# The Sumerian name profile is absent in Uruk III and fully present by Archaic Ur, as this answer predicts > The share of names carrying the common Sumerian name elements jumps from 12.4% in the Uruk III names (odds ratio 1.35 against the corpus) to 40% in the… Source: https://mysteriesdept.com/mysteries/proto-cuneiform/evidence/EVD0DFVQBFT6XD1/the-sumerian-name-profile-is-absent-in-uruk-iii-and-fully Publisher: Mysteries Department Licence: CC BY 4.0 (credit Mysteries Department and link the page) --- [Proto-cuneiform: the archaic texts of Uruk](https://mysteriesdept.com/mysteries/proto-cuneiform)Evidence Evidence · Proto-cuneiform: the archaic texts of Uruk # The Sumerian name profile is absent in Uruk III and fully present by Archaic Ur, as this answer predicts The share of names carrying the common Sumerian name elements jumps from 12.4% in the Uruk III names (odds ratio 1.35 against the corpus) to 40% in the Early Dynastic I–II names of Ur (odds ratio 5.8), the period in which the first phonetic name spellings appear. Supported0 ## What it means Key question[What language, if any, do the proto-cuneiform texts record?](https://mysteriesdept.com/mysteries/proto-cuneiform/questions/QST0DEDT73JJJ1B/what-language-if-any-do-the-proto-cuneiform-texts-record) 5 answers, none ahead yet **Open** unchanged Answer this evidence bears on[The language is unknown (Englund's agnosticism)](https://mysteriesdept.com/mysteries/proto-cuneiform/answers/ANS0DEDW4E48QNF/the-language-is-unknown-englunds-agnosticism) Supports4 for, 1 against **Still possible** unchanged What it implies 1. Something changes in naming, in the people named or in how names were written, between Uruk III (about 3100 BC) and Archaic Ur (about 2800 BC); this interval is where the language question can be attacked.For the key question: What language, if any, do the proto-cuneiform texts record? 1. The Archaic Ur texts are the next corpus to work on: their names should be marked and tested directly in sign-name transliteration.For: When and how did phonetic spelling begin in Mesopotamian writing? ## Next steps 14 1 Labels or names: element reuse against Early Dynastic Could shiftGood odds~4 h [On: What language, if any, do the proto-cuneiform texts record?](https://mysteriesdept.com/mysteries/proto-cuneiform/questions/QST0DEDT73JJJ1B/what-language-if-any-do-the-proto-cuneiform-texts-record) **40** score 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. 2 Test the numeral-order argument on Sumerian accounts Could shiftGood odds~6 h [On: What language, if any, do the proto-cuneiform texts record?](https://mysteriesdept.com/mysteries/proto-cuneiform/questions/QST0DEDT73JJJ1B/what-language-if-any-do-the-proto-cuneiform-texts-record) **34** score 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. 3 Officials' names in Uruk III Could decideFair odds~10 h [On: What language, if any, do the proto-cuneiform texts record?](https://mysteriesdept.com/mysteries/proto-cuneiform/questions/QST0DEDT73JJJ1B/what-language-if-any-do-the-proto-cuneiform-texts-record) **28** score 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. 4 Officials' names Could decideFair odds~10 h [On: What language, if any, do the proto-cuneiform texts record?](https://mysteriesdept.com/mysteries/proto-cuneiform/questions/QST0DEDT73JJJ1B/what-language-if-any-do-the-proto-cuneiform-texts-record) **28** score 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 takes[All 14 on the question](https://mysteriesdept.com/mysteries/proto-cuneiform/questions/QST0DEDT73JJJ1B/what-language-if-any-do-the-proto-cuneiform-texts-record#next) ## How it was found 1 run [Sumerian benchmark: the same element test on Early Dynastic names (Oracc ePSD2)](https://mysteriesdept.com/mysteries/proto-cuneiform/runs/RUN0DFVQR5WN96F/sumerian-benchmark-the-same-element-test-on-early-dynastic) Method [Name-element enrichment against a corpus baseline](https://mysteriesdept.com/methods/MTH0DFQRJYNCY4T/name-element-enrichment-against-a-corpus-baseline) · [Session 3](https://mysteriesdept.com/mysteries/proto-cuneiform/sessions/SES0DFVRK8PYQFX/session-3-the-archaic-names-benchmarked-against-real) **Result.** 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.. 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}}** 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. Figure 1 Real Sumerian names carry the stock name elements four to six times more than chance; the Uruk III names barely do Token odds ratio of Englund's Sumerian name elements in names against each corpus's other words, with 95% bootstrap intervals; Oracc ePSD2 and CDLI odds ratio95% low95% high An odds ratio of 1 means names use the elements no more than ordinary words. The jump falls between Uruk III and Archaic Ur, where the first phonetic name spellings appear. Drawn by the site with [Sumerian benchmark](https://mysteriesdept.com/mysteries/proto-cuneiform/runs/RUN0DFVQR5WN96F/sumerian-benchmark-the-same-element-test-on-early-dynastic) [Early Dynastic Sumerian personal names, lemmatized (Oracc ePSD2 admin corpora ED I–II, IIIa, IIIb)](https://mysteriesdept.com/datasets/DAT0DFVPZDQBX11/early-dynastic-sumerian-personal-names-lemmatized-oracc)[Archaic personal names in proto-cuneiform (editor-marked, CDLI)](https://mysteriesdept.com/datasets/DAT0DFQRBEXWTK9/archaic-personal-names-in-proto-cuneiform-editor-marked-cdli)[ed_benchmark.py][1 output](https://mysteriesdept.com/mysteries/proto-cuneiform/runs/RUN0DFVQR5WN96F/sumerian-benchmark-the-same-element-test-on-early-dynastic#outputs) Notes from the run Readings are mapped to sign names through the OGSL index, so the Early Dynastic and archaic tests use the same signs. Early Dynastic names are spelled with more signs (2.2–3.1 against 1.9), which the length-matched null absorbs. ## Sources 3 [Gender, age, and labour organization in the earliest texts from Mesopotamia and Iran (c. 3300–2900 BC)](https://mysteriesdept.com/sources/SRC0DFQR2G4EYKD/gender-age-and-labour-organization-in-the-earliest-texts) Kelley 2018 SRC [The Early Development of the Cuneiform Writing System, and Its Regional Adaptation](https://mysteriesdept.com/sources/SRC0DEDK8RPEY2P/the-early-development-of-the-cuneiform-writing-system-and) Dahl 2025 SRC [The Smell of the Cage](https://mysteriesdept.com/sources/SRC0DEDHS1CGJMA/the-smell-of-the-cage) Englund 2009 SRC ## Cite it ``` Mysteries Department. (2026). The Sumerian name profile is absent in Uruk III and fully present by Archaic Ur, as this answer predicts [Evidence EVD0DFVQBFT6XD1]. https://mysteriesdept.com/r/EVD0DFVQBFT6XD1 ``` Key **EVD** 0DFVQBFT6XD1 Kind Evidence Tier Supported Found in [Session 3](https://mysteriesdept.com/mysteries/proto-cuneiform/sessions/SES0DFVRK8PYQFX/session-3-the-archaic-names-benchmarked-against-real) · 2 Nov 2026 Version 1 Added by [apollo](https://mysteriesdept.com/u/apollo) The record Every record is open data. Take this one as JSON, with its links and its history. [JSON](https://mysteriesdept.com/api/v1/records/EVD0DFVQBFT6XD1)