The

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 wedg ...

sa sign is a less common-use sign of 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 ...

'', the 1350 BC Amarna letters, and other

texts. It also has a

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 ...

mic usage for SA in the ''Epic of Gilgamesh''. The structure of the

sign is similar to,

Ir (cuneiform) The cuneiform ir (more common usage), or er sign is a sign used in the Epic of Gilgamesh, and the Amarna letters. It is in a small group that have smaller, 3-verticals, as well as 2- and 1-vertical strokes, sitting on a lower horizontal cunei ...

, . The "sa" sign has the syllabic usage for ''sa'', and a

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 ''SA''. Alphabetically "sa" can be used for ''s'' ("s" can be interchanged with any "z"); and "sa" can be used for ''a''. In

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, early writing system * Akkadian myt ...

, all 4 vowels, ''a, e, i, u'' are interchangeable with each other. ''SA'' in the ''Epic of Gilgamesh'' is a

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, as ...

for

"Šer'ānu", translated as: ''"muscle, sinew"''.

''Epic of Gilgamesh'' usage

The ''sa'' sign usage in the ''Epic of Gilgamesh'' is as follows: ''sa''-(89 times); and ''SA''-(2).Parpola, 1971. ''The Standard Babylonian

'', Sign List, pp. 155-165, no. 104, p. 157, "sa".

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. Cuneiform signs