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,
Zu (cuneiform) Zu (cuneiform) Cuneiform zu, (also sú, ṣú, and sumerogram ZU (capital letter majuscule)), is an uncommon-use sign in the 1350s BC Amarna letters, the "Epic of Gilgamesh", and other cuneiform texts. Alphabetically, it could conceivably be used for letters "z", "s", "ṣ", or "u"; however in the Amarna letters it is used mostly for "personal names" or "geographical names". In the "Epic of Gilgamesh", sumerogram "ZU", is used to spell the name of god Ninazu, (a name of god Tammuz, two times, Chapter XII, 28, 47). In the "Epic", "ZU" is also used as a logogram, "ZU.AB", for Akkadian language