Diš is a

cuneiform Cuneiform is a Logogram, logo-Syllabary, syllabic writing system that was used to write several languages of the Ancient Near East. The script was in active use from the early Bronze Age until the beginning of the Common Era. Cuneiform script ...

sign represented by 𒁹 or . It has many uses in

texts, including in the ''

Epic of Gilgamesh The ''Epic of Gilgamesh'' () is an epic poetry, epic from ancient Mesopotamia. The literary history of Gilgamesh begins with five Sumerian language, Sumerian poems about Gilgamesh (formerly read as Sumerian "Bilgames"), king of Uruk, some of ...

''.

Description

𒁹 is a cuneiform sign. In

Unicode Unicode or ''The Unicode Standard'' or TUS is a character encoding standard maintained by the Unicode Consortium designed to support the use of text in all of the world's writing systems that can be digitized. Version 16.0 defines 154,998 Char ...

, it is represented by U+12079 (DISH)

Use of the vertical sign

In the Amarna letters, it is commonly used to denote ''Male individuals''. (Women are denoted by sal (cuneiform), . ) The sign is also used to denote "numbers of items". The sign is used for 1. Examples of multiple uses in the Amarna letters, is to address the

Pharaoh Pharaoh (, ; Egyptian language, Egyptian: ''wikt:pr ꜥꜣ, pr ꜥꜣ''; Meroitic language, Meroitic: 𐦲𐦤𐦧, ; Biblical Hebrew: ''Parʿō'') was the title of the monarch of ancient Egypt from the First Dynasty of Egypt, First Dynasty ( ...

, often as ''"servant-yours, at 2 Feet, .. I bow."'' An example of multiple uses in the Amarna letters, often the bowing down is done: ''" .. 7 and 7 times (I bow) !"'', with seven small strokes as units of number "1".

''Epic of Gilgamesh'' usage

In the ''

'', there are also uses for "diš", and "tiš". (In the

Akkadian language 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 was an East Semitic language that is attested ...

, "d" & "t", are interchangeable (voiced vs unvoiced). The ''ana'', (''diš'') sign usage in the ''Epic of Gilgamesh'' is as follows: ''ana''-(151 times); ''diš''-(6); ''tiš''-(6); and ''1''-(87 times).Parpola, 1971. ''The Standard Babylonian

'', Sign List, pp. 155-165, no. 480, p. 164, ("ana"), "diš", etc.

The glossenkeil usage of the angled sign

Many of the Amarna letters use glossenkeils, of two varieties: type 1: , and type 2: ( gl (AL)). Type 2 is found in example letters: EA 364, EA 245, and EA 287. (In ''CDLI'' listings (Chicago Digital Library Initiative), it is represented in transcription as ":". Likewise in the Moran, William L. translations.) Type 1 can be found in Amarna example letter

EA 147 Amarna letter EA 147, titled ''A Hymn to the Pharaoh'', is a moderate length clay tablet Amarna letter (mid 14th century BC) from Abimilku of Tyre-(called ''Ṣurru'' in the Abimilku letters, and an island, until the time of Alexander the Great, 3 ...

. The type 2 glossenkeil, is a shortened version of the ''large-angled-stroke'', type 2; (the long stroke of the sign is slightly, or majorly, foreshortened. In the Amarna letters, often down to 50% of the "full stroke".). The high quality photo of EA 364, line 8, shows the length about 3/4 of a full stroke-length.

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 of the Neo-Assyrian Empire and studies based on them. Its headquarters are in Helsinki in Finland. State Archives ...

, c 1997, Tablet I thru Tablet XII, Index of Names, Sign List, and Glossary-(pp. 119–145), 165 pages.

External links