Cuneiform 103 · Chapter 04
Warm-up · 6 quick retrievals from earlier chapters
𒌧KALAM · [mātum] · the Land-sign as a sumerogram [mātum] — the Land · KALAM · veteran — KALAM gains [mātum]: the Land-sign as a sumerograma Sumerian word-sign kept inside Akkadian text as learned shorthand — written LUGAL, read aloud as Akkadian šarrum, "king" ↩
𒁁BAD · [be] · [be]; as a word, to open, apart [be] — what does it mean?open · BAD · [be]; as a word, to open, apart ↩
post — draw it, then check𒁴DIM · [tim] · post, pillar; the genitive's -tim [tim] · DIM · post, pillar; the genitivethe grammatical case of possession or belonging — "the king's house", "lord of Lagash" 's -tim ↩
𒍢ZE2 · [ṣi/ṣe] · bile, gall; the emphatic ṣ [ṣi/ṣe] — bile · ZE2 · bile, gall; the emphaticpronounced with extra tension further back in the throat than its plain twin — q versus k, ḥ versus h ṣ ↩
𒊭ŠA · [ša] · the particle ša — "which, of"; the school's hinge-word [ša] — what does it mean?which · ŠA · the particlea small function word that frames or flavors a sentence without naming any thing or action ša — "which, of"; the school's hinge-word ↩
seize — draw it, then check𒆪KU · [qu] · šūqurātim, "precious" [ku] · KU · to seize (dab5 ); to sit, dwell (tuš) ↩
When lofty An…
Four chapters of preparation end here. This page reads the first
words carved on the stele of Hammurabi — not an adaptation, not a
simplified school text: the monument’s own opening, in its own
signs. One new sign is all it still needs from you.
Batch five
The stone speaks
Three lines, read aloud. The stele opens with a “when…” that will
hold its breath for three hundred more lines before the “then”
arrives — monumental Akkadian loves a long suspense — and the
“when” itself is two veterans standing together:
𒈗LUGAL · [šarrum] · the king-sign as a sumerogram 𒀭AN · [an], diŋir · heaven; god 𒀀A · [a] · water 𒉣NUN · [nun] · prince, noble 𒈾NA · [na] · [na]; stone in some words 𒆠KI · [ki/qi] · qibīma's opener — the old ki serves as ever ŠAR {d}a-nun-na-kišar Anunnakī , "king of the Anunnaki" — the king-sign as a sumerograma Sumerian word-sign kept inside Akkadian text as learned shorthand — written LUGAL, read aloud as Akkadian šarrum, "king" (written LUGAL, spoken šar , construct!), then the divine determinativea silent sign at the end (in cuneiform, often the front) of a word that classifies it — person, god, place, motion — never pronounced , then the gods' family name with this page's NUN at its heart
Codex Hammurapi (composite text), prologue, lines
1–3. urn:nabu:cdli:p464358:a:1:a:3
· license: attribution.
Notice what the three lines quietly demonstrate. Line 1 is pure
syllable-spelling. Line 3 is pure Sumerian heritage, untouched.
And line 2 is the mixture that makes Akkadian cuneiform what it
is: a sumerograma Sumerian word-sign kept inside Akkadian text as learned shorthand — written LUGAL, read aloud as Akkadian šarrum, "king" read in Akkadian (šar , construct statethe stripped-down form a noun takes to bind with the noun after it — bēl šamê, "lord-of-heaven" — losing its ending to gain an "of" — the
missing -um is chapter 03’s signal), a silent classifierEgyptology's name for a determinative — the silent sign closing a word to say what kind of thing it is: person, speech, plural, idea , and a
name spelled out sound by sound. Every skill this course has
taught you, in one line of stone.
𒉌NI · [ni], i3 · [ni]; oil, butter as i3 𒉡NU · [nu] · not — the negation 𒀭AN · [an], diŋir · heaven; god 𒍢ZE2 · [ṣi/ṣe] · bile, gall; the emphatic ṣ 𒊒RU · [ru] · to dedicate — a mu-na-ru, the votive's closing verb 𒌝UM · [um] · [um]; the nominative's closing -um The first line of the most famous law code on earth.
Five of its six signs were yours before this course began.
Why “when”?
Because the prologue is one enormous sentence: When An and Enlil
gave Marduk his rank and Babylon its kingship — at that time
(the resolution arrives hundreds of lines later) they named me,
Hammurabi, to make justice rise in the land. The laws hang from
that sentence like the stele’s own colophona scribe's closing note on a tablet or manuscript — title, owner, date, the ancient equivalent of a title page at the end . You now hold its
first breath; the coming chapters work toward the clause
where the king finally says anāku —
“I am he.”
Drill before you go on
Write 𒉣NUN · [nun] · prince, noble from memory; say nun .
Spell i-nu an ṣi-ru-um in signs, unaided, and give
its bound transcriptionthe joined-up dictionary form of an Akkadian word (šarrum, awīlum), reconstructed from its syllable-by-syllable transliteration with vowel lengths marked .
In line 2, which sign is silent, which is a sumerograma Sumerian word-sign kept inside Akkadian text as learned shorthand — written LUGAL, read aloud as Akkadian šarrum, "king" , and
how do you know the sumerograma Sumerian word-sign kept inside Akkadian text as learned shorthand — written LUGAL, read aloud as Akkadian šarrum, "king" is in the construct statethe stripped-down form a noun takes to bind with the noun after it — bēl šamê, "lord-of-heaven" — losing its ending to gain an "of" ?
Why does ṣīrum end in -um and
chapter 02’s ṣīram in -am? One
sentence.
Next: the verb arrives — he charged, he did not convict, he
shall pay.
Cuneiform 103
← 03 · Lord of heaven and earth
05 · The verb →