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July 13, 2006

An Ugaritic Text Written in Syllabic Cuneiform?

The other day I mentioned KTU 10.1 (RS 20.163). It is the only syllabic text from Ugarit that is possibly completely in the Ugaritic language. The tablet was first published by Nougayrol in Ugaritica V, 257. Perhaps the only thing that can be said for certain in that it is in a Semitic language and it is impossible to read it as Akkadian. However, it's not so easy to read as anything else either.

WARNING what follows is largely conjecture mixed with a couple of wild guesses. The question mark should be understood as the most important sign in both the readings and translations. And statements with caveats should be viewed as more important and accurate as statements without them; the more caveats the more accurate.

Three factors make any interpretation of this text problematic. 1. It is badly fragmented with the end of every line missing and the first few signs in many lines missing or broken. It also has lacuna in the middle of several lines. The last lines of the obverse and the first lines of the reverse are missing. 2. With the possible exception of line 8, it is not clear how words should be divided. 3. By any reasonable word division, there are several word and forms that are unattested in alphabetic Ugaritic. In addition, it has one or two forms that may be erroneous.

For the uninitiated, what follows may be hard going even by the standards of some of my other technical posts. I felt it highly misleading to simply offer a translation followed by technical notes when the notes where clearly more significant than the translation. Therefore, for each line, I present a transliteration of the syllabic text in so far as it can be read followed by a suggestion of how it would be written if written alphabetically. I then offer a preliminary translation and technical notes.

So here goes:

Obverse:

1) [     i]a-ab-şi-ru ar-zi-ma [     ]
[     ] ybşr arzm [     ]
[      ]He will cut down cedars [     ]

See Hebrew בצר. Following Huehnergard,114 and Sivan, 116. The root * bşr is unattested in alphabetic Ugaritic with this meaning but is known in Hebrew and Aramaic and possibly Arabic. 'arzima for cedars from 'rz is one of the less problematic words in this text. See Huehnergard,109. On arzima rather than the expected arzama see Huehnergard, 281 and 281 n 60. In any case, the plural is intended.

2) [     i]a-šu-bi-lu ša-bi[i-]l[i-ta(?)  ]
[     ]yšbl šbl[t(?)  ]
He will have brought (?) ears (of grain?)

Following Huehnergard,132, who reads "he will have brought" or "of mine, have brought" from the Š verb on *ybl, which he would vocalize yašōbilu or the like. This is, of course, a quite reasonable interpretation. On the other hand, see the Hebrew verb בלשׁ and the noun בלתשׁ. If one prefers this understanding, one would see a G- stem verb vocalized something like yašbilu, "he will pull down," and need to explain the vocalization. The root *šbl is only attested as the noun šblt (KTU 1.19 I:18) in alphabetic Ugaritic and the Š stem of ybl is not attested in alphabetic cuneiform texts.

3) [     ] ni-e-n[u(?)] l[a(?)    ]
[      ]‛yn? l[      ]
[      ] eye? not?[      ]

Following Huehnergard,159

4) [    ]a(?) la [       ]
[       ]? l [       ]
? not (?)

5) [     ]ra-a[h(?)    ]
[ ] ? [ ]

Several lines are missing from here to the end of the obverse.

Reverse:

Several lines are missing from the beginning of the reverse.

6) [d]a-(?)[-mu(?) TI(?)-r]u P[I(?) d]a-mu [la TI-ru (?)]
dm dr/dyr(?) w dm l dr/dyr(?)
Foul(?) blood and not foul(?) blood.

Huehnergard, 12, reads the sign that I read as PI as BI and does not attempt a reconstruction of the line. My reconstruction follows Dietrich, Loretz and Sanmartin, 605 and, with the exception of the PI, follows line 8. PI equaling wa is well attested. I follow Huehnergard, 118, who suggests TI-ru in line 8 is from a possible but unattested Ugaritic root *dyr and sites several cognates in Arabic, Hebrew and possibly Akkadian. While other choices are possible, da-mu (dm) meaning "blood," is by far the most likely.

7) la n[a(?)-w]a(?)-hi-ni la kiš-š[a-da-ni (??)  ]
l n[w]hn kš[dn   ]
He gives me no rest(???). He did not send [me away(???).  ]

I read n[a following Nougarol, 257 and Dietrich, Loretz and Sanmartin, 605. Taking the safest position, Huehnergard, 12, could not read any sign here. I also agree with Nougayrol, 257 and Dietrich, Loretz and Sanmartin, 605, who read w]a as opposed to Huehnergard, 12, who reads š]i. Huehnergard 's reading is indeed possible but leaves one without an acceptable option on how to read the whole word. I take the word to be naw(w)ahi-ni, an otherwise unattested D-stem perfect verb from the common root *nwh, "to rest" plus pronoun. I am concerned with the vocalization of naw(w)ahi-ni where I think one should see nawwaha-ni. On kiššada-ni, see Akkadian kašadu. I take it to be a D-stem perfect also and I read the more likely da where Nougayrol, 257 and Dietrich, Loretz and Sanmartin, 605 read di. But let me say again, any reading is completely conjectural.

8) [d]a-ma TI-ru da-mu la TI-r[u  ]
dm dr/dyr dm l dr/dyr[  ]
Foul(?) blood, not foul(?) blood[  ]

See note on line 6. As Huehnergard, 118, points out, this is the only line where the word division is reasonably certain.

9) [l]a-ša-na-ia ar-n[u  ]? l[a  ]
[l]šny a/‛/h/ħ(?)rn l[   ]
A(?)rnu will not [ ?? ] my tongue (??

Following Huehnergard, 132, 143 against Dietrich, Loretz and Sanmartin, 605, who follow Nougayrol, 257, in reading [l]a ša-na-ia ar-n[u ]? l[a ]. The only difference is that Huehnergard and I read the la as part of the work lašna, "tongue" while the others apparently took it to be the negative particle. But see Nougayrol, 257-258, note 1, where he indicates lšn in this line. Note that the Akkadian for "tongue" would be lišna. There are several options for the noun(?) ar-n[u: ’arnu, ‛arnu, harnu or ħarnu. (Note that I use ħ for het.) Of these, ħarnu is both the most attractive and perhaps the most problematic. Does ar-nu stands for the god ħrn? This god is known from several alphabetic Ugaritic texts (KTU 1.17 VI:55 among several other places). There are, of course, problems with this identification. If Horon is the same god then Ugaritic ħrn is known from the Hebrew Bible, בית חורן, (Joshua 10:11 passim) and on an ostracon from Tel Qasile and from Egyptian sources. Based on the occurrences in the Hebrew Bible one might expect the divine name to be ħōronu or the like as opposed to ħārnu. However, the Tel Qasile ostracon has בית חרן without the ו so one cannot be absolutely certain how it was pronounced in 8th(?) century BCE much less in the 13th century BCE. The so-called Canaanite shift might account for the vowel in the first syllable. But the whole process would have needed to be something like ħārnu > ħāran > ħōran > ħōron. There is more speculation than linguistics in this suggestion.

10) [l]a [i]a-ši-b[u] l[a] y[i(?)]-?[-]i(?)-ru ? [  ]
l yšb l y???????r[  ]
?

11) [y]a-bi-šu l[a-ma] ša-TI-i pa TI-r[u?]
ybš l[m] šd p tr
It withers on(?) the field and ? the generation(?)

On ybš meaning "dry" see Hebrew שׁיב. There is only room for a single sign after the l[a. The restoration of l[a-ma] which I take as an enclitic is purely speculative. On the basis of the polyglot vocabulary, RS 20.149 iii:5', we would expect li-i for the preposition. But, prior to a noun in the genitive, the negative particle does not seem to work as well as the preposition. I do follow Huehnergard, 180, in reading ša-TI-i as šd, "field" although I agree that it is very uncertain. Is the i intended to denote a long vowel, šadî? If this is the correct reading and word division, then šadî is in the genitive. I take TI-ru to stand for diru. However, one might expect dāru. Again, if this reading is the correct reading, diru is in the nominative.

12 [   š]i(?)-la-a bi ha-li [PI(?)] da-m[i  ]
[  š]lħ b hl [w(?)] dm
[  ]He gave/sent in suffering and(?) bloo[d.  ]

Note I use ħ for het and take it here to be represented by the A sign which would have been read ħa. Unlike Huehnergard, 12 and 122, who reads the first sign P]I = wa or Dietrich, Loretz and Sanmartin, 605 who read the sign y]a, I read š]i. I parse the word order differently than Huehnergard, 12 on the one hand or Dietrich, Loretz and Sanmartin, 605 on the other. Except for the first sign, my sign by sign reading is closer to Dietrich, Loretz and Sanmartin than Huehnergard. If my interpretation is correct, every word in this line is found in standard alphabetic cuneiform. The small lacuna between ha-li and da-m[i is large enough for the PI sign but no part of it can be read.

13) [   ]-ni-ka zu-m[u  ]
[     ] n k z m [    ]
?

Well, there you have it; not enough to determine the genre or even the subject of most of the verbs. No clear idea of the subject of most of the verbs. In the case of ar-nu being a subject we do not know the verb.

So, in what language is this text written? I suppose the best answer is still Ugaritic. I say this despite several vocabulary and forms that one does not see in the alphabetic texts. But there are other possibilities. The spelling conventions of this tablet remind me of the "plene" writing of Hurrian texts from Ugarit. Notice that there is only a single CVC sign in the extant portion of the text, KIŠ in line 7. So one might speculate that this text is written in the simple style of a foreign language. With such a small sample of writing, it is very hard to distinguish Ugaritic from other possibilities such as the proto-Phoenician like language of at least some of the texts in the short cuneiform alphabet. However, this proto-Phoenician like language may not be a good candidate because KTU 10.1 seems to have discriminated between h and ħ (het) and the language of the short cuneiform alphabetic texts did not. A large number of local dialects of Northwest Semitic languages more or less akin to Ugaritic were certainly spoken and written at Ugarit. We know, for example, that there was a fairly large community of Ashdodites at Ugarit but there were other people there also, perhaps speaking related languages of their own. But if my very tentative identification of ar-nu with the god ħōron is correct then it is more likely that the language of this text did not originate in Canaan. We are back where we began. The only thing that can be said with near certainty is that this text is not in Akkadian. And, of course, if this tablet is a school exercise then the reason for the "plene" writing may be completely different.

I haven't done an extensive search of secondary literature. I do have some on Horon that I may work into a future post but I have little on KTU 1:10. A cursory search didn't come up with anything too interesting. If anyone knows of something I should read on this tablet, please let me know. Also, any other ideas on how to understand the text on this tablet would be of abnormal interest.

Update: July 16, 2006

Fixed a couple of typos.

References:

Posted by Duane Smith at July 13, 2006 4:14 PM | Read more on Ugarit |

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