Talk:Lugal

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Ancient Near East

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[Untitled]

I'm afraid that the first paragraph of this article is seriously confused, mixing up language and writing. (That's always a problem, to be fair.)

The Sumerian expression for "king" (more on that in a moment) was "big man", literally, or LÚ GAL in SUmerian words, though so far as I know it is never written thus except in Sumero-Akkadian dictionaries which is how we know its reading.

The sign transcribed ("read") LUGAL does not consist of either the sign LÚ "man" (strictly speaking) or GAL "big" (at all). ("Great"' might be better, here; it's the same sign as in MAH.GAL "lion", verbatim "big dog", though "big" doesn't seem like the right translation).

It is, historically, the sign for "man" (transcribed LÚ) plus a diacritic, in effect—namely a crown or diadem. Note that the logogram "man" is lying on its face, the "crown" is the little cluster of wedges at the left end of the sign for "man". (Sumerian writing was originally in vertical columns, arranged left to right; for some reason, the arrangement of signs, ductus and all, came to be rotated 90° counter-clockwise, so that on tablets and epigraphs the signs run from left to right in lines from top to bottom, as in Latin-based European writing.)

That is: the sign that is read LUGAL does not have any connection with the sign that is transcribed LÚ (i.e., LU sub 2) or the one transcribed GAL "big" vel sim.

Note: "King" in something like our sense of the word was LUGAL.GAL, usually Englished "great king": a LUGAL was more like a duke than a king, i.e., the head of state of a "city state". When a number of these states and their dukes were under the authority of some higher figure, he was called LUGAL.GAL (and was probably also the LUGAL of one or more important city-states, much as the King of England is also Duke of Cornwall until that title is transferred to the heir apparent).Alsihler (talk) 00:42, 23 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Sumerian and Akkadian is wrong

There are many mistakes. For example abgallu is explaint by ab "Water", gal "big" and lu "man". But ab does not mean water (okay in modern Farsi but not in Sumerian). The Sumerian word is abgal for which The Sumerian Dictionary A Part II (Uniersity Museum, Pensylvania 1994) p. 175 gives: "1. a profession 2. a profession, a cultic functionary 3. a mythological sage" etc. the etymology is unknown. From this a Akkadian word stems "apkallu(m)". The Akkadian nominative -um later -u is added (The Chicago Assyrian Dictionary A II p. 171). There is no connection with the Sumerian word lu2 "man". The explanations of the name of the city Eridu(g) are as well mere phantasy. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2003:FC:4703:FA00:995C:590B:12B2:F68B (talk) 22:12, 13 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]