Evidence · Proto-cuneiform: the archaic texts of Uruk
Attempts to read Sumerian or Akkadian in the Uruk texts have not succeeded, and the texts' numeral-before-noun order…
Attempts to read Sumerian or Akkadian in the Uruk texts have not succeeded, and the texts' numeral-before-noun order is the reverse of Sumerian.
What it means
Openunchanged
Answer this evidence bears onThe language is unknown (Englund's agnosticism)
Supports1 for, 1 against
Still possibleunchanged
Next steps 3
1
Extract the archaic personal names (the slave-name set in Englund 2009 plus any name-position entries) from the CDLI bulk ATF, tabulate their sign structure, and run a permutation test against Early Dynastic Sumerian names (Fara, Abu Salabikh) and Early Dynastic Semitic names for shared elements and positional patterns.
~30 h
—not judged
2
Build a sign-frequency and collocation table from the CDLI bulk ATF under the four counting conventions of Born and Kelley 2021, split by Uruk IV and Uruk III, and compare positional statistics (case-initial, case-final, co-occurrence entropy) with the same measures for the Archaic Ur texts and for proto-Elamite, to see whether Uruk III moves toward the pattern of a language-bound script.
~20 h
—not judged
3
Compile every rebus spelling proposed for Uruk IV and Uruk III texts (Steinkeller 1995, Wilcke 2005, Monaco 2014, Krispijn, Johnson) as a table with the tablet P-number, the sign, the proposed Sumerian value and Whittaker's or Englund's objection, so the live cases can be checked against CDLI contexts one by one.
~12 h
—not judged
Ranked by how likely each is to move the key question, for the time it takes
Sources 3
Texts from the Late Uruk Period
SRCEnglund 1998
The Smell of the Cage
SRCEnglund 2009
Cite it
Mysteries Department. (2026). Attempts to read Sumerian or Akkadian in the Uruk texts have not succeeded, and the texts' numeral-before-noun order… [Evidence EVD0DEDXMW830Y8]. https://mysteriesdept.com/r/EVD0DEDXMW830Y8
@misc{mysteriesdept_evd0dedxmw830y8,
title = {Attempts to read Sumerian or Akkadian in the Uruk texts have not succeeded, and the texts' numeral-before-noun order…},
author = {{Mysteries Department}},
year = {2026},
note = {Evidence, catalog key EVD0DEDXMW830Y8},
url = {https://mysteriesdept.com/r/EVD0DEDXMW830Y8}
}