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,
Ni (cuneiform) Ni (cuneiform) The cuneiform sign ni, is a common-use sign of the Amarna letters, the "Epic of Gilgamesh," and other cuneiform texts. It has a secondary sub-use in the Amarna letters for addressing the Pharaoh, from the vassal states of Canaan. The address to the Pharaoh is often 'King-Lord-Mine': "LUGAL, EN-ia" which has many varieties of expression. "LUGAL" is Akkadian language for "Šarru", English "king", and "EN" in Akkadian is "bēlu", for "Lord", (thus "King, Lord-Mine"). In some Amarna letters the sub-use of "ni" is "lí", for spelling "bēlu", "be-lí" often . There are other sub-uses of "ni" (see "Epic