Previously Unidentified Hurrian Words in Nuzi Texts

1. HSS 14, 14: 15 [m]i-lu-ul-ti-in, 30 mi-lu-ul-ti-[in]

HSS 14, 14 is a letter sent by the king of Arrapḫe to a man called Šar-Teššub, who bears the title emanduġlu “commander of ten (men)”. The king orders Šar-Teššub to organize an expedition led by the šukkallu and the šangû to the city of Apena, where they have to perform a number of tasks. For the organisation of the whole venture, the king issues several orders, some addressed to Šar-Teššub, and some for Šar-Teššub to pass on to other people.

A copy of the text was published in 1950, and it has been dealt with by a number of scholars.^[1] However, some details of the episode reported in the letter remain unclear. An example of this is found around lines 15 and 30, where the same unclear word appears. The relevant excerpts are reproduced here:

⁽¹²⁾ u ₃ dumu kin i-na an.za.gar₃na-⸢wi⸣-ia⁽¹³⁾li-il-li-ka₄⁽¹⁴⁾u₃ šu-ur-ru-um-ma⁽¹⁵⁾[m]i-lu-ul-ti-in

“May a messenger come to the district of Nawiya and immediately mi-lu-ul-ti-in”.^[2]

⁽²⁸⁾ ki-me-e dumu kin ša ^uru a-be-na ⁽²⁹⁾ i-na ugu -ka ₄ ik-šu-u[d] ⁽³⁰⁾u₃ mi-lu-ul-ti-[in]

“As soon as the messenger from (lit. of) Apena will have arrived in your charge, then mi-lu-ul-ti-in”.

The last word of both passages was dealt with in different ways in earlier research. Jankowska (1969: 276–277) transliterated the sequences of signs as mi-lu ul ti-šar and translated them as “the high water is not brought into/put in order”. Her suggestion was not followed by other researchers. Chow (1974: 145) left the word untranslated. Deller and Fadhil (1972: 211–212) considered that the most plausible reading of the last sign was sar, but they did not include it in the interpretation of the word, and they linked mi-lu-ul-ti to the Akkadian mēlultum “game, play”. They translated: “veranstalte(?) ein Freudenfest”. This suggestion was followed by the CAD (M2: 16a – it would be the only attestation of this word in Nuzi) and Löhnert (2015: 340). Deller and Fadhil’s suggestion was also followed by Kendall who, however, did include the last sign of the word. Kendall’s solution was to suggest that mi-lu-ul-ti-in represented a dual of mēlultum (Kendall 1974: 29 fn. 35), and he translated: “immediately two games (begin?)”.

None of these suggestions offers a convincing interpretation. The mention of water does not seem to match the topic addressed in the text, Deller and Fadhil’s suggestion does not take the last sign of the word into account, and the use of a dual would be unusual in a Late Bronze Age text. In my opinion, the word is best understood as a Hurrian verb in the imperative mood, that could be parsed as follows:

mi/el-ol-d-i=n(na)

R-RC₁-RC₂-IMP.Trans.=PRON3Sg.ABS

The meaning of this verb form is unclear, not least because the semantics of the two root complements are not known.^[3] However, a suggestion can be made for the root, thus allowing us to understand the general meaning of the verb. The form mi/eloldin from HSS 14, 14 can perhaps be linked to the construction melumma epēšum, which is also attested in Nuzi (Richter 2012: 250a).^[4] The meaning of this expression is not entirely clear either, but one of the suggested meanings seems to be particularly relevant here, namely “jemanden oder etwas veranlassen, einen Ort in Richtung auf einen anderen Ort zu verlassen” (see Richter loc. cit.).^[5] Given the presence of a messenger in HSS 14, 14, this meaning would seem to fit, in general terms, the content of this text. The Hurrian root in this periphrasis has already been linked to the form mel-aḫḫ- in the Bilingual of Boğazköy, which is generally translated as “vertreiben”, “to expel”, or something similar, because it matches the Hittite awan arḫa šuwe-.^[6] If both forms stemmed from the same root, as seems to be the case, the differences in meaning would be the result of the semantic nuances carried by the root complement present in the Boğazköy verb.^[7]

A couple of extra details, which are implicit in the text, have to be considered for the interpretation of HSS 14, 14. Firstly, we can assume that the journeys of the messenger (to Nawiya, ll. 12–13, and from Apena, ll. 28–29) are linked to his duties as a messenger. In other words, he might have had to take something, either a parcel or just a piece of information, from one place to another. Secondly, the fact that the document is a letter suggests that the sender, in this case the king, was not in Nuzi or in Apena, but somewhere else.^[8] Taking into account these considerations and the meaning suggested for the root mel-, it might be suggested that the Hurrian verb in the imperative expresses an order from the king by which the messenger must be brought into his presence. The subject of such a verb would be Šar-Teššub, the addressee, whereas the pronoun -n(na) would replace the messenger (dumu kin) mentioned in the preceding clause.^[9]

In a text written only in Akkadian, such an order would be expressed with a verb form like šūbila, libila, libilūni, lillika, or a similar form, and these are certainly very common verb forms in the Nuzi letter corpus. In fact, in HSS 14, 14 itself there is no shortage of Akkadian injunctive forms with similar meanings (l. 7 šupur, l. 9 lišpur, l. 13 lillika, l. 17 šupurma). It is unclear why the scribe or the sender chose a Hurrian verb form to express that notion in lines 15 and 30. The answer can probably be found in the specific semantic nuances that the Hurrian form conveys and that, at the moment, are largely unintelligible to us. Based on the meaning suggested for the root and given the presence of the adverb šurrumma and the conjunction kīmê, perhaps the meaning of this order is not simply “send him” but “push him to come”, or even “force him to come”.

Interestingly, a couple of very similar forms are attested in a Hittite text that includes passages in Hurrian, namely KUB 27.38 (= ChS I/5 87). Rev. iv 15 shows mi-lu-la-ti-la-a-e and rev. iv 17 mi-lu-la-a-du.^[10] While the first example can be taken as a verb in the purposive mood, mi/el-ol-ad-i-l-āe, the second seems to represent an Old Hurrian indicative, mi/el-ol-ād-o (Campbell 2015: 201–202).^[11] Unfortunately, both words and the whole passage where they are found remain incomprehensible due to the gaps in the modern knowledge of the Hurrian lexicon. In terms of orthography and spelling, a link with the previously mentioned root mel- from Nuzi and the Bilingual is possible but remains unclear.^[12] The comparison of the Nuzi attestations with the Boğazköy ones once again poses the question of whether the root complement -d/t- is a byform of -ad- (Giorgieri 2010: 943). Given that the semantics of the three forms remain unknown, they are, unfortunately, of no help in this debate.^[13]

2. HSS 13, 31: 8 zu-ub-ki, 13 pa-ḫu-ru zu-ub-ku, 18 pa-ḫu-ru, 19 zu-ub-ku

HSS 13 31 is a declaration by which an agreement between three brothers (Puḫi-šenni, Ḫurazzi, and Šukriya, sons of Ennaya) and a man called Unap-tae, son of Taya, is issued. The transliteration of the text was published in 1942 so, as with the previous text, it has been available to researchers for a long time, and references to it can be found scattered throughout bibliographical references, notably the Akkadian dictionaries.^[14]

The text has most often been quoted in the discussion of the meaning of the Hurrian word ardamašše, present in the text.^[15] However, it also contains two other unclear words that make the interpretation of the text difficult: zubki/u and paḫuru. They both appear a few times in the text. For the sake of clarity and completeness, I reproduce here the transliteration and translation of the whole text:^[16]

⁽¹⁾ eme -šu ša ^m pu-ḫi-še-en-ni ⁽²⁾ ša ^m ḫu-ra-az-zi u ₃ ša ^(3)m šuk ₂ -ri-ia dumu.meš ^m en-na-«na»-a-a ⁽⁴⁾a-na pa-ni^lu₂igi.mešan-nu-ti ⁽⁵⁾ki-na-an-na iq-ta-bi 3 gu₄.mešša ⁽⁶⁾ḫa.laša be-ri-ni u₃ ni-nu ki-mu ⁽⁷⁾mu-ul-le-e ša ḫu-lu-uq-qe₃-e ki-mu e-ṣe₂-di₃⁽⁸⁾ša^uruan-zu-gal-li₃ u₃ ki-mu zu-ub-ki ša ⁽⁹⁾ar-ta-maš-ši ša mu-lu₄-ni an-ni-i⁽¹⁰⁾šaegir-ki šu-du-ti eš-ši a-na ^(11)mu₂-na-ap-ta-edumuta-a-a ni-it-ta-din ⁽¹²⁾u₃^mu₂-nap-ta-e a-di₃-i i-na⁽¹³⁾itiše-eḫ-li pa-ḫu-ru zu-ub-ku ⁽¹⁴⁾ša ^uruan-zu-gal-li₃ pi₂-ḫa-ta na-ši i-na ⁽¹⁵⁾egir-kiiti-ḫi [še]-eḫ-li^(16)mšuk₂-ri-ia^mḫu-ra-az-zi ⁽¹⁷⁾u₃^mpu-ḫi-še-en-ni it-ti ^(18)mu₂-na-ap-ta-e pa-ḫu-ru ⁽¹⁹⁾zu-ub-ku it-ti-ḫa-mi-iš-ma ⁽²⁰⁾u₂-ma-al-lu u₂-lu ša^mšuk₂-ri-ia ⁽²¹⁾a-na eš₃-eš₃-ši i-namu⁽²²⁾an-ni-ti-im-ma le-qi₂⁽²³⁾ša ašbe-ri-šu-nuki.bal-tu₄⁽²⁴⁾1 geme₂sig₅u₂-ma-al-la ⁽²⁵⁾ṭup-pu an-nu-u₂ašegiršu-du₄-ti ⁽²⁶⁾eš-šiaš^uruma-ti-ḫa ša₁₀-ṭi₃-ir ^(27–33)Witnesses ⁽³⁴⁾Scribe ^(35–38)Seals.

⁽¹⁾Declaration of Puḫi-šenni, ⁽²⁾Ḫurazzi and ⁽³⁾Šukriya, sons of Ennaya; ⁽⁴⁾before witnesses these (men) ⁽⁵⁾declared as follows: three oxen of ⁽⁶⁾our shared inheritance, we ⁽¹¹⁾have given to Unap-tae, son of Taya, ^(6–7)for compensation for the losses, for the harvesting ⁽⁸⁾of Anzukalli, and for the zu-ub-ki of ⁽⁹⁾the ardamašše, by virtue of this our compensation ⁽¹⁰⁾according to the new proclamation.^[17](12b)Until ^(13a)the month of Šeḫli, ^(12a)Unap-tae ^(13b)pa-ḫu-ru. ^(14b)He bears the responsibility for ^(13b)the zu-ub-ku^(14a)of Anzukalli. ⁽¹⁵⁾After the month of Šeḫli, ⁽¹⁶⁾Šukriya, Ḫurazzi ⁽¹⁷⁾and Puḫi-šenni with ⁽¹⁸⁾Unap-tae pa-ḫu-ru. ^(20a)They will pay ⁽¹⁹⁾the zu-ub-ku together, ^(20b)except that of Šukriya;^[18](22b)it was taken ⁽²¹⁾for the eššēšu festival this very ^(22a)year. ⁽²³⁾Whoever among them breaks the agreement, ⁽²⁴⁾will pay one good female slave. ^(25a)This tablet ⁽²⁶⁾has been written in the city of Matiḫa ^(25b–26)after the new proclamation.