Ir (cuneiform)

The cuneiform ir (more common usage), or er sign is a sign used in the Epic of Gilgamesh, and the Amarna letters. It is in a small group that have smaller, 3-verticals, as well as 2- and 1-vertical strokes, sitting on a lower horizontal cuneiform stroke.

The sign is similar to the sa (cuneiform) sign, but sa's upper horizontal stroke is shorter than the lower anchored horizontal stroke. In the Amarna letters, it can also be confused with specific usages of ú-(the alphabetic u (by usage), Ú-1st prime–Ù-2nd prime is a complex, two-part large cuneiform sign, ="and", "but", or other conjunction meanings), as in Amarna letter EA 362, (Biridiya to Pharaoh).

Amarna letters and Epic of Gilgamesh usage

The twelve tablet (I-XII) Epic of Gilgamesh uses the er, and ir signs, 22 and 72 times. In the Epic, there are no other uses for the sign.

For the mid 14th century BC Amarna letters, letter EA 365 authored by Biridiya, it is used for "er". For example on the reverse of EA 365, subject of corvee labor, "harvesting"-(line 20), lines 15 and following translate as follows: The verb "cultivating" (harvesting) is from "erēšu", which is from "harāšu", Ugaratic ḥrț.

Ù (cuneiform)

The cuneiform ù sign ('u, no. 3'), is found in both the 14th century BC Amarna letters and the Epic of Gilgamesh. Its use is as a conjunction, (translated as for example: and, but, else, until, etc.), but rarely it is substituted for alphabetic u, but that vowel u is typically represented by 'u, no. 2', (u prime), ú; occasionally 'u, no. 1', (u (cuneiform)), , (mostly used for a conjunction, and numeral 10), is also substituted for the "alphabetic u".

The use of ù is often as a "stand-alone" conjunction, for example between two listed items, but it is used especially as a segue in text, (example Amarna letters), when changing topics, or when inserting segue-pausing positions. In the Amarna letters, it is also commonly immediately followed by a preposition: a-na, or i-na, used as "...And, to....", or "...And, in...."; also "...But, for....", etc. This usage with a preposition is also a better example of the segue usage.

Of the three u's, by graphemic analysis (Buccellati, 1979), the commonness is as follows:

Cuneiform script

Cuneiform script is one of the earliest systems of writing, distinguished by its wedge-shaped marks on clay tablets, made by means of a blunt reed for a stylus. The name cuneiform itself simply means "wedge shaped", from the Latin cuneus "wedge" and forma "shape," and came into English usage probably from Old French cunéiforme.

Emerging in Sumer in the late fourth millennium BCE (the Uruk IV period), cuneiform writing began as a system of pictograms. In the third millennium, the pictorial representations became simplified and more abstract as the number of characters in use grew smaller, from about 1000 in the Early Bronze Age to about 400 in Late Bronze Age (Hittite cuneiform). The system consists of a combination of logophonetic, consonantal alphabetic and syllabic signs.

The original Sumerian script was adapted for the writing of the Akkadian, Eblaite, Elamite, Hittite, Luwian, Hattic, Hurrian, and Urartian languages, and it inspired the Ugaritic alphabet and Old Persian cuneiform. Cuneiform writing was gradually replaced by the Phoenician alphabet during the Neo-Assyrian Empire. By the second century CE, the script had become extinct, and all knowledge of how to read it was lost until it began to be deciphered in the 19th century.

Cuneiform bones

There are three cuneiform bones in the human foot:

They are located between the navicular bone and the first, second and third metatarsal bones and are medial to the cuboid bone.

Structure

There are three cuneiform bones: