gig-ga: gig is the value of MI suggested by the phonetic complement ga.
gig: the sign is composed of the corner wedge U and the sign TATTAB and means “darkness”. The sign really signifies “entering into depression”. gi perhaps is a dialectism for mi.
ga = phonetic complement, sag gig-ga means a race of men, evidently here the Babylonians, the people in particular over whom Bêl exercised rule. The term is certainly not one of depreciation. It merely shows that the Babylonians were swarthy. On the other hand, “blackheaded” may be intended to mean the human race inhabiting the earth in contradistinction to the bright celestial beings (see CDAL. 878). Cyrus, in his Broken Cylinder, seems to use the phrase as meaning the Babylonians. His words are: nišê ṣal-mat ḳaḳḳadi šá ú-šá-ak-ši-du ḳa-ta-a-šu. “The blackheaded people whom he caused his hands to conquer” (V R. 35, 13).
[6.] a-a dimmer Mu-ul-lil i-de gaba nì-te-na
O father Bêl, the only all-seeing one!
i-de, phonetic representation of ide, which in the EK dialect is represented by the sign IGÛ with the value igi which in Assyrian means înu, “eye” (Br. 4004, 4003 and 9273). ide is ES for the EK igi. We have the sign IGÛ in the colophon where it occurs with ÂU, “water”, a-ide meaning “water of the eye”.
i is represented by GIṬṬÛ (“five”). The value i, however, is, of course, entirely syllabic here. Notice that there is a slight difference between the Babylonian GIṬṬÛ and the Assyrian GIṬṬÛ. In Assyrian, GIṬṬÛ consists of two wedges followed by three. In Babylonian it consists of three followed by two, and in the linear form the sign consists of three horizontal lines followed by two (see AL. p. 125, No. 105).
de represented by IZÛ and having the value bil means “fire”. The sign in its hieroglyphic form is probably a picture of building a fire by the friction of an instrument against a piece of wood. Hence the sign is properly composed of AM and GIŠ, AM representing something having a head and GIŠ meaning “wood”. The sign in our text is old Babylonian and may be found in Gudea (Cylinder B, Col. IV, line 13, in Déc. Plate 34). Possibly i-de could be explained as if i were an abstract prefix and de as referring to the light of the eye, hence i-de means “eye”.
gaba is the common word for irtu, “breast” (Br. 4477). The sign GABBU is a double MU-sign meaning “fulness”. From this idea of “fulness” we easily derive the idea of “open” (Br. 4490). So that ide gaba means “open eyed”. The two MU’s appear entirely separate in the Babylonian form of the sign as they do not in the Assyrian form (see TC. p. 18). Our GABBU is not so old as the GABBU of the Stèleo des Vauturs, but is like Gudea’s GABBU (see Cylinder A, Cob XXI, line 25, in Déc. Plate 34). i-de gaba is about equal to “omniscient”.
nì-te-na may be rendered as in [line 1], “thyself,” or perhaps we could say “only”.