Ia (cuneiform)

In Akkadian, the form is "Šarru-Bēlu-ia"-(King-Lord-mine), since the spelling in some Amarna letters is sometimes ŠÁR-RI for Šarru, (LUGAL = ŠÁR).

It is listed in Parpola's Glossary (Parpola, 1971), for Akkadian language words: meaning "mine", "(to) me", and "me", and one usage for the word "battering ram", iašubů.

[1] Besides the usage of Akkadian language words beginning with ia, the common examples of — iāši, "(to) me", iāti, "me", iā'u, "mine",[2] and iānu,[3] "there is not", (often ia-a-nu), "ia" is used in the Introduction Paragraph, to the Pharaoh.

The statement is often in the possessive form as a suffix, -ia-(iYa), starting at the very beginning of the letter, and sometimes repeated in lines to follow, or in later paragraphs: The suffix form is common throughout all sections of the Amarna letters.

In those letters, the suffix -ia is used especially with the word 'brother': "Brother-mine", the cuneiform for brother being used as the sumerogram: ŠEŠ (brother Sumerogram), since šeš (cuneiform) in the Epic of Gilgamesh is also used for: sis, šes, šeš, šiš, and "ŠEŠ (brother Sumerogram)".

Cuneiform sign for ia .
(reading left-to-right)
line 1, 2nd sign ia , line 2, 1st sign, LUGAL,
line 3, 1st sign "and"-( Ù ), 3rd sign, a .
(high resolution, expandible photo)