Cuneiform Sign U2

In Sumerian, U₂ usually names grass or another plant.

U₂ is the scholarly Latin-letter label for this sign. Cuneiform took shape in Uruk around 3500–3200 BCE as record-keeping grew; scribes formed its marks over time by pressing a stylus, a pointed writing tool, into clay. A word-list tablet from Shuruppak, a Sumerian city, dated ca. 2600–2500 BCE, preserves U₂. A livestock receipt from the later Sumerian Ur III period uses it in a phrase translated “fed on grass.”

Depending on the Sumerian word, U₂ can refer to grass, an herb, a plant, pasture, or food. In Akkadian writing, it can sit before a plant name as a determinative—a sign that classifies the following word rather than spelling its sound. Regional and period styles can draw the same sign differently. Its reading depends on language, its place in a word, and nearby signs.