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-sha ...

is one of the earliest systems of writing, emerging in

Sumer Sumer () is the earliest known civilization in the historical region of southern Mesopotamia (south-central Iraq), emerging during the Chalcolithic and early Bronze Ages between the sixth and fifth millennium BC. It is one of the cradles of c ...

in the late fourth millennium BC. The signs in the following list are ordered by their 2004 Borger number (MesZL). Archaic versions of cuneiform writing, including the

Ur III The Third Dynasty of Ur, also called the Neo-Sumerian Empire, refers to a 22nd to 21st century BC ( middle chronology) Sumerian ruling dynasty based in the city of Ur and a short-lived territorial-political state which some historians consider t ...

(and earlier, ED III cuneiform of literature such as The Barton Cylinder) are not included due to extreme complexity of arranging them consistently and unequivocally by the shape of their signs;Bendt Alster, "On the Earliest Sumerian Literary Tradition," ''Journal of Cuneiform Studies'' 28 (1976) 109-126

/ref> see

Early Dynastic Cuneiform Early Dynastic Cuneiform is the name of a Unicode block of the Supplementary Multilingual Plane (SMP), at U+12480–U+1254F, introduced in version 8.0 (June 2015). It is a supplement to the earlier encoding of the cuneiform script in the ...

for the Unicode block. The columns within the list contain: #MesZL: The sign numbers of Rykle Borger's ''Mesopotamisches Zeichenlexikon'' (2004); #ŠL/HA: The Deimel Numbers from ''Šumerisches Lexikon'' (ŠL), completed and accommodated in Ellermeier and Studt's ''Handbuch Assur'' (HA); #aBZL: The numbers of Mittermayer's ''Altbabylonische Zeichenliste der sumerisch-literarischen Texte'' (2006); #HethZL'':'' The numbers of Rüster and Neu's ''Hethitisches Zeichenlexikon'' (1989); # Sign Name according to MesZL, HA etc.; # The Unicode code points numbers (»A & B« and »A & B & C« indicates the numerous characters that must be written by combining two or three shorter signs); # The Unicode sign names; # Comments. In MesZL, signs are sorted by their leftmost parts, beginning with horizontal strokes (single AŠ, then stacked TAB, EŠ₁₆), followed by the diagonals GE₂₃ and GE₂₂, the ''

Winkelhaken The ''Winkelhaken'' (, "angular hook"), also simply called a hook, is one of five basic wedge elements appearing in the composition of signs in Akkadian cuneiform. It was realized by pressing the point of the stylus into the clay. A single Winkelh ...

'' U and finally the vertical DIŠ. The relevant shape for the classification of a sign is the

Neo-Assyrian The Neo-Assyrian Empire was the fourth and penultimate stage of ancient Assyrian history and the final and greatest phase of Assyria as an independent state. Beginning with the accession of Adad-nirari II in 911 BC, the Neo-Assyrian Empire grew t ...

one (after ca. 1000 BC); the standardization of sign shapes of this late period allows systematic arrangement by shape. The difference between the conventional sign names - they are used in MesZL, HA, aBZL and other standard publications - and the names in the

Unicode Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology Technical standard, standard for the consistent character encoding, encoding, representation, and handling of Character (computing), text expre ...

5.0 cuneiform encoding standard is often very significant. So the Unicode names as well as the standard ones are listed. A
Sumerisches-Glossar.de
the complete sign list as PDF with all cuneiform signs and with an introduction by

Rykle Borger Riekele or Rykle Borger (born 24 May 1929, Wiuwert, the Netherlands; died 27 December 2010, Göttingen, Germany) was a notable Dutch Assyriologist educated in the German tradition. He was the protégé of Wolfram von Soden, and taught as professor ...

is to be found.

AŠ

TAB (two AŠ)

EŠ₁₆ (three AŠ)

GE₂₃ (DIŠ-tenû)

U

DIŠ

References

Citations

{{reflist, 30em

Bibliography

* R. Borger, ''Assyrisch-Babylonische Zeichenliste'', 2nd ed., Neukirchen-Vluyn (1981). * R. Borger, ''Mesopotamisches Zeichenlexikon'', Münster (2004)

* A. Deimel, ''Šumerisches Lexikon'', Rom (1928ff.). * F. Ellermeier, M. Studt, ''Sumerisches Glossar Band 3 Teil 6: Handbuch Assur mit CD-ROM, Ausgabe für PC.'', Hardegsen (2003)

*I. J. Gel
Old Akkadian Writing and Grammar
"Sign List of the Sargonic Period" (1952, 2nd ed. 1961), 218–235. * Y. Gong, ''Die Namen der Keilschriftzeichen'', AOAT 268, Münster (2000). * M. Krebernik, ''Mesopotamien'', at: P. Attinger, M. Wäfler ''Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis'' (OBO) 160/1, Fribourg and Göttingen (1998). * C. Mittermayer, P. Attinger, ''Altbabylonische Zeichenliste der sumerisch-literarischen Texte'', Fribourg (2006). * Chr. Rüster, E. Neu, ''Hethitisches Zeichenlexikon'', Wiesbaden (1989).

External links

sign list at sumerisches-Glossar.de
PDF file of the complete sign list with Neo-Assyrian glyphs by M. Studt, with an introduction by R. Borger.
Unicode 5.0 Cuneiform

Unicode 5.0 Cuneiform Numbers

The OCHRE Signary: a sign list searchable by sign name or value, produced by the OCHRE Data Service of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago.

CDLI online sign lists

ETCSL sign list

ePSD (electronic Pennsylvania Sumerian Dictionary)

As sign list by Assyriologist Kateřina Šašková, featuring Ur III and Neo-Assyrian cuneiform shapes
Cuneiform

AŠ