Cuneiform Script Examples

This page contains the 196th Law ("an eye for an eye..") of Hammurabi, King of Babylonia, using graphics, in three different modes of cuneiform script, illustrating the evolution of signs over time. The first is the original Old Babylonian version (around 1750 BC), the second is in Neo-Assyrian signs (around 1000 BC), and the third is in the classic Sumerian signs used about 400 years before Hammurabi's reign. Below that follow a transliteration into Akkadian, a translation into English, and information on Unicode representation.

Original Old-Babylonian

Neo-Assyrian

Classic Sumerian

Transliteration

šumma awīlum
īn mār awīlim
uḫtappid
īn šu
uḫappadû

English

If a man
the eye of a son of man
destroys
eye his
they will destroy.

Representation in Unicode

Cuneiform became part of Unicode with version 5.0 in 2006. The codechart uses Classic Sumerian signs as example glyphs for the assigned codepoints. Display of the different sign shapes for the three modes shown on this page would be achieved by having a different font for each of them, and specifiying which font a browser is to use via appropriate CSS/HTML tags. To display the characters below, download the font Cuneiform Composite here:

http://cdl.museum.upenn.edu/cuneifonts.html

Below is the text using NCR's


Plane 1 (U+12000 range)

 𒋳 𒈠 𒀀 𒉿 𒈝
 𒄿 𒅔 𒌉 𒀀 𒉿 𒅆
 𒌔 𒋰 𒁉 𒀉
 𒄿 𒅔 𒋗
 𒌑 𒄩 𒀊 𒉺 𒁺

Word Mars

(d) Ṣal - bat - a - nu

BM 86378, Column II, Line 14

http://www.geocities.com/astrologymulapin/pathofanu.htm
http://library.case.edu/ksl/ecoll/books/bmc3300/bmc3300e.html

Unicode 5.0: 𒀭𒉌𒁁𒀀𒉡