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 wedge-sha ...

mi, (also mé) sign is a distinctive sign in the wedge-stroke group, and is used as a syllabic for ''mi'', ''me'', and an alphabetic for ''m'', ''i'', or ''e''; it is also 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 ...

(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 writing ...

)) for MI, used 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 ...

, "mūšu", ''night''. ''MI'', in the ''Epic of Gilgamesh,'' is used in (Chapters) Tablets I, II, III, and XII as either MI, or MI. MEŠ, a total of six times; other spellings of ''mūšu'' in other sections are alphabetic/syllabic, four times. C+B-Persia-Cuneiform10

The sign can be found in the ''

Epic of Gilgamesh The ''Epic of Gilgamesh'' () is an epic poetry, 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 ...

'' and the mid-14th century BC

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 t ...

. The signs usage in the Epic is as follows: ''mé''-(1 time), ''mi''-(126), MI-(9).

Partial list of signs beginning with wedge (u)

Partial list of signs beginning with (wedge)-''u'', from the ''Epic of Gilgamesh'' (Parpola, 1971), and the Amarna letters: * Cuneiform-u--Sign No. 1--- C+B-Persia-Cuneiform10

-(conjunction use, and "10"; occasionally for ''u'') * Cuneiform-

AMAR Amar may refer to: People Given name * Amar (British singer) (born 1982), British Indian singer born Amar Dhanjal * Amar (Lebanese singer) (born 1986), born Amar Mahmoud Al Tahech * Amar Bose (1929–2013), Founder of Bose Corporation * Amar Gup ...

, ṣur,

zur Zur occurs five times in the King James Bible as the name of various people and a state. * The first mention is in . This is the pericope where Numbers 25:1 tells us that ''Israel abode in Shittim, and the people began to commit whoredom with the ...

--Sign No. 2--- Cuneiform UL

;

: '' See!-(''AMAR'') (Akkadian, "amāru")-(''Note: minus the vertical stroke'') * Cuneiform- di--Sign No. 3--- C+B-Babylonia-CuneiformImage15

* Cuneiform- ki--Sign No. 4--- C+B-Assyria-CuneiformImage5

* Cuneiform-mi--Sign No. 5--- C+B-Persia-Cuneiform10

* Cuneiform- ši, lim, or IGI ("in 'face' of", "before"

)--Sign No. 6--- Abdi-Ashirta written in cuneiform

--(Abdi-Ashirta), Abdi- A- Ši- iR- Ta, (wedge-sign, 4th sign) * Cuneiform-u--Sign No. u-1--- C+B-Persia-Cuneiform10

* Cuneiform- ú--Sign No. u-2--- E-bitu Cuneiform

-(approximate: ''only 3 verticals'' for ú, (the common alphabetic u)) * Cuneiform- Ù-(u-3)--Sign No. 7--- C+B-Assyria-CuneiformImage5

** (With an added horizontal, B001ellst

, after the left vertical) Also: * Cuneiform- ar, ( Shuw ar

data In the pursuit of knowledge, data (; ) is a collection of discrete values that convey information, describing quantity, quality, fact, statistics, other basic units of meaning, or simply sequences of symbols that may be further interpreted ...

Amarna letter EA 282 Amarna letter EA 282 is a relatively short ovate clay tablet Amarna letter, located in the British Museum, no. 29851. The letter contains only 16 lines of cuneiform text, in Akkadian, with lines 12 to 16 covering half of the tablet's reverse. Of ...

) * Cuneiform-

nim Nim is a mathematical two player game. Nim or NIM may also refer to: * Nim (programming language) * Nim Chimpsky, a signing chimpanzee Acronyms * Network Installation Manager, an IBM framework * Nuclear Instrumentation Module * Negative index met ...

-(''nem, nim, num'', and

s NIM, NUM) ( EA 34)

References

* Moran, William L. 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. ---- File:Mesopotamian - Cylinder Seal with Human-Headed Griffin Attacking a Horse - Walters 42444.jpg, Modern impression in clay of Mesopotamian

cylinder seal A cylinder seal is a small round cylinder, typically about one inch (2 to 3 cm) in length, engraved with written characters or figurative scenes or both, used in ancient times to roll an impression onto a two-dimensional surface, generally ...

, using ''mi''. Cuneiform signs