QuestionsProto-cuneiform: the archaic texts of UrukDo the roughly 440 personal names in the archaic texts follow Sumerian, Semitic or some other naming pattern?Answer
Answer · Proto-cuneiform: the archaic texts of Uruk
The names favour Sumerian name elements
The archaic names use the signs of the common Sumerian name elements more often than the rest of the corpus does: a Sumerian naming tradition written with word-signs before phonetic spelling.
Where it stands
Still possibleOne piece of evidence for, three against. It needs two reviews to be accepted.
What it predicts
- Names will contain the signs of Englund's Sumerian element list more often than pseudo-names drawn from the administrative baseline (above the null's 97.5th percentile).
- The enrichment will hold in excavated archives (Jemdet Nasr, Uruk), not only in unprovenanced ones.
- Run the same way on a tagged Early Dynastic Sumerian name list, the element share will fall in the same range as the archaic names'.
What would rule it out
- The element share of archaic names is at or below the corpus baseline across archives.
- A tagged Early Dynastic Sumerian name list scored by the same procedure gives an element share several times the archaic one.
Evidence 1 for · 3 against
FOR
AGAINST
AGAINST
Tested by 3 runs
| Run | Measured | Result | Against | Decision | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Run | share of recurring multi-sign names (same sign set, two or more attestations) transliterated in more than one order | {'share': 0.379, 'EN_recurring': 10, 'recurring_names': 58, 'EN_recurring_mixed': 5, 'written_in_2plus_orders': 22, 'EN_first_in_recurring_attestations': '18 of 27'} | Repeated names are not written in a fixed order, and half the repeated EN names occur in both orders. The EN-first tendency is not a name template, so session 2's speculative EN-first evidence is withdrawn as support. Image collation is not needed to reach this conclusion. | ||
| Run | share of names containing at least one of Englund's elements against a length-matched null; token odds ratio with a text-cluster bootstrap | {'ED_I-II': {'names': 326, 'or_95': [4.66, 7.12], 'observed': 0.402, 'odds_ratio': 5.84, 'null_median': 0.089}, 'ED_IIIa': {'names': 11799, 'or_95': [4.71, 5.01], 'observed': 0.465, 'odds_ratio': 4.86, 'null_median': 0.14}, 'ED_IIIb': {'names': 31083, 'or_95': [4.39, 4.55], 'observed': 0.528, 'odds_ratio': 4.47, 'null_median': 0.184}, 'Uruk_III_archaic': {'names': 540, 'or_95': [1.09, 1.6], 'observed': 0.124, 'odds_ratio': 1.35, 'null_median': 0.098}} | Each corpus's own non-proper-noun lemmatized words (ED) or non-name administrative entries (Uruk III) | The Sumerian name corpora are enriched three- to four-and-a-half-fold in every period, and the archaic names are not. This meets the kill criterion of H-NAMES-SUMERIAN: the archaic names do not have a Sumerian onomastic profile. | |
| Run | element share by archive group against a resampling null; count of names with EN first against a within-name shuffle | {'EN_first': {'p': '<0.0002', 'first': 54, 'names': 80, 'expected': 33.2, 'shuffle_95': [25, 42]}, 'PAP_first': {'first': 6, 'names': 27, 'shuffle_95': [7, 17]}, 'S_excavated': {'null_95': [0.056, 0.169], 'observed': 0.105}, 'S+EN_excavated': {'n': 124, 'null_95': [0.121, 0.25], 'observed': 0.161}, 'S_unprovenanced': {'null_95': [0.067, 0.123], 'observed': 0.13}, 'S+EN_unprovenanced': {'n': 416, 'null_95': [0.127, 0.2], 'observed': 0.296}} | Resampled Uruk III administrative signs (archive split) · 5,000 within-name shuffles (position) | Exploratory, decided after the main run. The EN enrichment is confined to the unprovenanced group (mostly Schøyen, 'Umma?') and absent from the excavated archives, so it counts against a general Sumerian naming signal. EN is strongly name-initial in the editors' order, which is evidence for an en-X template only if collation confirms the order. |
The questions it answers
Cite it
Mysteries Department. (2026). The names favour Sumerian name elements [Answer ANS0DFQRT0P7MAJ]. https://mysteriesdept.com/r/ANS0DFQRT0P7MAJ
@misc{mysteriesdept_ans0dfqrt0p7maj,
title = {The names favour Sumerian name elements},
author = {{Mysteries Department}},
year = {2026},
note = {Answer, catalog key ANS0DFQRT0P7MAJ},
url = {https://mysteriesdept.com/r/ANS0DFQRT0P7MAJ}
}