A Sumerogram is the use of a Sumerian

cuneiform Cuneiform is a logo- syllabic script that was used to write several languages of the Ancient Middle East. The script was in active use from the early Bronze Age until the beginning of the Common Era. It is named for the characteristic wedge- ...

character or group of characters as an

ideogram An ideogram or ideograph (from Greek "idea" and "to write") is a graphic symbol that represents an idea or concept, independent of any particular language, and specific words or phrases. Some ideograms are comprehensible only by famili ...

logogram In a written language, a logogram, logograph, or lexigraph is a written character that represents a word or morpheme. Chinese characters (pronounced '' hanzi'' in Mandarin, ''kanji'' in Japanese, ''hanja'' in Korean) are generally logograms, ...

rather than a syllabogram in the graphic representation of a language other than Sumerian, such as

Akkadian Akkadian or Accadian may refer to: * Akkadians, inhabitants of the Akkadian Empire * Akkadian language, an extinct Eastern Semitic language * Akkadian literature, literature in this language * Akkadian cuneiform Cuneiform is a logo-syllabic ...

or Hittite. Sumerograms are normally transliterated in

majuscule Letter case is the distinction between the letters that are in larger uppercase or capitals (or more formally ''majuscule'') and smaller lowercase (or more formally ''minuscule'') in the written representation of certain languages. The writing ...

letters, with dots separating the signs. In the same way, a written Akkadian word that is used ideographically to represent a language other than Akkadian (such as Hittite) is known as an ''Akkadogram''. This type of logogram characterized, to a greater or lesser extent, every adaptation of the original Mesopotamian cuneiform system to a language other than Sumerian. The frequency and intensity of their use varied depending on period, style, and genre. The name of the cuneiform sign written in majuscule letters is a modern

Assyriological Assyriology (from Greek , ''Assyriā''; and , ''-logia'') is the archaeological, anthropological, and linguistic study of Assyria and the rest of ancient Mesopotamia (a region that encompassed what is now modern Iraq, northeastern Syria, southeas ...

convention. Most signs have a number of possible Sumerian sound values. The readers of Assyrian or Hittite texts using these Sumerograms would not necessarily have been aware of the Sumerian language, the ''Sumerograms'' functioning as ideograms or logogram to be substituted in pronunciation by the intended word in the text's language. For example, the Babylonian name

Marduk Marduk (Cuneiform: dAMAR.UTU; Sumerian: ''amar utu.k'' "calf of the sun; solar calf"; ) was a god from ancient Mesopotamia and patron deity of the city of Babylon. When Babylon became the political center of the Euphrates valley in the time of ...

is written in Sumerograms, as ^dAMAR.UTU. Hittite Kurunta is usually written as , where LAMMA is the Sumerogram for "stag", the Luwian deity Kurunta being associated with this animal. In the

Amarna letters The Amarna letters (; sometimes referred to as the Amarna correspondence or Amarna tablets, and cited with the abbreviation EA, for "El Amarna") are an archive, written on clay tablets, primarily consisting of diplomatic correspondence between ...

, " Lady of the Lions" is the name of a Babylonian Queen mother, spelled as NIN.UR.MAH.MEŠ. While the meaning "lady (NIN) of the lions (UR.MAH.MEŠ)" is evident, the intended pronunciation is Assyrian and must be conjectured from external evidence.

See also