Chinese and Sumerian

XVI INTRODUCTION

symbol for copper. The first of these is UM, ‘pregnant woman’ (=EM 7d); ‘a mother’; M. 2578; 2589. The word is identical with the Chinese yém, nyim, yiin, yiing, eing, ying, ‘ pregnant’ (vd. Comp. Lex.). The character surely represents a full vessel (see D. 79); the ‘vessel’ being, of course, the bulging uterus, which contains the embryo.’ It was at least assimilated at a very early period (before 3000 B.C.) to other characters which unquestionably represent vessels in common use. And if the neck or throat could be symbolized by a vessel (bottle?; see Sign-list, No. 104), the trunk or belly might with equal justice be so signified. The second symbol, EST DUB, DIG, &c., was actually interchanged with the symbol for copper, and read URUDU (perhaps indicating an original sound URU-DUB = URU-DUG), and SHEN, apparently a kind of copper or bronze (C. 7. xii. 144; o. 7a). It shares the reading MES, ‘male’, ‘great’, ‘lordly’, ‘son’ (¢dlu, rub, miru) with the third character EVI, which itself is the common cuneiform representative of two or three originally distinct linear forms (D. 363; 419; ¢ 429). DUB means ‘to pour out’ water and other liquids, ritually or otherwise, and then ‘to pour (earth) in a heap’, to heap it up (é¢g. in embanking a canal or forming the nucleus of a rampart; hence it is also to surround or enclose and to mark off, as with a wall or other boundary). The idea of pouring out is appropriately symbolized by a vessel containing something indicated by one or more cross-lines, which is the linear form of the character (Szgv-lst, No. 49). The same idea of pouring out would also explain the extension of use by which the character for DUB was made to include the word MES, ‘male’ (of Num. xxiv. 7: Yop DMD bn), from which the transition of thought to ‘great one’, ‘hero’, &c., is easy and, in fact, usual; and also to MES, ‘son’ (méru ; M. 2605), as being the outpouring, 2.e. issue or seed of the male (cf A, ‘son’. Inscribed tablets of clay were also called DUB; a word which was written with the same character, though the reason for this use of the sign is hardly self-evident. Perhaps it is merely an instance of Phonetic Borrowing (see p. 23, Class vi). It might be said, of course, that the old linear forms (Szen-fs¢, No. 49) offer some resemblance to a square tablet with a stylus or writing-reed; but, as we have seen, that probably is not the original significance of the pictogram, but rather some vessel for pouring out liquids—a vessel with a narrow neck and a bulging or bulbous body. The third character, JY, when read MES, ‘ male’, appears to spring from an old symbol which is almost or altogether identical with that which we have been

considering (tL ; D. Suppl. 363), and therefore admitting of the same explanation. The readings SANGU, ‘priest’, and LAG, ‘offering’, go back to a different linear

symbol (iif ; D. 419), the pictorial significance of which is far from being evident * It is conceivable, and perhaps probable, that cf. p. xii, AG and GU(N). There is no doubt

the symbol was originally intended as a front view about the significance of the Egyptian hieroglyph of the female trunk, with protruding abdomen: , bk’, ‘pregnant’,