Edubba A school of writing systems

Cuneiform 103 · Chapter 03

Warm-up · 6 quick retrievals from earlier chapters
  1. its — draw it, then check

    𒁉 [pi] · BI · veteran — BI gains [pi2]: the last syllable of Ḫammurapi ↩

  2. 𒄠 — read it

    [am] — wild bull · AM · wild bull — a bull-sign marked with "mountain" ↩

  3. 𒅖 [iš] — what does it mean?

    dust · IŠ · dust, soil ↩

  4. scent — draw it, then check

    𒅕 [ir/er] · IR · scent, perfume in the lists ↩

  5. 𒋻 — read it

    [tar] — cut · TAR · to cut; to decree (nam ... tar, to decree fate) ↩

  6. 𒌗 [iti] — what does it mean?

    month · ITI · month — the day-sign with thirty tucked inside ↩

Lord of heaven and earth

English says “the lord of heaven” with a little word in the middle. Akkadian can use chapter 00’s ša for that — or it can do something tighter: strip the first noun down and bind the pair into a single phrase. Bēlum, “lord,” loses its ending and becomes bēl; bēl šamê is “lord-of-heaven,” one breath. The grammars call the stripped form the construct state, and the stele’s opening is built out of it.

Batch four — and a veteran

SignNameKeyReadsMeansNotes
𒁁BADopen[be] to open, apart the be- of bēlum, "lord"
𒂖ELbright[el] bright, pure (ellum) closes be-el, the construct bēl
𒀜ADfather[ad/at/aṭ] father a father; it serves all dentals
𒅆IGIeye[ši] — veteran — 102's eye-sign as ši
𒌧KALAMthe Land[mātum] — veteran — 102's Land-sign: mātum

The construct, in one table

Full nounConstructBound phrase
bēlum, "lord"bēlbēl šamê, "lord of heaven"
šīmātum, "destinies"šīmātšīmāt mātim, "the destinies of the land"

The rule of thumb that covers this course: a noun missing its mimation is reaching for the noun after it. When an ending you learned in chapter 02 is conspicuously absent, read on — the phrase isn’t finished.

Four lines of the stele, whole

Enlil is about to be introduced by his titles. Every sign is yours; read aloud, joint by joint:

𒁁𒂖 𒊭𒈨𒂊be-el ša-me-ebēl šamê, "lord of heaven" — the construct you just met, on the stone
𒅇 𒅕𒍢𒁴u er-ṣe-timu erṣetim, "and of earth" — chapter 00's "and," then earth in the genitive: -tim doing chapter 02's work
𒊭𒄿𒅎ša-i-imšā'im, "who decrees" — ša opening its other career: "the one who…"
𒅆𒈠𒀜 ši-ma-at šīmāt mātim, "the destinies of the Land" — the veteran eye-sign as ši, AD closing the construct, and then a pure Sumerian guest: the Land-sign itself, read as Akkadian mātim
Codex Hammurapi (composite text), prologue — Enlil's titles. urn:nabu:cdli:p464358:a:4–:a:7 · license: attribution.

That last line deserves a second look. The scribe spelled three words syllable by syllable, then dropped in 𒌧 — 102’s KALAM, “the Land” — as a whole word, and every reader knew to say it in Akkadian: mātim. A Sumerian word-sign embedded in Akkadian text is called a sumerogram, and this is the borrowing’s final trick: the old logograms survive inside the new language as learned shorthand, the way we still write etc. and say “and so on.”

And the reading lines mark the trick in green, from here to the end of the school: wherever signs are spoken as one whole word instead of being sounded syllable by syllable, the transliteration prints the word your mouth actually says, in green capitals — — and the signs that carry it wear the same green. Black is sounded out; green is read whole.

𒅆𒈠𒀜 𒌧
Three syllables and one sumerogram. The scribe switches writing systems mid-line and expects you to follow — from now on, you can.

Drill before you go on

  1. Write 𒁁, 𒂖, 𒀜 from memory; say be, el, ad.
  2. Turn bēlum into “lord of earth” — construct plus genitive, transliteration only.
  3. Spell be-el ša-me-e in signs, unaided.
  4. What signals a construct-state noun on the tablet? One sentence.

Next: the first words of the stone itself — when lofty An, king of the Anunnaki…