{{Short description|Cuneiform sign}}

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The cuneiform sign denotes a ship or boat. It is used in Sumerian and as a Sumerogram for the Akkadian word eleppu (also 'ship'/'boat').Parpola, 1971. The Standard Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh, Glossary, pp. 119-145, eleppu, p. 124. MÁ is usually preceded by the determinative for items made of wood, namely 100x24px GIŠ: GIŠ.MÁ, or GIŠ.MÁ, 100x24px100x24px.

Examples

The Epic of Gilgamesh lists sixteen wood-related words written with the GIŠ determinative, among them GIŠ.MÁ/eleppu.Parpola, 1971. The Standard Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh, Glossary and Indices, Logograms and Their Readings, pp. 117-18, p. 117. The epic also uses the 'ship'/'boat' Sumerogram in Tablet XI (the Gilgamesh flood myth), and elsewhere when Gilgamesh is taken by boat.

Some of the Amarna letters using the Sumerogram are EA 86, EA 153,[http://images.metmuseum.org/CRDImages/eg/web-large/vs24.2.12yy.jpg Image]. GIŠ.MÁ, found in line 10. EA 149, EA 245,[https://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details/collection_image_gallery.aspx?partid=1&assetid=408149001&objectid=327263 Image]. GIŠ.MÁ found in line 4 of the reverse. and EA 364.Image. From Ayyab, it is one of the shorter Amarna letters.

See also

References

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Bibliography

  • {{Cite book|last=Simo Parpola|title=The standard Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh : cuneiform text, transliteration, glossary, indices and sign list|last2=Kalle Fabritius|date=1997|publisher=Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project|others=Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project (Contributor)|isbn=951-45-7760-4|editor-last=Simo Parpola|editor-link=Simo Parpola|location=Helsinki|translator-last=Simo Parpola|oclc=38502035|author-link=Simo Parpola|editor-last2=Mikko Luukko|editor-last3=Kalle Fabritius|translator-link=Simo Parpola}} (Volume 1) in the original Akkadian cuneiform and transliteration; commentary and glossary are in English