within a greater system. That system taught them primarily about writing and its
uses. This fact is crucial to understanding what the lists represent.
THE OLD BABYLONIAN LISTSThere are actually many different kinds of list. Already when students practised
making single wedges this was done in list format. The same was true for the
combinations of wedges into signs, such as the ones contained in a list called Syllable
Alphabet A.^4 This list provided instruction in common, simple signs in various com-
binations. Next, the student learned sets of related syllables, still without real meaning,
through a list called Tu-ta-ti. That list begins: tu ta ti, nu na ni and continues in
this way, listing sets of three signs combining a consonant with a standard sequence
of three vowels.
The first meaningful list encountered was that of personal names. Learning how
to write names is a very natural way to start learning how to write, being relatively
easy, interesting and also useful. Here the student would come across features of the
cuneiform writing system that he would learn more systematically later.
The next stage was to learn the series of lists known today as Urra. The series
comprised six lists, each containing many words on various themes: ( 1 ) trees and
wooden objects; ( 2 ) reed, vessels, clay, hides, metals; ( 3 ) domestic and wild animals
and meats; ( 4 ) stones, plants, birds, fish, clothing; ( 5 ) geographical terms, stars; ( 6 )
foods. The first tablet begins:
gisˇtaskarin ‘boxwood’
gisˇesi ‘ebony’
gisˇnu
11 (type of tree)
gisˇha-lu-ub
2 ‘oak’There was also a list of professions, known as Proto-Lu,^5 but this was not part of
Urra; it was taught later in the curriculum.
Next came what we refer to as Proto-Ea, a sign list teaching the various possible
readings of individual cuneiform signs (it is a feature of the cuneiform writing system
that a sign may be read in several different ways). The first section deals with the
A-sign:
reading sign meaning
a 2 A (an anguished expression)
ia A (reading derived from context)
du-ru A ‘moist’
e A (reading derived from context)
a A ‘water’
A.A ‘father’
A.A.A ‘grandfather’
sa-ah HA.A ‘runaway’— Babylonian lists of words and signs —