Cuneiform Sign E₂×U

It has several readings, not one fixed translation. Sign lists assign dagₓ, sadₓ, and ulaₓ to this one composite sign; they are alternative values, not separate characters.

A Sumerian word-list entry gives 𒂓 the reading dagₓ in ŋala dag, a phrase translated “cease.” Ŋala dag is a scholarly Latin-letter transcription of cuneiform; “cease” translates the phrase, not the sign by itself.

When did cuneiform begin, and what does that tell us here?

It dates cuneiform as a whole, not this individual sign. The earliest cuneiform writing in southern Mesopotamia is attested around 3500–3200 BCE, in clay records of goods and quantities for administration. Scribes later adapted the script to write Sumerian, Akkadian, and other languages.

What does × mean in E₂×U?

It marks structural analysis, not multiplication. Cuneiform sign labels can describe a composite through its component signs; E₂×U is this kind of label, not an arithmetic instruction.

Cuneiform charts offer reference forms rather than prescribing one outline from an ancient tablet. Fonts can draw the same encoded sign differently; a changed outline alone does not make it a different sign.