Cuneiform Sign Mug

MUG points chiefly to wool or clothing, but context decides the reading.

Uppercase MUG is a scholarly sign label, not the English word “mug.” The earliest lexical attestations are in Early Dynastic IIIa, an early Sumerian period, where mug refers to a lower grade of wool; the term also appears in later Mesopotamian records. Wool and cloth were goods recorded and managed in household and institutional accounts. No direct ancestor in proto-cuneiform, the earliest stage of cuneiform writing, has been securely identified as of 2025; similar early shapes do not prove a line of descent.

Why does MUG have several readings?

One sign can write a whole word or supply a sound in a word.

In Sumerian, 𒈮 can denote a lower grade of wool; after a garment marker—a sign that identifies a word as clothing-related—it contributes to a garment term. Other documented contexts connect it with scented substances, a needle, ergot, genitals, or a mast. Akkadian, another language written in cuneiform, also used the inherited Sumerian sign inventory, so the language and neighboring signs help determine the value.

𒈯, MUG gunû, is a separately marked sign. 𒈣𒈮 (MA₂.MUG) and 𒋆𒈮 (ŠIM.MUG) are compounds with readings for their full sequences.