Cuneiform
The wedge sank five times into the clay,
and a word, which had been spoken in a breath,
lay still until the gods’ names were forgotten.
Then, when strangers took the tile in hand,
while stars sailed into the dark
beyond the world, the dead tongue
in the clay began to speak.
This poem appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, May 2008 edition. If you liked the poem, click through in order to encourage more of the same from the author and magazine.
I’m not sure which gods he had in mind that one could form with just five strikes of the stylus onto the clay–even “dinger utu” would probably require at least six strikes–three for “dinger” and three for “utu.” He may have meant “five times” in a looser sense to cover the writing of five names. In any case, anyone know of a deity that can be written at least somewhat properly (there is at times tremendous variation in the cuneiform orthography) in five strikes or less including the dinger sign?
Anu: DINGIR sign (three strokes) + DISH(=60) sign (one) = total of 4 strokes. Ea can be written in 5 (DINGIR + IDIM).
Nice, how could I forget these two? I had utu on the brain!
Another one: DINGIR + MASH = Ninurta. To be honest, I didn’t remember this one right off hand, but thought there was a divine name using the MASH sign. I had to look it up (see MesZL #120).
Don’t forget Adad, whose name can be written DINGIR.U!
Does GUGU 2 work?
Alan: I thought it was Mash Mash. Mr. Mash Mash might work!
Or Sin if the D. is written with 2 strokes. It might work with the poem, too. I don’t think ADAD works because isn’t it normally ISHKUR?
I should buy Labat or Berger, spinning these things from memory makes me think that all of my ideas (except GUGU 2) are wrong.
ash(1)-shur(3) is often written without the dingir in the MA period. BUT, notice the author wrote “gods.” There’s no way (that I can see) that you could write dingir.mesh in less than seven strokes. So, perhaps he had 2-3 deities in mind, without the dingir.
Then again, maybe the “word” isn’t the deity at. If not, what word? To get the ball rolling, MU=zikru=oath.
DINGIR.MASH.MASH is a writing for Nergal, according to MesZL #120; one MASH can be read Ninurta.
Charles’ challenge was so fun I completely forgot the context of the poem. But Kyle’s right. The author probably wasn’t referring to gods’ names at all just a duration of time (the word remained on the tablet until the gods were forgotten). Sharp, Kyle.
That was quite a fun exercise! All of you would make top marks in the E2.DUB.BA.