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-sh ...

U sign 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 with ...

''. It can be used for the alphabetic ''u'', instead of the more common 2nd u, (ú). It has two other uses, commonly. It can be used for the number 10 (especially the Amarna letters from

Tushratta Tushratta (Akkadian: and ) was a king of Mitanni, c. 1358–1335 BCE, at the end of the reign of Amenhotep III and throughout the reign of Akhenaten. He was the son of Shuttarna II. Tushratta stated that he was the grandson of Artatama I. His si ...

Mitanni Mitanni (; Hittite cuneiform ; ''Mittani'' '), c. 1550–1260 BC, earlier called Ḫabigalbat in old Babylonian texts, c. 1600 BC; Hanigalbat or Hani-Rabbat (''Hanikalbat'', ''Khanigalbat'', cuneiform ') in Assyrian records, or ''Naharin'' in ...

, or

Burna-Buriash II Burna-Buriaš II, rendered in cuneiform as ''Bur-na-'' or ''Bur-ra-Bu-ri-ia-aš'' in royal inscriptions and letters, and meaning ''servant'' or ''protégé of the Lord of the lands'' in the Kassite language, where Buriaš (, dbu-ri-ia-aš₂) is a ...

the king of Babylon), but its probable greater use is for the conjunction, ''u'', with any of the conjunction meanings: ''and'', ''but'', ''else'', etc. Of the three u's, by graphemic analysis (Buccellati, 1979), the commonness is as follows: :

Ù (cuneiform) The cuneiform ù sign ('u, no. 3'), is found in both the 14th century BC Amarna letters and the ''Epic of Gilgamesh''. Its use is as a conjunction, (translated as for example: ''and, but, else, until,'' etc.), but rarely it is substituted for ...

, conjunction only (but also rare, for alphabetic "u") :

ú (cuneiform) The cuneiform sign ú is a common-use sign of the Amarna letters, the ''Epic of Gilgamesh,'' and other cuneiform texts (for example Hittite texts). It has a secondary sub-use in the Epic of Gilgamesh for šam. Linguistically, it has the alph ...

, alphabetic 'u' :u (cuneiform), alphabetic (minor), 10, conjunction (highest use) Both

and ú are in the top 25 most used signs, but

E (cuneiform) E, or e, is the fifth letter and the second vowel letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''e'' (pronounced ); plu ...

and "u (cuneiform)" are not; other vowels (or combination) in the 25 are:

a (cuneiform) The cuneiform sign 𒀀 ( DIŠ, DIŠ OVER DIŠ) for a, and in the ''Epic of Gilgamesh'' the sumerogram A, Akkadian for ''mû'', "water", which is used in the ''Gilgamesh flood myth'', Chapter XI of the Epic, or other passages. The sign is ...

i (cuneiform) The cuneiform i sign is a common use vowel sign. It can be found in many languages, examples being the Akkadian language of the ''Epic of Gilgamesh'' (hundreds of years, parts of millenniums) and the mid 14th-century BC Amarna letters; als ...

, and

ia (cuneiform) The cuneiform ia sign 𒅀, is a combined sign, containing i (cuneiform) ligatured with a (cuneiform); it has the common meaning in the suffix form ''-ia'', for the meaning of "-mine". In the Amarna letters, the letters written to the Pharao ...

, (which has a secondary use as suffix, ''"-mine"'', or ''"my"'', thus in top 25 most used signs). Suffix ''"iYa"'' is used in the Middle East\Southwest Asia at present day to end placenames, or other names: "My Xxxxx".

Amarna letters uses

The use of ''u'' for numeral 10 has been explained above. It is used in the letters from Tushratta, speaking of the ancestral relations with former father kings: ''...my father loved your father (the Pharaoh) 10 times more, and I have 10 times more love now. May our relations... be forever "inter-related".'' ( Amarna letter EA 19, 2nd paragraph, setting up the letter of a 13 paragraph letter, topics about daughter for Pharaoh's wife, love, gold, etc.)

Amarna letter EA 252 Amarna letter EA 252, titled: ''Sparing One's Enemies,'' is a square, mostly flat clay tablet letter written on both sides, and the bottom edge. Each text line was written with a horizontal line scribed below the text line, as well as a vertical ...

Labaya Labaya (also transliterated as Labayu or Lib'ayu) was a 14th-century BCE ruler or warlord in the central hill country of southern Canaan. He lived contemporaneously with Pharaoh Akhenaten. Labaya is mentioned in several of the Amarna Letters (abbr ...

to Pharaoh, titled: ''Sparing One's Enemies'', explains his actions in defending 'his position', after cities have been overtaken. He states in idiomatic iconography: ''"....my parts are eaten!..(''.''U''.'')And..I am slandered!''. He continues in parable form: ''".....if an ant is attacked (pinched), should it just sit (take it), or bite (the) hand back!?"....'' He continues to then discuss the men who have taken a city, (and a cult statue), and defends his past, and future actions.

Partial list of signs beginning with wedge (u)

Partial list of signs beginning with ''u'', from the ''Epic of Gilgamesh'' (Parpola, 1971), and the Amarna letters: * Cuneiform-u--Sign No. 1----(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--Sign No. 2---;

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 n ...

: '' See!-(AMAR)'' (Akkadian, "amāru")-(''Note: minus the vertical stroke'') * Cuneiform- di--Sign No. 3--- * Cuneiform- ki--Sign No. 4--- * Cuneiform- mi-(Sign 5) * Cuneiform- ši, lim, or IGI ("in 'face' of", "before"

)--Sign No. 6-----(Abdi-Ashirta), Abdi- A- Ši- iR- Ta, (wedge-sign, 4th sign) * Cuneiform-u--Sign No. u-1--- * Cuneiform- ú--Sign No. u-2----(approximate: ''only 3 verticals'' for ú, (the common alphabetic u)) * Cuneiform- Ù-(u-3)--Sign No. 7--- ** (With an added horizontal, ,after the left vertical) Also: * Cuneiform- ar, ( Shuwardata of

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

s NIM, NUM) ( EA 34)

References

Citations

Bibliography

* Buccellati, Giorgio, (Ugarit-Forschungen 11, 1979). ''Comparative Graphemic Analysis of Old Babylonian and Western Akkadian'', pp. 95–100. * 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, c 1997, Tablet I through 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 Akkadian (, Akkadian: )John Huehnergard & Christopher Woods, "Akkadian and Eblaite", ''The Camb ...

and Western Akkadian", author Giorgio Buccellati, ( i.e. Ugarit and Amarna (letters), three others, Mari, OB,Royal, OB,non-Royal letters). ---- File:C+B-Assyria-CuneiformImage12.PNG, (minus a short "horizontal stroke" right of large "wedge-stroke")
Most common of the u's: 3rd u,

, conjunction for And, but, else, etc. File:Tablet Zimri-Lim Louvre AO20161.jpg, Line 3, left
(example)

3rd U: conjunction for And, but, else, etc. Cuneiform signs

Amarna letters uses

Partial list of signs beginning with wedge (u)

See also

References

Citations

Bibliography