hing to the signs used it is frequently difficult definitely to
determine the reading of the names. Our knowledge of the ancient Sumerian
language is still quite imperfect, despite the considerable progress made,
more particularly during recent years. It is therefore not surprising that
scholars should differ considerably in the reading of Sumerian names, where
we have not helps at our command as for Babylonian and Assyrian names.
Changes in the manner of reading the Sumerian names are frequent. Thus the
name of a king of Ur, generally read Ur-Bau until quite recently, is now
read Ur-Engur; for Lugal-zaggisi, a king of Erech, some scholars still
prefer to read Ungal-zaggisi; the name of a famous political and religious
centre generally read Shir-pur-la is more probably to be read Shir-gul-la;
and so forth. There is reason, however, to believe that the uncertainty in
regard to many of these names will eventually be resolved into reasonable
certainty. A doubt also still exists in regard to a number of names of the
older period because of the uncertainty whether their bearers were
Sumerians or Semites. If the former, then their names are surely to be read
as Sumerian, while, if they were Semites, the signs with which the names
are written are probably to be read according to their Semitic equivalents,
though we may also expect to encounter Semites bearing genuine Sumerian
names. At times too a doubt may exist in regard to a name whose bearer was
a Semite, whether the signs composing his name represent a phonetic reading
or an ideographic compound. Thus, _e.g._ when inscriptions of a Semitic
ruler of Kish, whose name was written Uru-mu-ush, were first deciphered,
there was a disposition to regard this as an ideographic form and to read
phonetically Alu-usharshid ("he founded a city," with the omission of the
name of the deity), but scholarly opinion finally accepted Uru-mu-ush
(Urumush) as the correct designation.

For further details regarding the formation of Sumerian and
Babylonian-Assyrian proper names, as well as for an indication of the
problems involved and the difficulties still existing, especially in the
case of Sumerian names,[35] see the three excellent works now at our
disposal for the Sumerian, the old Babylonian, and the neo-Babylonian
period respectively, by Huber, _Die Personennamen in den
Keilschrifturkunden aus der Zeit der Koenige von Ur und Nisin_ (Leipzig,
1907); Ranke, _Early Babylonian Proper Names_ (P