Me (cuneiform)

Cuneiform for me, and ME; digitized form.

EA 26, fragment (Obverse).
(high-resolution expandable photo)
(Last flat-surface 5-lines on fragment (Para IV), lines 30–34.

The cuneiform me sign is a common multi-use sign of the Epic of Gilgamesh, the 1350 BC Amarna letters, and other cuneiform texts. It also has a sumerogrammic usage for ME in the Epic of Gilgamesh.

Because of its extensive syllabic multi-use (in the Epic of Gilgamesh), its grammatical usage would be as follows: all the syllabic usages possible, but for alphabetic usage, as follows; for consonants, it could be used for "m", "s", "š", "b", and "p". (b and p are interchangeable, and s can also be substituted for š, and vice versa for all four). For the vowel e ( or ì, i ), all the four vowels, a, e, i, and u, can also be interchanged in the formation of words.

Epic of Gilgamesh usage

In the Epic of Gilgamesh, Tablets I-XII, "me" is used for the following meanings by the following numbers: me-(98) times, mì-(9), sip-(1), šeb-(3), šep-(1), šib-(12), šip-(2), and ME-(5) times.

See also

• Me (mythology)

References

• Moran, William L. 1987, 1992. The Amarna Letters. Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987, 1992. 393 pages.(softcover, ISBN 0-8018-6715-0)
• Parpola, 1971. The Standard Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh, Parpola, Simo, Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project, c 1997, Tablet I thru Tablet XII, Index of Names, Sign List, and Glossary-(pp. 119–145), 165 pages.