Cuneiform sign DARA4

Context chooses its reading; the sign has no single translation.

The DARA4 meaning depends on the Sumerian word and setting. One branch is dara₄, “red” or “brown,” associated with blood; in livestock terminology, dara₄/dara₃ can name a wild goat or ibex. A sign name identifies a written sign, not one fixed English word.

An early form catalogued as DARA4~a1 appears on a clay administrative tag from Uruk IV (ca. 3350–3200 BCE), when early cuneiform served practical recordkeeping. The color reading is attested from Early Dynastic IIIa through the Persian period.

How do I read DARA4 in a cuneiform text?

Read the neighboring signs and identify the text’s period.

In Ur III livestock records, dara₄ means wild goat or ibex. The form a-dara₄ describes a hybrid between a domestic goat and a wild one; translating it simply as “goat” loses that distinction.

Cuneiform fonts may use designs modeled on Ur III, Old Babylonian, or Neo-Assyrian styles. Wedge angles and proportions can change without changing the sign’s Unicode identity. A cuneiform-aware sign-list input method can map a value like DARA4 to the character, but the transliteration does not choose an English gloss.