300px, left, Cuneiform sign for ri, re, dal, tal, ṭal, and as Sumerogram RI, (sign uses from the ''Epic of Gilgamesh'').">Epic_of_Gilgamesh.html" ;"title="Sumerogram RI, (sign uses from the ''Epic of Gilgamesh">Sumerogram RI, (sign uses from the '' thumb">right">315px, te-ir (cuneiform)">er-ri-šu-na (cuneiform)">na), 3rd character, 6th line from top (line 365:20).
(high resolution, expandible photo) The cuneiform Ri sign, or Re, is found in both the 14th-century BC Amarna letters and the ''

Epic of Gilgamesh The ''Epic of Gilgamesh'' () is an epic poem from ancient Mesopotamia, and is regarded as the earliest surviving notable literature and the second oldest religious text, after the Pyramid Texts. The literary history of Gilgamesh begins wit ...

''; it is in the top 25 most used cuneiform signs (Buccellati, 1979) for ''ri'', or ''re'', but has other syllabic or alphabetic uses, as well as the

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 or Hittite. Sumerograms are no ...

usage for ''RI'' (''Epic of Gilgamesh''). The ri (cuneiform) sign has the following uses in the ''Epic of Gilgamesh'': :dal :re :ri :tal :ṭal :RI (

usage) The specific usage numbers for the sign's meaning in the Epic is as follows: ''dal''-(4), ''re''-(56), ''ri''-(372), ''tal''-(70), ''ṭal''-(2), ''RI''-(1). In the Amarna letters, ''ri'' also has a special usage when coupled with the naming of the Pharaoh, as "LUGAL-Ri". Lugal is the

translated in the

Akkadian language Akkadian (, Akkadian: )John Huehnergard & Christopher Woods, "Akkadian and Eblaite", ''The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the World's Ancient Languages''. Ed. Roger D. Woodard (2004, Cambridge) Pages 218-280 is an extinct East Semitic language th ...

to 'King', ''Sarru''. Thus in the Amarna letters, Lugal is used as a stand-alone, but sometimes supplemented with ''Ri'', and specifically used as Sumerogram ''SÀR'' (an equivalent Sumerogram to mean LUGAL) to be combined with ''RI'' to make ''sarru'' for king. ('The King', as an appellation is sometimes created by adding ma (cuneiform), suffix to the end of a name (Lugal-ma.)

References

Moran, William L. William Lambert Moran (August 11, 1921 – December 19, 2000) was an American Assyriologist. He was born in Chicago, United States. In 1939, Moran joined the Jesuit order. He then attended Loyola University in Chicago, where he received his ...

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 and studies based on them. Its headquarters are in Helsinki in Finland. State Archives of Assyria State Archives ...

, c 1997, Tablet I thru 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: __NOTOC__ People and fictional characters * Claude (given name), a list of people and fictional characters * Claude (surname), a list of people * Claude Lorrain (c. 1600–1682), French landscape painter, draughtsman and etcher ...

, 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 of that time See also *Old Assyrian (disambiguation) Old Assyrian refers to a period of the Ancient ...

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

Amarna Amarna (; ar, العمارنة, al-ʿamārnah) is an extensive Egyptian archaeological site containing the remains of what was the capital city of the late Eighteenth Dynasty. The city was established in 1346 BC, built at the direction of the Ph ...

(letters), three others, Mari, OB,Royal, OB,non-Royal letters). Cuneiform signs