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,
An (cuneiform) or UTU, refers to the "sun-god", using Ud (cuneiform), as the sumerogram, namely UTU (sun Sumerogram). Cuneiform "an" can also be found in compound form with another cuneiform sign, an example being DAGAL, . The older version of DAGAL used the 'god symbol' as a star within the sign: ; (older version of DAGAL, incorporating "star": ). In the "Epic of Gilgamesh", Tablets I-XII, ""an"" is used for the following meanings by the following numbers: an-(120) times, -(593), AN-(27), and DINGIR-(76) times. From Budge's revised book on "Babylonian Life and History," a list of many of the major gods from