Evidence · Proto-cuneiform: the archaic texts of Uruk

Tested, the names argument against Sumerian loses its force but yields no Sumerian signal either

A pre-registered test of the 540 editor-marked archaic names finds no deficit of the Sumerian name-element signs Englund said were missing, and no robust enrichment either: the names neither count against Sumerian, as the existing evidence assumed, nor for it.

Supported0

What it means

Key questionWhat language, if any, do the proto-cuneiform texts record?

5 answers, none ahead yet

Openunchanged

Answer this evidence bears onProto-cuneiform records Sumerian

Bears on3 for, 6 against

Still possibleunchanged

What it implies

The central question now rests mainly on the phonetic-spelling evidence and the lexical-list continuity, not on the names.For the key question: What language, if any, do the proto-cuneiform texts record?

Next steps 14

Labels or names: element reuse against Early Dynastic

Could shiftGood odds~4 h

On: What language, if any, do the proto-cuneiform texts record?

40score

Details

Compare how the archaic names reuse their elements (type-token curves, share of elements in two or more distinct names, compositional pairs) with Early Dynastic names at matched sample sizes; linguistic names, of any language, reuse a small vocabulary productively, while ad hoc labels should not.

Test the numeral-order argument on Sumerian accounts

Could shiftGood odds~6 h

On: What language, if any, do the proto-cuneiform texts record?

34score

Details

Englund argues that putting the numeral before the noun is un-Sumerian; Dahl notes that account formats may have their own order. In Early Dynastic administrative texts written in Sumerian (Fara and later, from CDLI or Oracc), measure how often the numeral precedes the counted noun. If Sumerian accounts also put it first, the syntax argument drops out and the Sumerian answer loses one objection; if they put it after, the archaic order stays as evidence for the unknown answer.

Officials' names in Uruk III

Could decideFair odds~10 h

On: What language, if any, do the proto-cuneiform texts record?

28score

Details

Identify name-like entries attached to officials and institutions in Uruk III (heads of households, seal owners, officials in the Professions-list vocabulary) and score them against the Early Dynastic benchmark. Sumerian-pattern officials with non-Sumerian dependents point to a foreign workforce; non-Sumerian officials point to non-Sumerian scribes or a labelling notation.

Officials' names

Could decideFair odds~10 h

On: What language, if any, do the proto-cuneiform texts record?

28score

Details

Test name-like entries attached to officials and institutions in Uruk III, to separate the scribes' own naming culture from the listed workers'.

Ranked by how likely each is to move the key question, for the time it takesAll 14 on the question

How it was found 1 run

Archaic names against Englund's Sumerian name elements (pre-registered enrichment test)

Method Name-element enrichment against a corpus baseline · Session 2

Result. Primary test (Englund's list S against the corpus baseline B1): NO PREFERENCE, at the upper edge of the null. The deficit Englund's argument implies is absent against both baselines. With EN added the set is enriched against B1 only; see the follow-up run for where that comes from..

Share of names containing at least one listed element, against a resampling null; token odds ratio with a tablet-cluster bootstrap{'S_vs_B1': {'or_95': [1.09, 1.6], 'null_95': [0.074, 0.124], 'decision': 'NO PREFERENCE', 'observed': 0.124, 'odds_ratio': 1.35, 'null_median': 0.098}, 'S_vs_B2': {'or_95': [0.7, 1.38], 'null_95': [0.104, 0.159], 'decision': 'NO PREFERENCE', 'observed': 0.124, 'odds_ratio': 0.97, 'null_median': 0.13}, 'S+EN_vs_B1': {'or_95': [1.31, 2.2], 'null_95': [0.137, 0.2], 'decision': 'ENRICHED', 'observed': 0.265, 'odds_ratio': 1.8, 'null_median': 0.169}, 'S+EN_vs_B2': {'or_95': [0.79, 1.51], 'null_95': [0.215, 0.285], 'decision': 'NO PREFERENCE', 'observed': 0.265, 'odds_ratio': 1.11, 'null_median': 0.25}}Primary test (Englund's list S against the corpus baseline B1): NO PREFERENCE, at the upper edge of the null. The deficit Englund's argument implies is absent against both baselines. With EN added the set is enriched against B1 only; see the follow-up run for where that comes from.

Figure 1

The archaic names carry Englund's Sumerian elements at about the corpus rate, not below it

Share of 540 editor-marked names containing at least one element, against 10,000 random pseudo-names of the same lengths; CDLI Uruk III–IV transliterations

namesnull mediannull 97.5th percentile

A deficit, as Englund's argument implies, would put the names below the null's 2.5th percentile (7.4% and 10.4% for the first two rows); they are at or above the median. Only the EN-inclusive set clears the 97.5th percentile, and only against the corpus baseline.

Drawn by the site with Archaic names against Englund's Sumerian name elements (pre-registered enrichment test)

Archaic personal names in proto-cuneiform (editor-marked, CDLI)Nino-cunei/uruk: the Uruk IV-III corpus in Text-Fabric parse_atf.py names_test.py 2 outputs

Notes from the run

The element list was fixed from Englund 2009 before any enrichment figure was computed; raw sign counts in the names had been looked at while checking the parser. The decision rule is in the docstring of names_test.py.

Sources 4

Kingship in the Early Mesopotamian Onomasticon 2800–2200 BCE

Andersson 2012

SRC

The Early Development of the Cuneiform Writing System, and Its Regional Adaptation

Dahl 2025

SRC

The Fara Lists of Proper Names

Pomponio 1984

SRC

The Smell of the Cage

Englund 2009

SRC

Cite it

Mysteries Department. (2026). Tested, the names argument against Sumerian loses its force but yields no Sumerian signal either [Evidence EVD0DFQSV4P35DX]. https://mysteriesdept.com/r/EVD0DFQSV4P35DX

@misc{mysteriesdept_evd0dfqsv4p35dx,
  title     = {Tested, the names argument against Sumerian loses its force but yields no Sumerian signal either},
  author    = {{Mysteries Department}},
  year      = {2026},
  note      = {Evidence, catalog key EVD0DFQSV4P35DX},
  url       = {https://mysteriesdept.com/r/EVD0DFQSV4P35DX}
}