Cuneiform Sign Ku3

KU3/KUG can mean metal or silver, or “pure,” “holy,” and “shining.”

Cuneiform is the wedge-mark writing system used in ancient Mesopotamia; Sumerian was one of the languages written in it. The earliest lexical evidence for this sign reaches Early Dynastic I–II, an early Mesopotamian period when cuneiform served city administration. Later, Akkadian scribes borrowed it as a logogram—a written sign that stands for a whole word—for silver or purity.

KU3.GI (𒆬𒄀) is a documented compound for gold in Akkadian logographic writing. Unicode Standard 16.0.0 notes that cuneiform fonts may be designed for different historical periods, so this sign can look different across fonts.