Sumerian Addenda · Signs

big

Name	GAL
Reads	[gal]
Means	big, great
Taught in	07 · Of gods and men

Where it comes from

The picture behind it is not transparent in the late form — the sign lists offer no confident story. Its power is in what it builds: gal “big, great” makes the palace (e₂-gal, “big house”), and fused with LU₂ “man” it makes LUGAL — the king, literally the big man.

How to remember it

Big things get the big open wedges: the sign spreads wide like arms flung out to show this big. Whatever stands next to it — house, man, mountain — has just been enlarged.

In the wild

𒈗 𒃲 𒍪lugal-gal-zu"The king knows greatness" (approximate)

Early Dynastic name list, ca. 2600–2500 BCE. CDLI P010064 via Nabu, urn:nabu:cdli:p010064:reverse:3:6 · license: attribution. Name translations are approximate by nature.

Piece by piece:

lugal — king
gal — greatness, big
zu — to know

A person’s name that is a whole sentence — and gal twice over, once fused inside lugal, once on its own. The name is read in 102’s chapter 06.