Cuneiform Sign Gu2 Gunu

It has several scholarly readings, not one fixed translation.

Sign lists catalogue 𒄝 as GU₂@g and assign readings such as mudₓ, munsub₄, musub₄, usaₓ, and usan₂. These are specialist readings, not five everyday definitions; the surrounding text, period, and scribal tradition narrow down which one applies.

One historical spelling, PA.USAN, names an animal-management profession. Its evidence points especially to cattle and equids; later lexical lists connect related spellings with a shepherd or a keeper who leads donkeys and horses. The sign’s resemblance to GU₂ is not enough to translate it as “neck” or “strength.”

Why does this sign have several readings?

Its history shows changing scribal conventions, not a proven descent from GU₂. In this sign-name, gunû labels added strokes; it does not translate the whole sign.

An administrative text from Early Dynastic IIIa, an early period in Mesopotamian history, uses PA.USAN at Abu Salabikh around 2600 BCE. The tablet mentions a cow, adult and young oxen, and a field allocation, placing the spelling in animal management.

The spelling continues in later third-millennium BCE material and survives mainly in lexical lists by the second millennium BCE. Those lists also write related forms as GU₂×NUN or GU₂.NUN. PA.USAN also appears in the Ur III period, under Ur’s Third Dynasty. The early USAN sign can resemble GU₂ without having originated from it.