Akkadian Addenda · Signs

𒁁

open

NameBAD
Reads[be]
Means[be]; as a word, to open, apart
Taught in03 · Lord of heaven and earth

Where it comes from

A sign of many lives whose picture the lists explain variously — “to open,” “apart,” and other readings cluster around it, none graded certain. Akkadian took the value be and put it to aristocratic work: be-el spells bēl, “lord (of),” so this modest horizontal wedge-cluster opens the grandest titles on the stele.

How to remember it

Open — the sign that opens doors opens titles: every bēlum, every “lord of…” begins by opening with be. One wedge apart, and the gates of rank swing wide.

In the wild

Codex Hammurapi (composite text), prologue. urn:nabu:cdli:p464358:a:4 · license: attribution.

Taught in 103’s chapter 03.