Cuneiform stylus or incised in stone. This early style lacked the characteristic wedge shape of the strokes. Certain signs to indicate names of gods, countries, cities, vessels, birds, trees, etc., are known as determinatives and were the Sumerian signs of the terms in question, added as a guide for the reader. Proper names continued to be usually written in purely "logographic" fashion. The earliest known Sumerian king whose name appears on contemporary cuneiform tablets is Enmebaragesi of Kish. Surviving records only very gradually become less fragmentary and more complete for the following reigns, but by the end of the pre-Sargonic period,
A (cuneiform) language "enūma". The usage is probably specific to the scribe, as the writer of the letter (not necessarily the 'author' of the letter). Akkadian language "eninna", (English "now") is used far less in the Amarna letters. "Anūma", "enūma", and "inūma" is the common adverb, for "now", or "when", ("now", ("now, at this time", as the segue)). A (cuneiform) The cuneiform sign for a, and in the "Epic of Gilgamesh" the sumerogram A, Akkadian for "mû", "water", which is used in the "Gilgamesh flood myth", Chapter XI of the Epic, or other passages. The sign is also used extensively in the