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 ...

zu, (also sú, ṣú, and

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 ...

ZU (capital letter

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 writi ...

)), is an uncommon-use sign in the 1350s BC Amarna letters, 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 ...

'', and other cuneiform texts. Alphabetically, it could conceivably be used for letters ''z'', ''s'', ''ṣ'', or ''u''; however in the Amarna letters it is used mostly for ''personal names'' or ''geographical names''. In the ''Epic of Gilgamesh'', Sumerogram ''ZU'' is used to spell the name of god Ninazu, (a name of god

Tammuz Dumuzid or Tammuz ( sux, , ''Dumuzid''; akk, Duʾūzu, Dûzu; he, תַּמּוּז, Tammûz),; ar, تمّوز ' known to the Sumerians as Dumuzid the Shepherd ( sux, , ''Dumuzid sipad''), is an ancient Mesopotamian god associated with she ...

, two times, Chapter XII, 28, 47). In the ''Epic'', ''ZU'' is also used as 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 ...

, ''ZU.AB'', for

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 ...

''"apsû"'',

English language English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to t ...

''"abyss"''; it is used twice in Chapter VIII, and twice in Chapter XI, the

Gilgamesh flood myth The Gilgamesh flood myth is a flood myth in the ''Epic of Gilgamesh''. Many scholars believe that the flood myth was added to Tablet XI in the "standard version" of the Gilgamesh Epic by an editor who used the flood story from the Epic of Atraha ...

. It was also used to name Giant Squid Studios' game, Abzû.

Uses of ''zu''

''Epic of Gilgamesh''

The usage numbers for ''zu'' in the ''Epic of Gilgamesh'' are as follows: ''sú''-(1) time, ''ṣú''-(0), ''zu''-(41), and ''ZU''-(7) times.

Partial list of uses in Amarna letters

* EA 100, ^City Subaru, ( Sú- ba- ru), * EA 245, Surata, ( Sú- ra- ta), -ra- (''personal name'') * EA 364, ^City Hazor, ( Ha-sú- ra), Ha--ra

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 through Tablet XII, Index of Names, Sign List, and Glossary-(pp. 119–145), 165 pages. Cuneiform signs