LU2 (or LÚ) = šá ("he who") is a comprehensive list of Mesopotamian professions, that ran to several thousand lines over five Tablets in the first millennium. The general organisation of the list was hierarchical, so that the first entries listed rulers (king, prince and all other names that were given to him), followed by his ministers, advisers and then the queen and the princesses.
The oldest versions date from the end of the fourth millennium, and it progressively becomes more bilingual in the second half of the second millennium. Almost all Sumerian entries from the earlier versions are kept in the first millennium ones, even professions that no longer existed. Another characteristic of the first-millennium list is the numerous Akkadian synonyms given to some of the Sumerian entries. Some of them are so obsolete and rare that they only occur in this list. It thus illustrates the aim of preserving the old Sumerian tradition, through the transmission of highly specific knowledge.
Such an aim, however, better characterizes the second phase of scribal education. Indeed LU2 belonged to both phases, as did UR5.RA. During the first phase, teaching focused on the first Tablet. There were also abridged versions of LU2 which were better fitted to scribal needs for everyday practice. Those shorter lists are nowadays thus called "Practical LU2", in order to distinguish them from the longer list of professions.
The list of professions LU2 (or LÚ) = šá was not systematically taught in first-millennium scribal schools. It is then not surprising to find only five manuscripts in the four CAMS/GKAB "libraries": one in Kalhu, one in Huzirina (STT 2, 373 [/cams/gkab/P338688]) and three in Uruk.
Marie-Françoise Besnier
Marie-Françoise Besnier, 'The list of professions LÚ = šá', The Geography of Knowledge, The GKAB Project, 2019 [http://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/cams/gkab/Scribalapprenticeship/Lexicallists/PhaseI/Listofprofessions/]