QuestionsUnread cuneiform: half a million tablets and the limits of SumerianWhy do the Early Dynastic literary texts from Fara and Abu Salabikh resist reading, and can they be read without later duplicates?Answer
Answer · Unread cuneiform: half a million tablets and the limits of Sumerian
UD.GAL.NUN is a recoverable orthography
UD.GAL.NUN is a learned orthography, a regular table of sign substitutions that can in principle be fully recovered, after which the texts read as ordinary Sumerian.
Where it stands
Still possibleOne piece of evidence for, one against. It needs two reviews to be accepted.
What it predicts
- Every UD.GAL.NUN sign has a fixed standard equivalent across tablets, with few or no context-dependent exceptions.
- Applying the table to an unread UD.GAL.NUN myth yields Sumerian vocabulary at a rate close to that of standard-orthography texts of the same period.
What would rule it out
- The substitutions prove inconsistent between tablets or scribes to a degree that no single table can capture.
Evidence 1 for · 1 against
The questions it answers
Cite it
Mysteries Department. (2026). UD.GAL.NUN is a recoverable orthography [Answer ANS0DEDWTEHR4KW]. https://mysteriesdept.com/r/ANS0DEDWTEHR4KW
@misc{mysteriesdept_ans0dedwtehr4kw,
title = {UD.GAL.NUN is a recoverable orthography},
author = {{Mysteries Department}},
year = {2026},
note = {Answer, catalog key ANS0DEDWTEHR4KW},
url = {https://mysteriesdept.com/r/ANS0DEDWTEHR4KW}
}