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Cuneiform sign From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The cuneiform bad, bat, be, etc. sign is a common multi-use sign in the mid 14th-century BC Amarna letters, and the Epic of Gilgamesh. In the Epic it also has 5 sumerogram uses (capital letter (majuscule)). From Giorgio Buccellati (Buccellati 1979) 'comparative graphemic analysis' (about 360 cuneiform signs, nos. 1 through no. 598E), of 5 categories of letters, the usage numbers of the bad sign are as follows: Old Babylonian Royal letters (71), OB non-Royal letters (392), Mari letters (2108), Amarna letters (334), Ugarit letters (39).[1]
The following linguistic elements are used for the bad sign in the 12 chapter (Tablets I-Tablet XII) Epic of Gilgamesh:[2]
sumerograms:
The following usage numbers for the linguistic elements of sign bad in the Epic are as follows: bad, (0 times), bat, (61), be, (16), mid, (7), mit, (8), sun, (1), til, (11), ziz, (8), BE, (2), IDIM, (2), TIL, (1), ÚŠ, (2), ZIZ, (1).[3]
Instead of a large horizontal, as seen in the (digitized form, but one type of "bad")
, the sign is seen in the Amarna letters as composed of two opposite facing (triangles), the wedges. It can be seen here , Amarna letter EA 153-(lines 153:4, 11), for "King-Lord-mine", "LUGAL, Be-li-ia", or Be-lí-ia", where "bēlu" is Akkadian for "lord".[4]
The vassal city-state letters to the Pharaoh often reference the King (Pharaoh), as: "King, Lord-mine", where king is represented by LUGAL (king Sumerogram), for Akkadian language šarru-(sometimes LUGAL-ri, represented as "ŠÁR-ri", for king, ŠÁR=LUGAL). For the reverse of EA 362, Rib-Hadda to Pharaoh (plus lines 66–69 on clay tablet side), cuneiform sign be is used for "lord", Akkadian "bēlu".[6] In EA 362, be is only used for the spelling of "lord".
The entire topic of EA 362 is developed on the reverse side, (starting halfway on obverse). The listing of be uses, 10-times, on the reverse (and side lines of 66–69), are as follows:[7]
For "King, Lord-mine" (and partials):
line 51
line 51
Besides be in EA 362, bat is used on the letter's obverse (two adjacent lines).
The BAD/BAT sign has been used in other signs:
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