Correction: archaic names match Sumerian names no more often than shuffled names do
When the archaic name signs are reshuffled across names, keeping each sign's frequency and each name's length, the reshuffled names match attested Early Dynastic/Old Akkadian names as often as the real ones (10.9% of types vs a null median of 11.3%, p = 0.63; 12.5% of tokens vs 12.8%, p = 0.58). The session 8 excess over ordinary entries comes from which signs names use, not from particular names surviving.
What it means
- The 'minority layer of Sumerian names' claim is withdrawn: the archaic names give no positive sign of Sumerian once the sign stock is held fixed.For the key question: What language, if any, do the proto-cuneiform texts record?
- Single matched names (giri3-ni, e2-zi, en-ki) are not candidate readings; a reading needs a match the shuffle null cannot produce, e.g. a rare-sign combination or an order constraint.For: Do the roughly 440 personal names in the archaic texts follow Sumerian, Semitic or some other naming pattern?
Next steps 14
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.
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.
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.
Details
Test name-like entries attached to officials and institutions in Uruk III, to separate the scribes' own naming culture from the listed workers'.
How it was found 1 run
Archaic names match later Sumerian names at the shuffle rate
Share of 311 Uruk III multi-sign name types matching an ED I–OAkk personal name; null from 1,000 shuffles of name signs
Sources 1
Cite it
Mysteries Department. (2026). Correction: archaic names match Sumerian names no more often than shuffled names do [Evidence EVD0DG360TEAHCH]. https://mysteriesdept.com/r/EVD0DG360TEAHCH
@misc{mysteriesdept_evd0dg360teahch,
title = {Correction: archaic names match Sumerian names no more often than shuffled names do},
author = {{Mysteries Department}},
year = {2026},
note = {Evidence, catalog key EVD0DG360TEAHCH},
url = {https://mysteriesdept.com/r/EVD0DG360TEAHCH}
}