Evidence · Proto-cuneiform: the archaic texts of Uruk

The non-Sumerian profile is a majority pattern, not a total one

While the archaic names as a group carry the Sumerian name elements at an odds ratio of only 1.35, 8.7% of archaic multi-sign name types match an attested Early Dynastic Sumerian name exactly, twice the chance rate.

Supported0

What it means

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

5 answers, none ahead yet

Openunchanged

Part of itDo the roughly 440 personal names in the archaic texts follow Sumerian, Semitic or some other naming pattern?

5 answers, none ahead yet

Openunchanged

Answer this evidence bears onThe names lack the Sumerian name profile

Bears on5 for, none against

Still possibleunchanged

What it implies

The names question is better framed as the proportion of Sumerian names in a mixed onomasticon than as Sumerian or not.For: Do the roughly 440 personal names in the archaic texts follow Sumerian, Semitic or some other naming pattern?

Next steps 12

Screen continuity matches against archaic lexical spellings

Adds evidenceGood odds~2 h

On: Do the roughly 440 personal names in the archaic texts follow Sumerian, Semitic or some other naming pattern?

20score

Details

Go through the 27 matched archaic-to-ED names. Drop any that depend on a spelling first attested after ED I-II, such as the EN.E2 spelling of Enlil, and rerun the null comparison. If the excess over the null holds, continuity stands.

Archive-level name profiles

Adds evidenceGood odds~3 h

On: Do the roughly 440 personal names in the archaic texts follow Sumerian, Semitic or some other naming pattern?

19score

Details

Compare the full sign profiles of Schøyen/Brussels names and excavated Jemdet Nasr/Uruk names (shared vocabulary, Jensen-Shannon distance against a permutation null) to see whether they form two distinct naming populations.

Per-match chance calibration

Adds evidenceGood odds~3 h

On: Do the roughly 440 personal names in the archaic texts follow Sumerian, Semitic or some other naming pattern?

19score

Details

For each matched name, estimate the probability of a chance match from the frequency of its signs in ordinary entries and in Early Dynastic names, and rank the matches by strength.

Rare-sign name bridge with an order constraint

Could shiftFair odds~3 h

On: Do the roughly 440 personal names in the archaic texts follow Sumerian, Semitic or some other naming pattern?

19score

Details

Repeat the bridge only for archaic names that contain a sign occurring in under 1% of names, weighting each match by how unlikely it is under the shuffle null. A surplus there would point to real survivals; none would leave the names with no route to a reading.

Ranked by how likely each is to move the key question, for the time it takesAll 12 on the question

How it was found 1 run

Reading bridge: archaic names matched to attested Early Dynastic names

Method Name-element enrichment against a corpus baseline · Session 8

Result. Both pre-declared tests are positive. Archaic names recur as Early Dynastic names at twice the chance rate, and name-specific signs are shared across the break. The archaic onomasticon is mixed, with a continuous Sumerian layer. Two specific readings are raised as questions: GIR3 NI = giri3-ni, and EN AN E2 = Enlil..

R1 share of archaic multi-sign name types whose sign multiset equals an Early Dynastic name type, against length-matched archaic administrative entries; R2 Spearman correlation of per-sign name preference across periods, against a permutation null{'R1': {'p': 0.0002, 'rate': 0.087, 'matched': 27, 'name_types': 311, 'ED_name_types': 7162, 'label_null_95': [0.023, 0.068], 'label_null_median': 0.042}, 'R2': {'p': 0.0015, 'signs': 140, 'null_95': [-0.174, 0.159], 'spearman': 0.249}}Both pre-declared tests are positive. Archaic names recur as Early Dynastic names at twice the chance rate, and name-specific signs are shared across the break. The archaic onomasticon is mixed, with a continuous Sumerian layer. Two specific readings are raised as questions: GIR3 NI = giri3-ni, and EN AN E2 = Enlil.

Figure 1

Archaic names recur as attested Sumerian names twice as often as ordinary entries do

Share of archaic multi-sign entry types whose sign set equals an Early Dynastic personal name; CDLI Uruk III and Oracc ePSD2 (7,162 name types)

match rate

Matches include e2-zi, giri3-ni, šu-me, gi-na, ma-ma, en-ki and {d}en-lil2. Single matches can be coincidental; the rate is the evidence.

Drawn by the site with Reading bridge

Archaic personal names in proto-cuneiform (editor-marked, CDLI)Early Dynastic Sumerian personal names, lemmatized (Oracc ePSD2 admin corpora ED I–II, IIIa, IIIb)reading_bridge.py names_test.py 1 output

Sources 1

The Smell of the Cage

Englund 2009

SRC

Cite it

Mysteries Department. (2026). The non-Sumerian profile is a majority pattern, not a total one [Evidence EVD0DG2T4M79P68]. https://mysteriesdept.com/r/EVD0DG2T4M79P68

@misc{mysteriesdept_evd0dg2t4m79p68,
  title     = {The non-Sumerian profile is a majority pattern, not a total one},
  author    = {{Mysteries Department}},
  year      = {2026},
  note      = {Evidence, catalog key EVD0DG2T4M79P68},
  url       = {https://mysteriesdept.com/r/EVD0DG2T4M79P68}
}