Cuneiform numeral three GESHU

It marks 1,800, not decimal three.

The cuneiform 1,800 sign reads 3(gešu): three groups of 600 in the sexagesimal, or base-60, series. Administrative records put numerals before a sign for the thing counted—grain, beer, area, or time—so the units depend on what was measured.

How did cuneiform numerals begin?

They grew from early accounting in southern Mesopotamia.

Proto-cuneiform—the earliest stage of cuneiform writing—appears on Uruk tablets around 3300 BCE. Those records tracked deliveries and expenses with several number systems, including sexagesimal counting. That dates the counting tradition, not this exact encoded sign or its present outline.

Sumerian and Akkadian scribes continued sexagesimal counting; later Babylonian mathematical texts used place value, where a numeral’s position contributes to its value. Proto-Elamite sexagesimal counting also appears in records from Susa, but Proto-Elamite was a separate script, not a form of cuneiform.

Why does 𒐠 look different in different fonts?

Cuneiform signs changed shape across periods and places.

Unicode preserves an abstract sign identity, not one fixed tablet drawing. Scribes shaped wedges differently by region, period, and writing style, and fonts choose representative outlines. A blank box means the active font lacks this sign; a font with cuneiform coverage can display it.