Cuneiform sign E times PAP

A compound sign historically tied to pa₅, a secondary canal.

The earliest pa₅ spelling appears in copies of a written text called Word List C from Early Dynastic IIIa, an early Mesopotamian period also called the Fara period; the copies date to 2575–2475 BCE. Earlier copies use the sign A. The spelling names a secondary or lower-rank canal, a distinction used in irrigation administration. Scholars differ on what the sign's parts depict: Maeda reads E×PAP as a canal plus a cross; Steinkeller connects them to an embankment and a ditch.

In ED IIIb/Presargonic (the Early Dynastic IIIb period), records from Lagaš, an ancient Mesopotamian city, use pa₅ in canal names and administrative texts. In records from third-millennium Ebla, accounting entries use E×PAP for a term conventionally translated as a funerary ceremony—a ceremony for the dead—though its exact meaning is debated. Read the surrounding language and period before translating it.

Why is E×PAP different from PAP.E?

E×PAP is one sign; PAP.E writes two signs in sequence.

In cuneiform transliteration, × groups the named components into one sign; the dot in PAP.E writes two signs separately, in that order. Fara copies show PAP.E more often, and an inscription of Urnanše preserves that order. For a digital edition, follow the form specified by its transliteration or sign list.

Unicode represents cuneiform signs as abstract characters across historical styles. A font draws a representative glyph, not a tablet facsimile from one period; a different outline can still encode the same sign.