Sumerian Addenda · Signs
house
| Name | É |
|---|---|
| Reads | [e] |
| Means | house, temple |
| Taught in | 04 · Your first signs |
Where it comes from
Commonly explained as a building or walled enclosure, though the late form has grown opaque. It writes e2, “house” — and a god’s house is a temple, so most of the great sanctuaries are e2-names: E-kur, “Mountain House”; e2-gal, “big house,” the palace. It is the É of é-dub-ba-a, the tablet house — this school.
How to remember it
A house in cross-section: tall frame, floors barred across, one of the most wedge-heavy signs you own — because a house takes work to build. If a word starts with this sign, someone lives or worships inside it.
In the wild
urn:nabu:cdli:p010644:obverse:3:2 ·
license: attribution.
House plus pure: a temple is not just a house but the pure house. The phrase is read in 102’s chapter 07; the school’s own four-sign name is assembled in 101’s chapter 09.