Lexical lists

The cuneiform lexical lists are a series of ancient Mesopotamian glossaries which preserve the semantics of Sumerograms, their phonetic value and their Akkadian or other language equivalents. They are the oldest literary texts from Mesopotamia and one of the most widespread genres in the ancient Near East. Wherever cuneiform tablets have been uncovered, inside Iraq or in the wider Middle East, these lists have been discovered.
History.
The earliest lexical lists are the archaic (early third millennium BC) word lists uncovered in caches of business documents and which comprise lists of nouns, the absence of verbs being due to their sparse use in these records of commercial transactions. The most notable text is , a list of professions which would be reproduced for the next thousand years until the end of the Old Babylonian period virtually unchanged. Later third millennium lists dating to around 2600 BC have been uncovered at Fara and Abū Ṣalābīkh, including the "Fara God List", the earliest of this genre. The tradition continued until the end of the Ur III period, after which marked changes in the form of the texts took place. This era, the Old Babylonian period, saw the emergence of the 5-ra = "hubullu" themed list. Similarly, lists of complex signs and polyvalent symbols emerged to support a more nuanced scribal training.
The Kassite or the Middle Babylonian period shows that scribal schools actively preserved the lexical traditions of the past and there is evidence of the canonization of some texts, such as izi = "išātu" and Ká-gal = "abullu". The works 7+ (ulutim) = "nabnītu" and Erim-huš = "anantu" are thought to have been composed at this time. The first millennium BC represents a further expansion and refinement of the texts and the introduction of commentaries and synonym lists.
Function and typology.
Lexical lists fall within one or more of the following broad categories:
The extant texts can be classified by typology as follows:
This would also have included wax-covered writing boards, examples of which have regrettably not survived.
List of lexical and synonym lists.
The following provides a listing of the various synonym, lexical and grammatical lists whose occurrences have yielded a name used in antiquity or significance has resulted in a designation in modern Assyriology, where the "MSL" (Materialem zum sumerischen Lexikon / Materials for the Sumerian Lexikon) or other references in square parentheses give the primary publication of the lexical texts, the synonym texts not qualifying for inclusion in this (MSL) series.
Generically identified Neo-Babylonian grammatical texts (NBGT) and Old-Babylonian grammatical texts (OBGT) have been omitted.