ŠEŠ
Unicode character
The cuneiform ŠEŠ sign, as a capital letter (majuscule), is a Sumerogram for Akkadian language ahu, for "brother". It is the cuneiform sign for ŠEŠ, as it can be used for a variety of lower case syllabic values, using š + vowel + š, (or replacement s+vowel+s). Sumerogram ŠEŠ has a high usage in the mid-14th century BC, ~1350-1330 BC Amarna letters from the brother kingdoms to the Pharaoh's Egypt (Egypt named Mizri in the letters). The brother kingdoms were Babylon, Alashiya, and Mittanni, where King Tushratta authored 13 El Amarna letters.
The Sumerogram ŠEŠ, and its syllabic uses (sis through šiš) are also found in the Epic of Gilgamesh, with usage numbers as follows: sis-(3 time), šes-(6), šeš-(3), šiš-(1), ŠEŠ-(6).
As an example of the high usage of sumerogramic use in the Amarna letters, Amarna letter EA 19 from Tushratta, for 13 paragraphs
averages about three uses per paragraph, 40 uses of ŠEŠ in the entire letter. For letter EA 35 from the King of Alashiya, for a total of thirteen paragraphs, the Sumerogram is used 27 times.
Construction of the sign
The ŠEŠ sign is constructed by the addition of two wedges (an upper wedge positioned above a lower wedge), at the end of the cuneiform sign for "man", LÚ (man Sumerogram).
References
Moran, William L. 1987, 1992. The Amarna Letters.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “ŠEŠ” as unicode character. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as unicode character. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Feb 17, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q87556389. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1350, 1330, 1987 and 1992.
Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “ŠEŠ” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.