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100-556: Aya's name was written in cuneiform as a-a ( 𒀭𒀀𒀀 ). It is sometimes romanized as Aia instead. It has Akkadian origin and means " dawn ". Sporadically it could be prefixed with the sign NIN , with the variant form Nin-Aya attested in a dedicatory inscription of Manishtushu and in an offering list from Mari . NIN was a grammatically neutral title well attested as a part of theonyms, and in this context can be translated as "queen" or "mistress". It has been suggested that in Aya's case, it

200-401: A completely unknown writing system in 19th-century Assyriology . It was successfully deciphered by 1857. The cuneiform script changed considerably over more than 2,000 years. The image below shows the development of the sign SAĜ "head" (Borger nr. 184, U+12295 𒊕 ). Stages: The cuneiform script was developed from pictographic proto-writing in the late 4th millennium BC, stemming from

300-467: A designation of the Middle Euphrates in this context, and is the westernmost area mentioned. He also points out the next line of the text mentions Mari . Buduhudug, a mythical mountain where the sun was believed to set, was regarded as "the entrance of Shamash to Aya" ( nēreb Šamaš <ana> Aya ) - the place where they were able to reunite each day after Shamash finished his journey through

400-469: A few tablets and a plaque from ED I/II came from there. Because the two sites were not excavated until modern times, based on the many looted texts available to them, earlier archaeologists grouped together the ancient cities during the Early Dynastic period of Gišša and Umma into the single geographic name of Umma. Modern excavation at these sites has clarified that. Gišša ceased occupation after

500-559: A given sign could have various meanings depending on context. The sign inventory was reduced from some 1,500 signs to some 600 signs, and writing became increasingly phonological . Determinative signs were re-introduced to avoid ambiguity. Cuneiform writing proper thus arises from the more primitive system of pictographs at about that time, labeled the Early Bronze Age II epoch by historians. The earliest known Sumerian king, whose name appears on contemporary cuneiform tablets,

600-582: A language structure typical of the non-Indo-European agglutinative Sumerian language . The first tablets using syllabic elements date to the Early Dynastic I–II periods c.  2800 BC , and they are agreed to be clearly in Sumerian. This is the time when some pictographic element started to be used for their phonetic value, permitting the recording of abstract ideas or personal names. Many pictographs began to lose their original function, and

700-410: A number of Neo-Babylonian letters might be identical with Aya. Aya was considered the personification of dawn. She was associated with morning light and the rising sun . She was called the "morning-maker" Her other primary function was that of a divine bride, as exemplified by her epithet kallatum ("bride", "daughter-in-law"), and in this capacity she was regarded as epitome of beauty and charm. She

800-410: A number of stone and metal objects. The tablets mostly date ED III with the latest being Ur III. The tablets support the proposal that the ancient name of the site was Ki.an . They mention the names of the gods Ninazu and Dumuzi-Maru. Only some of the tablets have been published. Previous textual analysis had indicated that KI.AN was very near to Zabala . During the reign of Rimush , second ruler of

900-659: A phonetic complement. Yet even in those days, the Babylonian syllabary remained a mixture of logographic and phonemic writing. Elamite cuneiform was a simplified form of the Sumero-Akkadian cuneiform, used to write the Elamite language in the area that corresponds to modern Iran from the 3rd millennium BC to the 4th century BC. Elamite cuneiform at times competed with other local scripts, Proto-Elamite and Linear Elamite . The earliest known Elamite cuneiform text

1000-432: A pointed stylus, sometimes called "linear cuneiform". Many of the early dynastic inscriptions, particularly those made on stone, continued to use the linear style as late as circa 2000 BC. In the mid-3rd millennium BC, a new wedge-tipped stylus was introduced which was pushed into the clay, producing wedge-shaped cuneiform. This development made writing quicker and easier, especially when writing on soft clay. By adjusting

1100-512: A reference to Ninkar. However, later on in a translation of the text he prepared in collaboration with Jan Lisman the corresponding passage has been interpreted as a reference to a " quay ( kar ) of Ningal " instead. It is known that a temple dedicated to Ninkar existed in Lagash. She is additionally attested in the theophoric name Ur-Ninkar, one of whose bearers might have been a deified king of Umma . Krebernik assumes that in texts from Ebla ,

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1200-483: A resemblance to Old Japanese , written in a Chinese-derived script, where some of these Sinograms were used as logograms and others as phonetic characters. This "mixed" method of writing continued through the end of the Babylonian and Assyrian empires, although there were periods when "purism" was in fashion and there was a more marked tendency to spell out the words laboriously, in preference to using signs with

1300-590: A separate deity, presumably considered to be the goddess of daylight . In the oldest available sources her name was written as nin-kar , while nin-kár(-ra) first attested in the Ur III period is presumed to be a later variant. Joan Goodnick Westenholz argued that she is mentioned in one of the Early Dynastic Zame Hymns from Abu Salabikh. Manfred Krebernik  [ de ] initially also tentatively accepted that this text might contain

1400-548: A sharpened reed stylus or incised in stone. This early style lacked the characteristic wedge shape of the strokes. Most Proto-Cuneiform records from this period were of an accounting nature. The proto-cuneiform sign list has grown, as new texts are discovered, and shrunk, as variant signs are combined. The current sign list is 705 elements long with 42 being numeric and four considered pre-proto-Elamite. Certain signs to indicate names of gods, countries, cities, vessels, birds, trees, etc., are known as determinatives and were

1500-576: A slightly different way. From the 6th century, the Akkadian language was marginalized by Aramaic , written in the Aramaic alphabet , but Akkadian cuneiform remained in use in the literary tradition well into the times of the Parthian Empire (250 BC–226 AD). The last known cuneiform inscription, an astronomical text, was written in 75 AD. The ability to read cuneiform may have persisted until

1600-570: A sphere of life he was associated with, is limited. Aya was already worshiped in the Early Dynastic period . While she is overall less well attested in textual record than major goddesses such as Ishtar , Nanaya , Ninlil or Ninisina , it is nonetheless assumed that she was a popular target of personal devotion, as she appears commonly in personal names and on seals, especially in the Old Babylonian period . In personal letters she

1700-620: A stylus. Writing is first recorded in Uruk , at the end of the 4th millennium BC, and soon after in various parts of the Near-East . An ancient Mesopotamian poem gives the first known story of the invention of writing : Because the messenger's mouth was heavy and he couldn't repeat [the message], the Lord of Kulaba patted some clay and put words on it, like a tablet. Until then, there had been no putting words on clay. The cuneiform writing system

1800-428: Is Enmebaragesi of Kish (fl. c.  2600 BC ). Surviving records became less fragmentary for following reigns and by the arrival of Sargon, it had become standard practice for each major city-state to date documents by year-names, commemorating the exploits of its king. Geoffrey Sampson stated that Egyptian hieroglyphs "came into existence a little after Sumerian script , and, probably, [were] invented under

1900-528: Is a logo - syllabic writing system that was used to write several languages of the Ancient Near East . The script was in active use from the early Bronze Age until the beginning of the Common Era . Cuneiform scripts are marked by and named for the characteristic wedge-shaped impressions ( Latin : cuneus ) which form their signs . Cuneiform is the earliest known writing system and

2000-561: Is a treaty between Akkadians and the Elamites that dates back to 2200 BC. Some believe it might have been in use since 2500 BC. The tablets are poorly preserved, so only limited parts can be read, but it is understood that the text is a treaty between the Akkad king Nāramsîn and Elamite ruler Hita , as indicated by frequent references like "Nāramsîn's friend is my friend, Nāramsîn's enemy is my enemy". The most famous Elamite scriptures and

2100-597: Is an adaptation of the Old Assyrian cuneiform of c. 1800 BC to the Hittite language and was used from the 17th until approximately the 13th century BC. More or less the same system was used by the scribes of the Hittite Empire for two other Anatolian languages , namely Luwian (alongside the native Anatolian hieroglyphics ) and Palaic , as well as for the isolate Hattic language . When the cuneiform script

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2200-463: Is assumed that his temple in this city, which also bore the name Ebabbar, was nonetheless also dedicated to her. Some references to her are also present in texts from the Neo-Babylonian period , with one text mentioning the priests from Larsa sent jewelry of Aya and of the "divine daughter of Ebabbar" to Uruk for repairs. References to a "treasury of Shamash and Aya" are known too. While Aya

2300-513: Is attested with frequency lesser only than Ishtar. Aya was worshiped in Sippar in the temple of Shamash, known under the ceremonial name Ebabbar  [ pl ] . They are the divine couple most often invoked together in seal inscriptions from this city, followed by Adad and Shala and Enki and Damkina . In legal texts, Aya often appears as a divine witness alongside her husband, their daughter Mamu and Shamash's sukkal Bunene . In

2400-429: Is called gunû or "gunification"; if signs are cross-hatched with additional Winkelhaken , they are called šešig ; if signs are modified by the removal of a wedge or wedges, they are called nutillu . "Typical" signs have about five to ten wedges, while complex ligatures can consist of twenty or more (although it is not always clear if a ligature should be considered a single sign or two collated, but distinct signs);

2500-534: Is known from Mesopotamian sources. The identification of Eblaite Ninkar with Ninkarrak is also accepted by Archi. Further names of Aya attested in An = Anum include Nin-mul-guna ("lady colorful star"; tablet III, line 132) and Nin-ul-šutag ( 𒀭𒎏𒌌𒋗𒋳 ; "lady delighted with charm"; tablet III, line 134, the end of the Aya section). Paul-Alain Beaulieu additionally proposes that Belet Larsa ("Lady of Larsa") known from

2600-534: Is known that the ED ruler Ur-Lumma built a temple to the god Enki-gal and one to the god Nagar-pa'e at Umma. In the early Sumerian literary composition Inanna's descent to the netherworld , Inanna dissuades demons from the netherworld from taking Shara , patron of Umma, who was living in squalor. The site was occupied at least as far back as the Uruk period . A number of proto-cuneiform came from there. While most early textual sources are from Early Dynastic III,

2700-601: Is made up of 21 mounds the largest of which is 20 meters above the level of the plain. It is thought to be the ancient city of Gišša and was abandoned after the Early Dynastic period. The location was first visited by John Punnett Peters in the late 1800s, finding it relatively free from sand and featuring two prominent elevations of baked bricks set with bitumen. It was excavated for a total of 7 seasons in 1999–2002 (led by Donny George Youkhanna and Haider A. Urebi) and 2008–2010 (led by Taha Kerim Abod) under difficult conditions. At Umm al-Aqarib, archaeologists uncovered levels from

2800-621: Is on the banks of the eastern branch of the Euphrates river just above the canal leading to Zabala. It was part of the Umma province in the Ur III period. The site measures 990 by 720 meters (712,800 square meters). The main Sargonic and Ur III remains of the site were destroyed by a Ministry of Agriculture program to plant trees so as to prevent sand dunes. In response to looting which began in 1994

2900-498: Is particularly well attested in the Old Babylonian period, and it has been argued that the institution first developed around 1880 BCE, during the reign of Sumu-la-El of Babylon. Naditu lived in a building referred to as gagûm , conventionally translated as " cloister ," and Tonia Sharlach notes they can be compared to medieval Christian nuns . They are sometimes described as "priestesses" in modern literature, but while it

3000-575: Is the immediate predecessor of the later Babylonian calendar , and indirectly of the post-exilic Hebrew calendar . In the following Isin-Larsa period, a ruler of Larsa , Sumuel (c. 1894-1866 BC), lists as one of his later year names "Year Umma was destroyed". The site of Tell Jokha was visited by William Loftus in 1854 and John Punnett Peters of the University of Pennsylvania in 1885. Peters found it to be half covered with sand dunes and found fragments of worked stone and copper fragments. In

3100-461: Is well attested that they were considered to be dedicated to a specific deity, there is little evidence for their involvement in religious activities other than personal prayer, and it is not impossible they were understood as a fully separate social class. It has been argued that in contrast with her position in Sippar, Aya was less prominent in the other city associated with Shamash, Larsa , where she does not appear in official lists of offerings. It

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3200-404: The E.GIDRU [Sceptre] Temple at Umma, buried his foundation deposit [and] regulated the orders. At that time, Si'um was king of Gutium ." Under the Ur III dynasty, Umma became an important provincial center. Several governors of Umma under Ur are known, Aa-kala, Dadaga, and Ur-Lisi, all sons of one Ur-Nigar, and Ninbilia, wife of Aa-kala. Most of the over 30,000 tablets recovered from

3300-595: The Early Dynastic Period (c. 2900–2300 BC), including residences, palaces, and several monumental buildings, including two Early Dynastic temples (the White Temple and Temple H). About 70 "cuneiform sources" were also excavated. The tutelary god is thought to be Ama-usum-ga/Usumgal-ana. The site of Tell Shmet (also Tell Schmidt and Tell Shmid) also lies nearby, around 10 kilometers to the northwest of Umma and within visual distance of Zabala . It

3400-883: The Edimgalanna ("house, great bond of heaven"), is mentioned in the Canonical Temple List , but its location is unknown. Aya was worshiped in Mari in the Old Babylonian period. She appears in theophoric names of women from this city with comparable frequency to Shamash and Dagan , the head god of the region, though less commonly than Annu , Ishtar , Išḫara , Kakka (regarded as a goddess in this city), Mamma and Admu . Examples include Aya-lamassi, Aya-ummi and Yatara-Aya. A sanctuary dedicated to Aya, Eidubba ("house of storage bins") existed in Assur in Assyria . Aya

3500-458: The Iron Age (c. 10th to 6th centuries BC), Assyrian cuneiform was further simplified. The characters remained the same as those of Sumero-Akkadian cuneiforms, but the graphic design of each character relied more heavily on wedges and square angles, making them significantly more abstract: Babylonian cuneiform was simplified along similar lines during that period, albeit to a lesser extent and in

3600-469: The Sargonic period , Manishtushu dedicated a mace head to Aya in this city. Hammurabi of Babylon referred to himself as the "beloved of Aya" in an inscription commemorating the construction of new walls of Sippar in the twenty fifth year of his reign. He also mentioned Aya in an inscription commemorating the construction of a canal named after her, Aya-ḫegal, "Aya is abundance". Samsu-iluna called himself

3700-776: The Vorderasiatisches Museum Berlin , the Louvre , the Istanbul Archaeology Museums , the National Museum of Iraq , the Yale Babylonian Collection (approx. 40,000), and Penn Museum . Most of these have "lain in these collections for a century without being translated, studied or published", as there are only a few hundred qualified cuneiformists in the world. The decipherment of cuneiform began with

3800-600: The Weidner god list from Ugarit attests the equivalence between Shamash (Utu), Šimige and the local sun goddess Shapash (Šapšu). Apparently to avoid the implications that Shapash had a wife, the scribes interpreted the name of Aya, present in the Mesopotamian original, as an unconventional writing of Ea , with his Hurrian name Eyan corresponding to it in the Hurrian column and local craftsman god Kothar-wa-Khasis in

3900-531: The Winkelhaken impressed vertically by the tip of the stylus. The signs exemplary of these basic wedges are: Except for the Winkelhaken , which has no tail, the length of the wedges' tails could vary as required for sign composition. Signs tilted by about 45 degrees are called tenû in Akkadian, thus DIŠ is a vertical wedge and DIŠ tenû a diagonal one. If a sign is modified with additional wedges, this

4000-406: The itkalzi rituals. An UD.GAL.NUN text known from five copies from Abu Salabikh and one from Fara which focuses on Utu traveling to various mountainous areas to bring deities or animals from them lists Šerda as the final of the deities he transports and describes her as a resident of the "mountain-lands of Amurru" ( kur mar-tu ). According to Kamran Vincent Zand, this term should be understood as

4100-410: The sumerogram U 8 , though a source referring to it with the phonetic Akkadian translation, Immertu , is known too. It might have corresponded to the northeastern section of the constellation Boötes . However, ultimately its identification remains uncertain. In Mesopotamian art Aya was commonly depicted frontally. Many depictions highlighted her beauty and sexual charm. On seals from Sippar she

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4200-540: The "beloved of Shamash and Aya" and both renovated the Ebabbar and built walls around Sippar. It has also been noted that the Naditu community from this city were particularly closely associated with Aya, as evidenced by the fact that they addressed her as their mistress, commonly took theophoric names invoking her, and exclusively swore oaths by her. They were a class of women closely associated with Shamash. Their existence

4300-401: The 23rd century BC ( short chronology ). The Akkadian language being East Semitic , its structure was completely different from Sumerian. The Akkadians found a practical solution in writing their language phonetically, using the corresponding Sumerian phonetic signs. Still, many of the Sumerian characters were retained for their logographic value as well: for example the character for "sheep"

4400-509: The 3rd millennium Sumerian script. Ugaritic was written using the Ugaritic alphabet , a standard Semitic style alphabet (an abjad ) written using the cuneiform method. Between half a million and two million cuneiform tablets are estimated to have been excavated in modern times, of which only approximately 30,000 –100,000 have been read or published. The British Museum holds the largest collection (approx. 130,000 tablets), followed by

4500-526: The Akkadian Empire, KI.AN, under its governor Lugal-KA, joined a regional revolt and was defeated. In the Ur III period KI.AN had an ensi (governor). In that period it is known to have had a temple to the deified ruler Shulgi (called "e- Sulgi-ra") as well as temples to the gods Šara , Ninurra , Amarsuena, Geštinanna , Dumuzi, Gula, Ninlagaša, and Nine'e. During the 2003 invasion of Iraq , after Coalition bombing began, looters descended upon

4600-480: The Akkadian period, at the time of the Uruk ruler Lugalzagesi (r. c. 2294–2270 BC). The vertical style remained for monumental purposes on stone stelas until the middle of the 2nd millennium. Written Sumerian was used as a scribal language until the first century AD. The spoken language died out between about 2100 and 1700 BC. The archaic cuneiform script was adopted by the Akkadian Empire from

4700-480: The ED and only one ruler is known, based on a lapis lazuli bead reading "To the goddess Inanna, Aka, king of Gišša (dedicated this bead)". Best known for its long frontier conflict with Lagash , as reported c.  2400 BC by Entemena , the city reached its zenith c.  2350 BC , under the rule of Lugal-Zage-Si who also controlled Ur and Uruk . Under the Akkadian Empire Umma

4800-554: The Iraqi State Board of Antiquities and Heritage conducted salvage excavations in 2001 and 2002 under Mohammad Sabri Abdulraheem. All of the paper records of the excavation were lost in looting of residential areas after the 2003 war. Plano-convex bricks and a residential area of the Early Dynastic III and Akkadian periods were uncovered. Finds included 67 clay cuneiform tablets, dozens of cylinder seals, and

4900-530: The Museum of Iraq, including a group of 1500 in 2009. Although the first dynasty of Umma has become well-known based off of mentions on inscriptions contemporaneous with other dynasties from the Early Dynastic (ED) III period; it was not inscribed onto the Sumerian King List (SKL) . The first dynasty of Umma preceded the dynasty of Akkad in a time in which Umma exercised considerable influence in

5000-548: The Old Persian text. Because Elamite is unlike its neighboring Semitic languages , the script's decipherment was delayed until the 1840s. Elamite cuneiform appears to have used far fewer signs than its Akkadian prototype and initially relied primarily on syllabograms, but logograms became more common in later texts. Many signs soon acquired highly distinctive local shape variants that are often difficult to recognise as related to their Akkadian prototypes. Hittite cuneiform

5100-471: The Sumerian signs of the terms in question, added as a guide for the reader. Proper names continued to be usually written in purely "logographic" fashion. The first inscribed tablets were purely pictographic, which makes it technically difficult to know in which language they were written. Different languages have been proposed, though usually Sumerian is assumed. Later tablets dating after c.  2900 BC start to use syllabic elements, which clearly show

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5200-523: The Sumerians was not intuitive to Semitic speakers. From the beginning of the Middle Bronze Age (20th century BC), the script evolved to accommodate the various dialects of Akkadian: Old Akkadian, Babylonian and Assyrian. At this stage, the former pictograms were reduced to a high level of abstraction, and were composed of only five basic wedge shapes: horizontal, vertical, two diagonals and

5300-556: The Ugaritic one. A single god list dated to the Middle Babylonian period or later equates Lahar with Aya and explains that the former should be understood as "Aya as the goddess of caring for things" ( a-a šá ku-né-e ), though Wilfred G. Lambert noted this equation is unusual, as Lahar was consistently regarded as male otherwise, and the evidence for connections between both goddesses and mortal women with herding sheep,

5400-414: The beginning, similar-sounding words such as "life" [til] and "arrow" [ti] were written with the same symbol (𒋾). As a result, many signs gradually changed from being logograms to also functioning as syllabograms , so that for example, the sign for the word "arrow" would become the sign for the sound "ti". Syllabograms were used in Sumerian writing especially to express grammatical elements, and their use

5500-431: The compound IGI.A (𒅆𒀀) – "eye" + "water" – has the reading imhur , meaning "foam"). Several symbols had too many meanings to permit clarity. Therefore, symbols were put together to indicate both the sound and the meaning of a symbol. For instance, the word 'raven' (UGA) had the same logogram (𒉀) as the word 'soap' (NAGA), the name of a city (EREŠ), and the patron goddess of Eresh (NISABA). To disambiguate and identify

5600-447: The cuneiform logo-syllabary proper. The latest known cuneiform tablet dates to 75 AD. Cuneiform was rediscovered in modern times in the early 17th century with the publication of the trilingual Achaemenid royal inscriptions at Persepolis ; these were first deciphered in the early 19th century. The modern study of cuneiform belongs to the ambiguously named field of Assyriology , as the earliest excavations of cuneiform libraries – in

5700-514: The decipherment of Old Persian cuneiform in 1836. The first cuneiform inscriptions published in modern times were copied from the Achaemenid royal inscriptions in the ruins of Persepolis , with the first complete and accurate copy being published in 1778 by Carsten Niebuhr . Niebuhr's publication was used by Grotefend in 1802 to make the first breakthrough – the realization that Niebuhr had published three different languages side by side and

5800-549: The development of Egyptian hieroglyphs, with the suggestion the former influenced the latter. But given the lack of direct evidence for the transfer of writing, "no definitive determination has been made as to the origin of hieroglyphics in ancient Egypt". Others have held that "the evidence for such direct influence remains flimsy" and that "a very credible argument can also be made for the independent development of writing in Egypt..." Early cuneiform inscriptions were made by using

5900-508: The earliest deities bearing names of Akkadian origin to be integrated into the pantheons of Sumerian-speaking areas. The name Sherida appears for the last time in cultic context in sources from Sippar and Larsa from the Old Babylonian period . Sudaĝ ( sud-áĝ or sù-da-áĝ ), " golden yellow shine" or "golden yellow shining rock/metal", is attested as a name of Aya in multiple god lists, including An = Anum (tablet III, line 131) and its Old Babylonian forerunner. A further name present in

6000-484: The early 1900s, many illegally excavated Umma tablets from the Third Dynasty of Ur began to appear on the antiquities market. From 1999 to 2002 Jokha was worked by an Iraqi team led by Nawala Ahmed Al-Mutawalli, recovering a number of tablets and bullae from the Early Dynastic, Sargonic, Ur III, and Old Babylonian periods as well as an Ur III period temple and Old Babylonian residences. The cuneiform tablets are in

6100-446: The early Achaemenid rulers from the 6th century BC down to the 4th century BC. Because of its simplicity and logical structure, the Old Persian cuneiform script was the first to be deciphered by modern scholars, starting with the accomplishments of Georg Friedrich Grotefend in 1802. Various ancient bilingual or trilingual inscriptions then permitted to decipher the other, much more complicated and more ancient scripts, as far back as to

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6200-413: The influence of the latter", and that it is "probable that the general idea of expressing words of a language in writing was brought to Egypt from Sumerian Mesopotamia". There are many instances of Egypt-Mesopotamia relations at the time of the invention of writing, and standard reconstructions of the development of writing generally place the development of the Sumerian proto-cuneiform script before

6300-407: The ligature KAxGUR 7 consists of 31 strokes. Most later adaptations of Sumerian cuneiform preserved at least some aspects of the Sumerian script. Written Akkadian included phonetic symbols from the Sumerian syllabary , together with logograms that were read as whole words. Many signs in the script were polyvalent, having both a syllabic and logographic meaning. The complexity of the system bears

6400-443: The meaning and the other the pronunciation (e.g. 𒅗 ka 'mouth' was combined with the sign 𒉣 nun 'prince' to express the word 𒅻 nundum , meaning 'lip', formally KA×NUN; cf. Chinese phono-semantic compounds ). Another way of expressing words that had no sign of their own was by so-called 'Diri compounds' – sign sequences that have, in combination, a reading different from the sum of the individual constituent signs (for example,

6500-567: The mid-19th century – were in the area of ancient Assyria . An estimated half a million tablets are held in museums across the world, but comparatively few of these are published . The largest collections belong to the British Museum ( approx. 130,000 tablets), the Vorderasiatisches Museum Berlin , the Louvre , the Istanbul Archaeology Museums , the National Museum of Iraq , the Yale Babylonian Collection ( approx. 40,000 tablets), and Penn Museum . Writing began after pottery

6600-568: The name Ninkar also refers to the spouse of a sun deity, who he assumed was seen as male in this city. Alfonso Archi instead concludes that the Eblaite sun deity was primarily female based on available lexical evidence. Westenholz proposed that Ninkar in Eblaite texts should be interpreted as Ninkarrak rather than the phonetically similar but less well attested Mesopotamian Ninkar. She pointed out occasional shortening of Ninkarrak's name to "Ninkar"

6700-468: The near eastern token system used for accounting. The meaning and usage of these tokens is still a matter of debate. These tokens were in use from the 9th millennium BC and remained in occasional use even late in the 2nd millennium BC. Early tokens with pictographic shapes of animals, associated with numbers, were discovered in Tell Brak , and date to the mid-4th millennium BC. It has been suggested that

6800-477: The ones that ultimately led to its decipherment are the ones found in the trilingual Behistun inscriptions , commissioned by the Achaemenid kings. The inscriptions, similar to that of the Rosetta Stone 's, were written in three different writing systems. The first was Old Persian , which was deciphered in 1802 by Georg Friedrich Grotefend . The second, Babylonian cuneiform, was deciphered shortly after

6900-594: The process of being published. In 2016, a team from the Slovak Archaeological and Historical Institute led by Drahoslav Hulínek began excavations at Tell Jokha focusing on the Temple of Shara. A trench (Trench 1) excavated in 2016 showed the temple had two construction phases (Level 3 and 4). Level 4 is thought to date from the Old Akkadian period. In 2017 a square at the top (Trench 2) of the tell

7000-533: The recognition of the word "king". Umma Umma ( Sumerian : 𒄑𒆵𒆠 umma ; in modern Dhi Qar Province in Iraq , was an ancient city in Sumer . There is some scholarly debate about the Sumerian and Akkadian names for this site. Traditionally, Umma was identified with Tell Jokha. More recently it has been suggested that it was located at Umm al-Aqarib, less than 7 km (4.3 mi) to its northwest or

7100-1786: The region. Only a single ruler ( Lugal-zage-si ) from Umma was named on the SKL ; however, his name appears as the sole ruler for the third dynasty of Uruk . The following list should not be considered complete: ( Shamshi-Adad dynasty 1808–1736 BCE) (Amorites) Shamshi-Adad I Ishme-Dagan I Mut-Ashkur Rimush Asinum Ashur-dugul Ashur-apla-idi Nasir-Sin Sin-namir Ipqi-Ishtar Adad-salulu Adasi (Non-dynastic usurpers 1735–1701 BCE) Puzur-Sin Ashur-dugul Ashur-apla-idi Nasir-Sin Sin-namir Ipqi-Ishtar Adad-salulu Adasi ( Adaside dynasty 1700–722 BCE) Bel-bani Libaya Sharma-Adad I Iptar-Sin Bazaya Lullaya Shu-Ninua Sharma-Adad II Erishum III Shamshi-Adad II Ishme-Dagan II Shamshi-Adad III Ashur-nirari I Puzur-Ashur III Enlil-nasir I Nur-ili Ashur-shaduni Ashur-rabi I Ashur-nadin-ahhe I Enlil-Nasir II Ashur-nirari II Ashur-bel-nisheshu Ashur-rim-nisheshu Ashur-nadin-ahhe II Second Intermediate Period Sixteenth Dynasty Abydos Dynasty Seventeenth Dynasty (1500–1100 BCE) Kidinuid dynasty Igehalkid dynasty Untash-Napirisha Twenty-first Dynasty of Egypt Smendes Amenemnisu Psusennes I Amenemope Osorkon

7200-449: The relative position of the stylus to the tablet, the writer could use a single tool to make a variety of impressions. For numbers, a round-tipped stylus was initially used, until the wedge-tipped stylus was generalized. The direction of writing was from top-to-bottom and right-to-left. Cuneiform clay tablets could be fired in kilns to bake them hard, and so provide a permanent record, or they could be left moist and recycled if permanence

7300-401: The same source, Sudgan (tablet III, line 130), might have a similar meaning ("light", "glow"). Ninsudaĝ ( nin-BU-áĝ , interpreted as nin-sud4-áĝ ), attested in the Early Dynastic god list from Fara and possibly in the Old Babylonian god list from Mari, might be a further variant of the name, though the reading is ultimately uncertain in this case. Due to similarity of the names Sudaĝ and Sud ,

7400-407: The site are administrative and economic texts from that time. They permit an excellent insight into affairs in Umma. A year name of Ur III ruler Shu-Sin was "Year Shu-Sin the king of Ur built the temple of Shara in Umma". The next ruler Ibbi-Sin also had a year name of "Year Ibbi-Sin the king of Ur built the temple of Shara in Umma". The Umma calendar of Shulgi ( c.  21st century BC )

7500-518: The site which is now pockmarked with hundreds of ditches and pits. The prospects for future official excavation and research were seriously compromised in the process. In 2011, Global Heritage Network , which monitors threats to cultural heritage sites in developing nations, released aerial images comparing Umma in 2003 and 2010, showing a landscape devastated by looters' trenches during that time—approximately 1.12 square km in total. Confiscated Umma area cuneiform tablets continue to make their way to

7600-463: The sky. In the "Standard Babylonian" version of the Epic of Gilgamesh , Ninsun during her prayer to Shamash asks Aya three times to intercede on behalf of her son Gilgamesh to guarantee his safety both during the day and the night. Ninsun states that the optimal time for Aya to appeal to her husband is right after sunset, when he returns home from his daily journey. Cuneiform Cuneiform

7700-415: The syllable [ɡu] had fourteen different symbols. The inventory of signs was expanded by the combination of existing signs into compound signs. They could either derive their meaning from a combination of the meanings of both original signs (e.g. 𒅗 ka 'mouth' and 𒀀 a 'water' were combined to form the sign for 𒅘 nag̃ 'drink', formally KA×A; cf. Chinese compound ideographs ), or one sign could suggest

7800-476: The third century AD. The complexity of cuneiforms prompted the development of a number of simplified versions of the script. Old Persian cuneiform was developed with an independent and unrelated set of simple cuneiform characters, by Darius the Great in the 5th century BC. Most scholars consider this writing system to be an independent invention because it has no obvious connections with other writing systems at

7900-432: The time, such as Elamite , Akkadian, Hurrian , and Hittite cuneiforms. It formed a semi-alphabetic syllabary, using far fewer wedge strokes than Assyrian used, together with a handful of logograms for frequently occurring words like "god" ( 𐏎 ), "king" ( 𐏋 ) or "country" ( 𐏌 ). This almost purely alphabetical form of the cuneiform script (36 phonetic characters and 8 logograms), was specially designed and used by

8000-669: The token shapes were the original basis for some of the Sumerian pictographs. Mesopotamia's "proto-literate" period spans roughly the 35th to 32nd centuries BC. The first unequivocal written documents start with the Uruk IV period, from circa 3,300 BC, followed by tablets found in Uruk III, Jemdet Nasr , Early Dynastic I Ur and Susa (in Proto-Elamite ) dating to the period until circa 2,900 BC. Originally, pictographs were either drawn on clay tablets in vertical columns with

8100-446: The tutelary goddess of Shuruppak equated with Ninlil , the latter appears in the role Ishum 's mother in a single myth. However, according to Manfred Krebernik  [ de ] Sud and Sudaĝ were only confused with each other rather than conflated or syncretised . Ninkar or Ninkara (from kár , "to light up") was one of the names of Aya according to An = Anum (tablet III, line 126). However, this theonym initially referred to

8200-551: The two languages are related, their writing systems seem to have been developed separately. For Hurrian, there were even different systems in different polities (in Mitanni , in Mari , in the Hittite Empire). The Hurrian orthographies were generally characterised by more extensive use of syllabograms and more limited use of logograms than Akkadian. Urartian, in comparison, retained a more significant role for logograms. In

8300-565: The word more precisely, two phonetic complements were added – Ú (𒌑) for the syllable [u] in front of the symbol and GA (𒂵) for the syllable [ga] behind. Finally, the symbol for 'bird', MUŠEN (𒄷) was added to ensure proper interpretation. As a result, the whole word could be spelt 𒌑𒉀𒂵𒄷, i.e. Ú.NAGA.GA (among the many variant spellings that the word could have). For unknown reasons, cuneiform pictographs, until then written vertically, were rotated 90° counterclockwise, in effect putting them on their side. This change first occurred slightly before

8400-431: Was a loanword derived from Akkadian šērtum , "morning". However, this proposal is not universally accepted. The name Sherida is already attested in the Early Dynastic god lists from Fara and Abu Salabikh . Additionally, the theophoric name Ur-Sherida is known from Lagash and Ur . Gebhard J. Selz  [ de ] notes that if the assumption that it was an Akkadian loanword is accepted, she would be one of

8500-517: Was a major power and economic center rivaled only by Adab and Uruk. Eleven governors under Akkad are known as well as two who may have been under Gutium. One, Lu-Utu, reports building a temple for Ninhursag and another for Ereshkigal . Namahni, a governor from the time of Iarlagan of Gutium, records building the E-ula temple of Ninura. The Sargonic period ruler of Umma Lugalanatum built the temple E-gidru there. " Lugalannatum prince of Umma... built

8600-561: Was adapted to writing Hittite, a layer of Akkadian logographic spellings, also known as Akkadograms, was added to the script, in addition to the Sumerian logograms, or Sumerograms, which were already inherent in the Akkadian writing system and which Hittite also kept. Thus the pronunciations of many Hittite words which were conventionally written by logograms are now unknown. The Hurrian language (attested 2300–1000 BC) and Urartian language (attested 9th–6th century BC) were also written in adapted versions of Sumero-Akkadian cuneiform. Although

8700-404: Was also commonly invoked to intercede with her husband Shamash on behalf of worshipers. This function is also well attested for other spouses of popular deities, such as Ninmug and Shala , the wives of Ishum and Adad , as well as for Inanna's sukkal Ninshubur . The astronomical compendium MUL.APIN states that Aya was associated with the constellation Ewe, typically represented by

8800-452: Was among Mesopotamian deities incorporated into Hurrian religion . She is attested in the kaluti  [ de ] (offering lists) focused on Ḫepat and her circle. She is one of the Hurrian deities depicted in the Yazılıkaya sanctuary, where a relief of her can be seen in a procession of goddesses, between Nikkal and a figure who might represent Šauška . She is also attested in

8900-538: Was even the name of both cities. One or both were the leading city of the Early Dynastic kingdom of Gišša, with the most recent excavators putting forth that Umm al-Aqarib was prominent in EDIII but Jokha rose to preeminence later. The town of KI.AN was also nearby. KI.AN, which was destroyed by Rimush , a ruler of the Akkadian Empire . There are known to have been six gods of KI.AN including Gula KI.AN and Sara KI.AN . The tutelary gods of Umma were Sara and Ninura. It

9000-406: Was further developed and modified in the writing of the Akkadian language to express its sounds. Often, words that had a similar meaning but very different sounds were written with the same symbol. For instance the Sumerian words 'tooth' [zu], 'mouth' [ka] and 'voice' [gu] were all written with the original pictogram for mouth (𒅗). Words that sounded alike would have different signs; for instance,

9100-452: Was in use for more than three millennia, through several stages of development, from the 31st century BC down to the second century AD. The latest firmly dateable tablet, from Uruk, dates to 79/80 AD. Ultimately, it was completely replaced by alphabetic writing , in the general sense, in the course of the Roman era , and there are no cuneiform systems in current use. It had to be deciphered as

9200-483: Was invented, during the Neolithic , when clay tokens were used to record specific amounts of livestock or commodities. In recent years a contrarian view has arisen on the tokens being the precursor of writing. These tokens were initially impressed on the surface of round clay envelopes ( clay bullae ) and then stored in them. The tokens were then progressively replaced by flat tablets, on which signs were recorded with

9300-451: Was not needed. Most surviving cuneiform tablets were of the latter kind, accidentally preserved when fires destroyed the tablets' storage place and effectively baked them, unintentionally ensuring their longevity. The script was widely used on commemorative stelae and carved reliefs to record the achievements of the ruler in whose honor the monument had been erected. The spoken language included many homophones and near-homophones, and in

9400-659: Was not worshiped in Neo-Babylonian Uruk , she appears in ritual texts from this city from the Seleucid period. Julia Krul suggests that her introduction into the local pantheon reflected a broader phenomenon of incorporating spouses, children and servants of deities already worshiped locally (in this case Shamash) into it. She was celebrated during the New Year festival . In this context she appears alongside Shamash and Bunene . A house of worship dedicated to Aya,

9500-415: Was often depicted wearing a type of garment which exposed her right breast, meant to emphasize her qualities as a charming and attractive bride. Ishtar and Annunitum (who in Sippar functioned as a separate goddess, rather than an epithet) were depicted similarly. The existence of an emblem representing Aya is mentioned in texts from Sippar, but no descriptions of it are known. As the wife of Shamash, Aya

9600-599: Was opened, amidst numerous looter holes, and at Level 5 found Early Dynastic construction. In 2019 and 2020 eighteen cuneiform tablets from the Old Babylonian, Ur III, Old Akkadian and Early Dynastic periods were found in Trench 2, three in situ. A topographic survey showed that in the Early Dynastic period Umma reached an area of 400 hectares, with a 40 hectare city center. The site of Umm al-Aqarib (located at 45.80°E longitude and 31.60°N latitude) lies about 6 kilometers southeast of Tell Jokha, covers about 5 square kilometers and

9700-711: Was originally developed to write the Sumerian language of southern Mesopotamia (modern Iraq ). Over the course of its history, cuneiform was adapted to write a number of languages in addition to Sumerian. Akkadian texts are attested from the 24th century BC onward and make up the bulk of the cuneiform record. Akkadian cuneiform was itself adapted to write the Hittite language in the early second millennium BC . The other languages with significant cuneiform corpora are Eblaite , Elamite , Hurrian , Luwian , and Urartian . The Old Persian and Ugaritic alphabets feature cuneiform-style signs; however, they are unrelated to

9800-445: Was regarded as the daughter-in-law of his parents Suen and Ningal and sister-in-law of his sister Ishtar . Their daughters were Mamu (or Mamud), the goddess of dreams and Kittum , the personification of truth. According to Joan Goodnick Westenholz another deity considered to be their child was Ishum . In Hurrian sources Aya was also viewed as the spouse of a sun god, Šimige . A trilingual Sumero-Hurro- Ugaritic edition of

9900-406: Was retained, but was now pronounced immerum , rather than the Sumerian udu . Such retained individual signs or, sometimes, entire sign combinations with logographic value are known as Sumerograms , a type of heterogram . The East Semitic languages employed equivalents for many signs that were distorted or abbreviated to represent new values because the syllabic nature of the script as refined by

10000-421: Was used as a sumerogram representing the term "Lady". In Hurrian sources Aya was referred to as "Ayu-Ikalti". This form of the name was derived from the phrase Aya kallatu , "Aya the bride". Multiple additional names of Aya are attested in god lists. Sherida ( 𒀭𒂠𒉪𒁕 ; ŠÈ.NIR- da , also ŠÈ.NIR, Šerida or Šerda) could function as a Sumerian equivalent of Aya's primary name. It has been suggested that it

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