Akkadian Addenda · Signs
king
| Name | LUGAL |
|---|---|
| Reads | [šarrum] |
| Means | veteran — LUGAL gains [šarrum]: the king-sign as a sumerogram |
| Taught in | 04 · When lofty An… |
| In Sumerian | the same sign's Sumerian page |
Where it comes from
The king-sign of 101 — lugal, the “big man” of the earliest city-states. Akkadian kings kept the sign and dropped the sound: on the stele it is written LUGAL, a sumerogram, and read out as the Akkadian word šarrum, “king” — or, standing before a name it governs, as the construct šar.
How to remember it
The most royal sign in the school never changes its meaning, only its language. Where Sumerian said lugal, Babylon says šarrum — same wedges, new king.
In the wild
urn:nabu:cdli:p464358:a:2 · license: attribution.
Akkadian reading taught in 103’s chapter 04.