Cuneiform Sign SAL

The Sumerian value most associated with it is “woman” or “female.”

SAL is the sign-list name; MUNUS is a common Sumerian reading, glossed as “woman” or “female.” In a cuneiform line, the sign can work as a word-sign, mark a feminine personal name, or appear inside a compound. In MUNUS.KUR, it contributes to a term translated “female servant.”

By Uruk III, c. 3200–3000 BCE, a form identified with SAL appears in proto-cuneiform. Those clay records tracked goods, workers, and offices; signs were part of an early accounting system. As scribes moved from drawn forms toward wedge impressions, the sign's shape and range of readings developed. Babylonian tablets used SAL/MUNUS before some women's personal names as a feminine marker by about 1400 BCE. In later Akkadian, an ancient language of Babylonia and Assyria, MUNUS could serve as a Sumerogram: a Sumerian word-sign read as Akkadian sinništu, “woman.”

A stand-alone message has no fixed reading

If someone sent you 𒊩 alone, treat it as a cuneiform reference; the intended reading is unclear.

The sign has several historical values, so an isolated use does not settle which one the sender intends. If someone uses it to label a person, ask them to spell out the meaning; the sign by itself is too ambiguous to carry a clear modern gender label.

Period and font change how 𒊩 is drawn

Period and font affect how this sign is drawn.

Unicode's reference chart uses an Ur III style, while a tablet or sign list may show an earlier or later form. A visual difference across periods can reflect changing scribal forms rather than a typo or a different sign.

Encoding 𒊩 as one character identifies the sign; it does not capture one timeless outline. Compare the period and source before deciding that two shapes name different signs.