*23M

HT 30, HT 114a and HT 121 set it after VIN in whole numbers (1, 3, 3); KH 87 *23M 1, GO Wc 1b *23M 5, and the roundel KH Wc 2069 bears it alone. TU, which counts cattle products in fractions, never shares a tablet with it. mūru ‘young bull, head of cattle’, MU writing its ū: Akk. mūru ‘foal (donkey or horse); calf’, from Old Akkadian on (CAD M/2 229–30; eBL mūru I ‘young animal; young bull; foal’). Middle Assyrian ledgers write it with the ox determinative, {gu₄}mu-ru{nita₂} ‘young bull’ (MARV 2 6), and count it by head: 67 mu-ru ša MU ‘67 calves, yearlings’ (KAJ 289:11); the calf sense runs on into Neo-Assyrian, so the Cretan form needs no early split of foal and calf. Ug. mrủ ‘fattened, fatling’ (DULAT 563); Heb. מְרִיא mǝrīʾ ‘fatted steer’ (1 Kgs 1:9; Amos 5:22). Rival: *ʾalpu ‘cattle’ (2113), with the sign a picture, not an abbreviation. See MU-RU.