Notes on the Name Written DINGIR IŠ EL KU UŠ in Hittite TextsAuthor(s): Charles CarterSource: Journal of Near Eastern Studies, Vol. 39, No. 4 (Oct., 1980), pp. 313-314Published by: The University of Chicago PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/544335 .

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NOTES ON THE NAME WRITTEN DINGIR -1 EL KU U9 IN HITTITE TEXTS

CHARLES CARTER, The University of North Dakota, Grand Forks

ONE of the problems encountered in reading cuneiform tablets, particularly those from Mesopotamia, arises from the fact that a given sign can have more than one

phonetic value. In antiquity, this gave occasional opportunity to scribal creative

impulses, whimsey, and, sometimes, mischievousness. When we look at Hittite and the Hittite scribal practices, we note a tendency for one sign to have one phonetic value when used in writing Hittite, as distinct from non-Hittite, words. The problem of

reading a text in Hittite, then, is likely to be simpler than reading a text in Akkadian, given equal facility with both languages.

Because Hittite exhibits a tendency to simplify the matter of reading by limiting the phonetic value or values of signs, a grouping of signs into a word or words can pose a problem, in that one expects those signs to represent sounds that, for one or the other reason, seem not to ring true. I believe that the divine name found in KUB XII 2 i 20 and written with the signs DINGIR I9 EL KU U9 is a case in point. What little has been published on this name shows, more than anywhere else to my knowledge, the tendency to read the name in accordance with the first, or normal, Hittite values of the signs and to interpret it accordingly. Thus, Laroche claims that it is "necessary" to call to mind Akkadian ILKU = Hittite 8ahhan-, "tribute," and the divine name gahha'ara- (a goddess).1 He reads the name as DINGIR-iv El-ku-uv, and notes the incomplete DEl-ku[ in XII 61 iii 10, which is now to be restored to DElkunirsa according to the duplicate, CTH 242.2. Questions about the reading proposed by Laroche were raised by Sommer in Ahhiyava- Urkunden 2 before Laroche made his suggestion. Moreover, Laroche was aware of Sommer's critique, as the footnote in Recherches shows. Sommer had already and quite correctly pointed out that the layout of the text predisposes one to "expect" that the DINGIR sign is a determinative. In addition, Sommer noted that, if indeed the DINGIR sign is a logogram, we should expect DINGIR-LIM-iX , not DINGIR-it.3 Again, if, as we have reason to expect, DINGIR is a determinative, then the sign iv cannot normally be thought to be a part of it, but must be a part of the divine name following that determinative. Another objection to Laroche's reading has to do with the last three signs of the name, which he reads ELK US. Laroche treats it as Akkadian, but ELKUS is not an Akkadian form, nor can it be read as Laroche states, ELKU-uv for vahhanuv; -uv is not a Hittite phonetic complement for vahhan-. Thus, at this point, it would seem that we have the determinative, DINGIR, plus the name, Iselku-, which apparently is neither Hittite nor Akkadian.

[JNES 39 no. 4 (1980)]

? 1980 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved.

0022-2968/80/3904-0005$01.00.

1 E. Laroche, Recherches sur les noms des dieux hittites (RHA 7/46 [1946-47]), pp. 80.

2 F. Sommer, Die Ahhijavd- Urkunden (Munich, 1932), p. 340, with n. 1.

3 Ibid. and idem, in Kleinasiatische Forschung 1 (1930): 341.

313

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314 THE NAME WRITTEN DINGIR 19 EL KU U9 IN HITTITE TEXTS

Further material pertinent to this matter can be found in HT 14 10, where the name, DI kus, is found. It is not completely out of the question to think of this as a misspelling for DIelkus where the sign el has been omitted. To be sure, the sign read is is not a clear is in HT 14 10. It might be taken as a poorly written il, in which case a reading DINGIR

IL-KU-I? (in HT 14 10, the last sign in the name is a better is than us) is conceivable, and this could be the same as Laroche's DINGIR-is EL-K U- U9. Be that as it may, the

preceding objections raised against Laroche's reading of the name in XII 2 i 20 remain, and they cannot be any more satisfactorily answered for the material in HT 14. The

name, DIfku', however, is found written as DIkun in a number of other places, and was first published long after the appearance of HT 14 by L. Jakob-Rost in "Zu den hethitischen Bildbeschreibungen,''4 and in KUB XXXVIII.5 In her MIO article's index to divine names, she is apparently inclined to think that the names DI elkus and

DI'ku' belong together as variant spellings of one name.6 Aside from similarities in the

spelling of the names, there is nothing substantive in terms of iconic attributes or festival affairs, either in XXXVIII, HT 14 10, or XII 2 i 20, to support this identification.

Up to this point we might say we have what is either two spellings for one divine name, or two different names. _Ielkus is not satisfactorily explicable in terms of either Hittite or Akkadian. I8kus is not much more satisfactory. But, some indication of the direction to take in order to ease the difficulties encountered so far can be found in what at first

glance seems to be an out-of-the-way place, viz., J. J. Stamm's Die akkadische Namenge-

bung.7 Among many other things, Stamm treats personal names containing the elements I?KU = "child," "son," and MILKU, a West-Semitic word meaning "king," "prince." He gives reasons for preferring one element in some cases, and the other word in other names.8 Moreover, aside from the obvious merits of his conclusions in terms of Akkadian

onomastics, Stamm has also noted something that Hittitologists have known but over- looked up to now in connection with the divine name that is the subject of this paper; that is, that the sign is can be read mil. If we read the sign as mil, then IJ-el-ku-us becomes Milel-ku-uv, with el as phonetic complement, and I-ku-uv becomes Mil-ku-us. Thus, both spellings would, as was earlier suspected, represent one name. This same divine name is found written DMi-il-ku-uu in KUB XXXVIII 16 obv. 9. Here it is not

inappropriate to note even that the traces in the copy show that the scribe may very well have started to write the name as DIv/Milil-ku-u; there is an erasure after the DINGIR sign. The traces show two horizontals running into the winkelhacken that

begins the mi sign. Thus, the scribe may have begun to write the is/mil sign, erased it, and then written what is now in the text. So, we have not three different divine names, Ivelku-,

Icku-, and Millcu-, but one, i.e., Millcu-, written now Milel-ku-u, again Mil-ku,

and finally Mi-il-ku.

4L. Jakob-Rost, "Zu den hethitischen Bild- beschreibungen (I. Teil)," MIO 8 (1962): 161-217; idem, "Zu den hethitischen Bildbeschreibungen (II. Teil)," MIO 9 (1963): 175-239.

9 KUB XXXVIII 6 i 12, 15, 23; iii 5; iv 3, ii, 21; 10 iv 15.

6 Jakob-Rost, "Zu den hethitischen Bildbeschrei- bungen (II. Teil)," p. 212.

7 J. J. Stamm, Die akkadische Namengebung (Leipzig, 1939).

8 Ibid., p. 292, n. 2.

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