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Research session 4 · Proto-cuneiform: the archaic texts of Uruk

Dependents-only benchmark: the names gap is not a class effect

Restricted to dependent workers in Early Dynastic IIIb ration lists, Sumerian names still carry the stock name elements at an odds ratio of 4.6–4.7, against 1.35 for the Uruk III names. The archaic names' difference from Sumerian names is not explained by the named people's status.

Session 43 Nov 2026Testing1 run2 evidence1 figure

Going in the sweep before the work

What changed since Session 32 Nov 2026, 21:11 → 31 Oct 2026, 15:39
0datasets added
0sources added
0news stories matched
0duplicates or retired records
Top next step going in: Dependents-only benchmark
Ranked 1 of 20 · could decide · good odds · ~4 h
STEP

In brief

  1. Matched on class, Early Dynastic dependent workers carry Sumerian name elements at odds ratios of 4.6–4.7, the same as or above the whole corpus; the Uruk III dependents' names stay at 1.35.
  2. The class caveat is answered, and the names now weigh against a Sumerian reading of Uruk III; the remaining explanations are a foreign workforce, non-Sumerian scribes or a labelling notation, and the officials' names test can separate them.
What this changes: Names question: H-NAMES-NOTSUMERIAN gains supported evidence from a check it could have failed. Central question: the main caveat on the names evidence against H-SUMERIAN is removed for Early Dynastic Lagash.

What movedNo question changed standing

Key question
What language, if any, do the proto-cuneiform texts record?
+1 evidence, 1 against1 next step addedtaken up again
Proto-cuneiform records Sumerian · 3 for, 6 againstPossible
Openunchanged

What's next1 step set · 3 done · ranked

1
Officials' names in Uruk III
Could decideFair odds~10 h
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.

Done this session
Restrict the Early Dynastic benchmark to names of dependent workers (ED IIIb Lagash ration lists: igi-nu-du8, geme2, dumu) to check that the gap with the archaic names is not a social-class effect.
Done this session
Restrict the Early Dynastic benchmark to names of dependent workers (e.g. ED IIIb Lagash ration lists for igi-nu-du8 and geme2) to check that the gap is not a social-class effect.
Done this session
Restrict the Early Dynastic benchmark to names of dependent workers to rule out a social-class effect.

Next steps live on their questions, where anyone can take one up. Ranked by how likely each is to move a key question, for the time it takes.

What was done

  1. Definition. Dependent workers were defined before scoring, from the Oracc lemmatization of the Early Dynastic IIIb administrative texts. D1 takes the personal names in texts that have both a ration term (šeba, sikiba) and a dependent term: geme (female worker), arad (slave) or iginudu (unskilled or foreign worker). D2 is D1 without names on lines carrying an official title and without names attested in 30 or more texts. D3 takes names on the same line as a dependent term. ED IIIa has no ration lists lemmatized in this form [@bartash2018age].

  2. Result. D1 has 6,894 names in 99 texts: 60% carry an element, odds ratio 4.72 (4.57–4.87). D2 has 5,142 names: 65%, odds ratio 4.60 (4.45–4.77). D3 has 35 names: odds ratio 3.25 (1.57–5.08). All of ED IIIb gives 4.47, and the Uruk III dependents give 1.35.

Figure 1

Sumerian dependent workers' names carry the stock name elements as strongly as anyone's; the Uruk III dependents' names do not

Odds ratio of Englund's Sumerian name elements in names against the corpus's other words, 95% bootstrap intervals; Oracc ePSD2 ED IIIb and CDLI Uruk III

0246odds ratio (names vs other words)Uruk III dependents (540)ED IIIb all names (31,083)ED IIIb ration-list names (6,894)Ration lists, officials removed (5,142)Same line as geme/arad/iginudu (35)
0246odds ratio (names vs other words)Uruk III de…ED IIIb all…ED IIIb rat…Ration list…Same line a…
odds ratio95% low95% high
Dependent definitions were fixed before scoring. ED IIIa has no lemmatized ration lists in this form.
Drawn by the site
  1. Reading. Dependents in Early Dynastic Lagash have fully Sumerian name profiles, so dependent status does not by itself produce the archaic pattern. H-NAMES-NOTSUMERIAN passes the kill test it was given. Three readings of the archaic names remain [@englund2009smell] [@damerow2006origins]. The people may have been a foreign workforce that kept its own names, where later institutions often gave dependents Sumerian names. The scribes may not have spoken Sumerian. Or the name entries may have been labels rather than spellings of names.
Runs 1
RunMeasuredResultAgainstDecision
Dependents-only Sumerian benchmark (ED IIIb ration lists) · 1 figureToken odds ratio of Englund's Sumerian name elements in dependent workers' names against the period's other words; share of names with at least one element against a length-matched nullNon-proper-noun lemmatized words of ED IIIbThe gap survives matching on class. Early Dynastic dependents' names carry the Sumerian elements as strongly as the whole corpus or more, so H-NAMES-NOTSUMERIAN passes its dependents-only kill test. ED IIIa could not be tested because no ration lists are lemmatized in this form.
Answers taken up again 2
Evidence found 2
Used: methods 1
Used: datasets 1
Consulted: sources 1

Cite it

Mysteries Department. (2026). Session 4: Dependents-only benchmark: the names gap is not a class effect [Research session SES0DG2D3CCNKMT]. https://mysteriesdept.com/mysteries/proto-cuneiform/sessions/SES0DG2D3CCNKMT/session-4-dependents-only-benchmark-the-names-gap-is-not-a
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