centuries BC) *the historical stage of the Akkadian language Akkadian ( ; )John Huehnergard & Christopher Woods, "Akkadian and Eblaite", ''The Cambridge Enc ...

and Western Akkadian", author Giorgio Buccellati, ( i.e. Ugarit and

Amarna Amarna (; ) is an extensive ancient Egyptian archaeological site containing the ruins of Akhetaten, the capital city during the late Eighteenth Dynasty. The city was established in 1346 BC, built at the direction of the Pharaoh Akhenaten, and a ...

(letters), three others, Mari, OB,Royal, OB,non-Royal letters). ---- File:C+B-Assyria-CuneiformImage12.PNG, (minus a short "horizontal stroke" right of large "wedge-stroke")
Most common of the u's: 3rd u, Ù (cuneiform), conjunction for And, but, else, etc. File:Tablet Zimri-Lim Louvre AO20161.jpg, Line 3, left
(example) Ù (cuneiform)
3rd U: conjunction for And, but, else, etc. Cuneiform signs

Amarna letters uses

Partial list of signs beginning with wedge (u)

See also

References

Citations

Bibliography