Akkadian Addenda · Signs
ordinal
| Name | KAM |
|---|---|
| Reads | [kam] |
| Means | the counting tag after numbers — "-th" |
| Taught in | 12 · Say to him: a letter |
Where it comes from
A compound in the lists (HI pressed with BAD); its life is purely grammatical — the counting tag: hung after a numeral, it turns “year 3600” into “the 3600th year,” the way English hangs a -th. Date formulas live on it: year-names, month-counts, the bookkeeping of time itself.
How to remember it
The ordinal hook: number + KAM = “-th.” Wherever the scribes counted anything in order — and they counted everything — this little tag closes the phrase.
In the wild
urn:nabu:cdli:p252638:obverse:4 · license: attribution.
Akkadian reading taught in 103’s chapter 12.