Graphic showing the historical development of the Sumerian sign GEME (Akkadian amtu), Borger no. 558, from the origins of the cuneiform writing system to its later stages.

Upper left

One of the earliest forms of the cuneiform sign used to write GEME (the Sumerian word for "female slave"). It can be seen that it is compounded from the MUNUS / SAL cuneiform sign (a schematized drawing of the female pubic triangle, with the basic meaning "woman") and the KUR cuneiform sign (a schematized drawing of hills, with the basic meaning "mountains"), apparently because slaves were imported to Mesopotamia from the mountainous Zagros area at that period.

Upper right

Early Sumerian version of the sign, after the orientation of writing started to change, from a top-to-bottom direction along vertical columns to a left-to-right direction along horizontal rows. This change apparently took a long time to be fully completed (so that forms of the sign at upper right and middle left could also sometimes be rotated clockwise 90°).

Middle left and middle right

Later forms of the sign (second millennium BCE), after pictographic drawings gave way to abstract wedge shapes.

Lower left and lower right

Variant renderings of the late Assyrian (first millennium BCE) form of the sign, after the cuneiform script was changed so that the "head" of a wedge was generally never below or to the right of its "tail".