Cuneiform is one of the earliest systems of writing, emerging in Sumer in the late fourth millennium BC.
Archaic versions of cuneiform writing, including the Ur III (and earlier, ED III cuneiform of literature such as the Barton Cylinder) are not included due to extreme complexity of arranging them consistently and unequivocally by the shape of their signs;[1] see Early Dynastic Cuneiform for the Unicode block.
The columns within the list contain: In MesZL, signs are sorted by their leftmost parts, beginning with horizontal strokes (single AŠ, then stacked TAB, EŠ16), followed by the diagonals GE23 and GE22, the Winkelhaken U and finally the vertical DIŠ.
The relevant shape for the classification of a sign is the Neo-Assyrian one (after ca.
Note that the actual shape displayed by default by browsers as of 2024 is from a much earlier period during the heyday of Sumerian culture in the 3rd millennium BC.