Ama-gi

File:Ama-gi.svg

Template:Cuneiform ama-gi₄ written in Classical Sumerian cuneiform

Ama-gi is a Sumerian word written Template:Cuneiform ama-gi₄ or Template:Cuneiform ama-ar-gi₄. Sumerians used it to refer to release from obligations, debt, slavery, taxation, or punishment. Ama-gi has been regarded as the first known written reference to the concept of freedom, and has been used in modern times as a symbol for libertarianism.

Sumerian use

File:Foundation stone Louvre AO24414.jpg

Enmetena's foundation stone contains the first known mention of the word Ama-gi

Ama-gi has been translated as "freedom", as well as "manumission", "exemption from debts or obligations",<ref name="Halloran2006">Template:Cite book</ref> and "the restoration of persons and property to their original status" including the remission of debts.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Other interpretations include a "reversion to a previous state"<ref name="ePSD">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> and release from debt, slavery, taxation or punishment.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

The word originates from the noun ama "mother" (sometimes with the enclitic dative case marker ar), and the present participle gi₄ "return, restore, put back", thus literally meaning "returning to mother".<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Assyriologist Samuel Noah Kramer has identified it as the first known written reference to the concept of freedom. Referring to its literal meaning "return to the mother", he wrote in 1963 that "we still do not know why this figure of speech came to be used for 'freedom'."<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

The earliest known usage of the word was in the decree of Enmetena restoring "the child to his mother and the mother to her child."<ref name="Lemche2014">Template:Cite book</ref> By the Third Dynasty of Ur, it was used as a legal term for the manumission of individuals.<ref name="Lemche2014"/>

In some cuneiform texts, it is translated by the Akkadian word andurāru(m), meaning "freedom", "exemption" and "release from (debt) slavery".<ref name="ePSD"/><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name="BlackGeorge2000">Template:Cite book</ref>

Modern libertarian use

A number of libertarian organizations have adopted the cuneiform glyph as a symbol claiming it is "the earliest-known written appearance of the word 'freedom' or 'liberty.'"<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> It is used as a logo by the Instituto Político para la Libertad of Peru,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> the New Economic School – Georgia,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Libertarian publishing firm Liberty Fund,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> and was the name and logo of the journal of the London School of Economics' Hayek Society.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> British musician Frank Turner and Alberta premier Danielle Smith have the symbol tattooed on their forearms.