Cuneiform Numbers and Punctuation

In Unicode, the Sumero-Akkadian Cuneiform script is covered in three blocks in the Supplementary Multilingual Plane (SMP): The sample glyphs in the chart file published by the Unicode Consortium[3] show the characters in their Classical Sumerian form (Early Dynastic period, mid 3rd millennium BCE).

[4] The base character inventory is derived from the list of Ur III signs compiled by the Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative of UCLA based on the inventories of Miguel Civil, Rykle Borger (2003), and Robert Englund.

The following table allows matching of Borger's 1981 and 2003 numbering with Unicode characters [5] The "primary" transliteration column has the glyphs' Sumerian values as given by the official glyph name, slightly modified here for legibility by including traditional assyriological symbols such as "x" rather than "TIMES".

The exact Unicode names can be unambiguously recovered by prefixing, "CUNEIFORM [NUMERIC] SIGN", replacing "TIMES" for "x", "PLUS" for "+" and "OVER" for "/", "ASTERISK" for "*", "H" for "Ḫ", "SH" for "Š", and switching to uppercase.

The following Unicode-related documents record the purpose and process of defining specific characters in the Cuneiform Numbers and Punctuation block: