Iranica in the Achaemenid Period (ca. 550330 B.C.

): Lexicon of Old Iranian Proper Names and

Loanwords, Attested in Non-Iranian Texts, by Jan Tavernier
Iranica in the Achaemenid Period (ca. 550330 B.C.): Lexicon of Old Iranian Proper Names and
Loanwords, Attested in Non-Iranian Texts by Jan Tavernier
Review by: Ilya Yakubovich
Journal of Near Eastern Studies, Vol. 71, No. 1 (April 2012), pp. 133-135
Published by: The University of Chicago Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/664512 .
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Book Reviews F133

Adiego (p. 261) has argued for the uniquely Carian

character of the prefix ar-, corresponding to Lyc.
hri-, Mil. zri- and Luv. sarri up, above. The second
part of the name may correspond to Hitt. peda- and
Lyc. pdden- place (cf. pp. 33637). Thus the whole
of it can be possibly rendered in English as Uphill
or Highland, or perhaps it meant having a high
position, as argued by S. P. D. Durnford in his paper Is Sarpedon a Bronze Age Anatolian personal
name or a job description?3 It may well be that the
Homeric theme of Trojan Lycians reflects the raids
and the subsequent settlement of Lukka freebooters
in northwestern Anatolia on the wake of the collapse
of pax hethitica, and furthermore that the marauding
Lukka tribes could also have incorporated those more
adventurous among their Carian neighbors. But here
we are already approaching speculation.
I would like to conclude my review with a series of
minor suggestions. It goes without saying that they
are not made in the spirit of disparagement, and most
of them must be taken as a discussion of difficult and
sometimes controversial issues, rather than the correction of mistakes.
Pp. 41, 355: If Car. armon in E Me. 8a indeed corresponds to page 3 wm dragoman in the Egyptian
version of the same inscription, it is tempting to see
it as in some way related to Gk. dragoman,
interpreter, which otherwise lacks a convincing etymology. The divergent vocalism of the first syllable
complicates the analysis of the Greek noun as a Carian
loanword, but the two words may have been borrowed from a third source, or the Greek form may
have been modified by folk etymology connecting it
with Hermes, god of trade.4
Anatolian Studies 58 (2008): 10313.
Dr. Alexander Herda informs me that he has independently
arrived at similar conclusions in his talk Rechtlose Karer versus
hellenische Ioner: Kulturkontakte im frheisenzeitlichen Westklei-

P 261: Correct to (2x) in the last paragraph

of Section 2 (Consonants), and also xuwasaz to xruwasaz in the preceding paragraph.
Pp. 267, 429: The most likely Lycian cognate of
Car. upe- ~ ue- ~ wpe- ~ upa- stele is not upa
tomb but rather acc. sg. ubu (TL 44 c 4), a noun
probably used with reference to the same objects as
sttala stele in the following line of the Kaunos trilingual. A further cognate of the same Carian word is.
Luv. (SCALPRUM.CAPERE2) u-pa-ni- (KARKAMI
A1a 13, A2 10). Hawkins suggested a plausible
translation trophy for this Luvian word in CHLI,
but its determinative indicates that trophy should
be understood here not as booty, but rather as an
architectural installation commemorating victory. All
the discussed nouns are probably derived from Luvic
*/uba-/ to found, dedicate, which is reflected as
bt in Carian.
Pp. 307, 319: The interpretation of -(o) as a genitive plural ending is extremely unlikely on comparative
grounds. Melcherts analysis of the same ending as a
dative plural marker not only has the merit of formally
relating it to the Luvian dat. pl. in anz(a) but also
yields markedly Anatolian case syntax in the Carian
part of the Hyllarima bilingual. While Melcherts interpretation of mol mso ylarmi (C.Hy 1) as priests
to all the gods renders the Carian construction syntactically different from priests of all the gods in
the parallel Greek passage, the dative marking finds a
close analogy in KUB 14.10 i 1011 ANA DINGIR.
ME LSANGA priest to the gods and many similar
Hittite phrases.

3
4

nasien (paper presented at the University of Tbingen, February

9, 2010).

Iranica in the Achaemenid Period (ca. 550330 B.C.): Lexicon of Old Iranian Proper Names and Loanwords,
Attested in Non-Iranian Texts. By Jan Tavernier. Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta 158. Leuven: Peeters, 2007.
Pp. lxiv + 850. 98 (cloth).
Reviewed by Ilya Yakubovich, Moscow State University.
When scholars of the Ancient Near East hear the
phrase Old Persian, most of them think of the language of monumental inscriptions commissioned by
the Achaemenid Kings of Kings and recorded in a spe-

cial variety of cuneiform. These texts indeed represent

our main source of knowledge about the morphology and syntax of Old Iranian spoken in and about
Persepolis, but its lexicon cannot be studied seriously

134 F Journal of Near Eastern Studies

without taking into consideration the Iranian words

attested in Elamite, Aramaic, and Babylonian transmission. All of these three languages, unlike Old Persian,
were extensively used for administrative purposes in
the Achaemenid core area, and they preserve a large
amount of Iranian loanwords, code-switches, and especially proper names. A more modest amount of Iranian lexical material can be gleaned from the analysis
of Egyptian, Lycian, Lydian, and Phrygian texts composed at the time when the respective regions were satrapies of the Achaemenid Empire. While it is true that
many of these lexemes are not Old Persian proper but
rather reflect a northwestern Iranian dialect traditionally called Median, it is hardly productive to study
them separately, since the linguistic structures of Old
Persian and Median were very close, and the speakers
of both dialects were apparently present among the
Achaemenid elites. The term Achaemenid Iranian
will be used in the rest of this review with reference
to these dialectally divergent data available in foreign
transmission.
The main reason why the study of Achaemenid
Iranian has gained new importance in recent years
is the availability of new primary sources. Although
the University of Chicago archaeological team led by
Ernst Herzfeld excavated the Persepolis administrative
documents and brought them to the Oriental Institute back in the 1930s, many of them have remained
unpublished until now. Their study became, however,
an urgent task after the return of a small group of
tablets to the Islamic Republic of Iran spurred a politically charged controversy about the future destiny of
the collection. The Persepolis Fortification Archives
Project directed by Matthew Stolper is now actively
coordinating scholarly efforts leading to its exhaustive
publication. In addition, new Iranian forms emerge
every now and again in Akkadian tablets of the Achae
menid period. This progress can be contrasted with
the situation with Old Persian texts, where new finds
are few and far between and, when announced, frequently turn out to be fakes.
The book under review represents the first part of
Jan Taverniers revised doctoral dissertation, defended
at the University of Leuven in 2002. Its goal is to
document in a thesaurus format all the Near Eastern transmissions of all Achaemenid Iranian lexemes
known to date (with the exception of certain very
frequently attested royal names, for which only select
occurrences are cited). This makes it a work of unprecedented scope. Its main predecessor, Altiranisches
Sprachgut der Nebenberlieferungen by Walther Hinz

(Wiesbaden, 1975) generally did not strive for completeness, giving just one citation for any particular orthographic variant. In addition, Hinzs presentation of
the Iranian lexical material attested in Akkadian texts
was spotty even by his own standards and for his own
times. If we add to this that Tavernier could avail himself of the transliterations of the unpublished Persepolis Fortification Tablets, the rationale for undertaking
his study becomes obvious.
The lexemes treated in the volume under review
are divided into five groups. Directly transmitted
Iranica refer to cases when a particular Nebenberlieferung has a direct counterpart in the Old Persian version of a bilingual inscription (pp. 1141).
Semi-directly transmitted Iranica comprise those
forms that either have parallels in the Old Persian inscriptional corpus, but in a different context, or show
formal differences with their direct Old Persian counterparts, e.g. by virtue of belonging to the Median
dialect (pp. 4390). Non-Iranian Proper Names and
Loanwords in Old Persian are treated only in those
instances when it is possible to show that they were
borrowed from their source language into the language of their transmission through Iranian mediation
(pp. 9195). Indirectly transmitted Iranica comprise the largest set of forms, which have no parallels in
the Old Persian cuneiform inscriptions and thus enrich
our knowledge of Achaemenid Iranian (pp. 97463).
The forms whose Iranian origin has been conjectured
but not proven belong to the category Incerta (pp.
465538). Within each group, divine names, personal
names, toponyms, and common nouns (together with
other parts of speech) are treated in different sections,
while common nouns are further subdivided according to semantic parameters. In spite of its complicated
outlook, this system is fully manageable because all the
cited forms are cross-referenced in the indexes at the
end of the volume.
Franois Andrieux, a French man of letters, said two
hundred years ago: Tous les autres auteurs peuvent
aspirer la louange; les lexicographes ne peuvent esprer que dchapper au reproche. Even today, many
linguists have a regrettable attitude of regarding lexicographic work as an ancillary task, not on the same level
with writing a monograph that argues a point. In my
opinion, however, there are plenty of reasons to praise
the author for his achievement. For the first time in
the history of Iranian Studies, it has become possible
to cite Achaemenid Iranian forms with reference to
primary sources. Furthermore, the glossary of lexical
elements detected in this corpus (pp. 54773) and

Book Reviews F135

the list of onomastic elements and the names in which

they occur (pp. 555628) make these data immediately
accessible to Iranian comparative linguists. One must
hope that the future volumes of the Moscow-based
Iranian Etymological Dictionary (Etimologicheskij slovar iranskikh jazykov, by V. Rastorgujeva and Dzh.
Edelman [Moscow, 2000]) and the etymological dictionaries of individual Iranian languages will from now
on use the Achaemenid Iranian lexical material to the
same extent as the Old Persian data.
I will conclude this review with a brief list of etymological notes to individual lexical entries. In some
cases, these are merely meant to indicate formal flaws
of the etymologies cited in the lexicon, while others
contain alternative solutions.
Pages 109, 130: PN *Arbzaka- (4.2.77, Aram.
Rbzk, Gk. ) should not be separated from
PN. *Azaka- (4.2.229). The two forms can be interpreted as young goat and goat respectively in
the Median dialect (cf. Av. aza- goat, MPers. zg
female goat). The reconstruction *Ara-bzukahaving wild hands for 4.2.77 ignores the Greek
transliteration and introduces the element *arawild, which is not otherwise attested in Achaemenid
Iranian onomastics and does not have direct parallels
in Persian. For Iranian personal names derived from
names of domestic animals, cf. e.g., 4.2.140, 4.2.155,
4.2.660, 4.2.1026.
Page 172: PN *Daduika- (4.2.523), *Daduka(4.2.524), and *Daduya- (4.2.525) should probably
be connected with Ir. *dadwah- / *dadu- creator,
used by the Zoroastrians as an epithet of Ahura Mazda
(cf. MPers. ddw|, name of the tenth month of the
year). The derivation of this family of names from
OPers. *dtu naturally (putative cognate of Skt.
jtu at all, perhaps, possibly) is not credible both
for semantic reasons and because this adverb is not
attested anywhere else in Iranian.
Page 173: The derivation of PN *Dawantna(4.2.530) from daw impel is formally possible

but not very likely because this root is not attested in

West Iranian, while its occurrences in Avestan are all
dubious. I suggest as an alternative deriving this name
from daw run (Pers. dawdan) on the assumption
that it meant swift or something similar (cf. PN
Arwa Swift, 4.2.112).
Pages 183, 553: PN *Frza (4.2.606, Aram. prz)
cannot be compared with Pers. farz forward, since
Parth. frc [fr] id. unambiguously suggests the
reconstruction of OIr. *fr(a). This personal name
might instead be analyzed as *Fra-aza- driving
forth. Incidentally, the citation of the source of the
Aramaic form is missing in the Lexicon.
Page 211: PN *(H)uaxya- (4.2.833, Akk. -ha-a-a, Elam. --ka4-ia) need not be rewritten
as **(H)uhaxya-. This name is derived from IndoIranian *su-sakhi- good friend with the regular application of the ruki-rule. Av. huhaxi- good friend
represents a result of the inner-Avestan morphophonemic developments (for details, see Lubotskys contribution in Compositiones Indogermanicae in memoriam
Jochem Schindler [Prague, 1999], 299322).
Pages 230, 557: PN *Ktia (4.2.969), if indeed
derived from the non-ablauting k desire, cannot
be transcribed ** Katia. Av. kataii (Y. 9.22.3) is
not cognate to this name, since its Pahlavi translation
kadagg domestic strongly suggests that it is related
to Ir. kata-house.
Pages 367, 570: PN *Zabarna (4.2.2034) cannot
be related to Pers. zabar (on) top, since the Persian adverb is derived from MPers. az abar, lit. from
above. Consequently, there is no support for the interpretation of *Zabarna as Superior. The Iranian
origin of this name is not obvious to me.
Pages 392, 555: *hankrka wine-press (4.3.87)
cannot be related to Sogd. nkrnt- cut to pieces
(not **trample), a transparent derivative of Ir.
kart cut. Consequently, the phonetic reading of this
noun is open to doubts.

Hieroglyphenschlssel: Entziffern, Lesen, Verstehen. By Petra Vomberg and Orell Witthuhn. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2008. Pp. lxxi + 486 + 7 figs. + 2 tables. 24.80 (paperback).
Reviewed by Rozenn Bailleul-LeSuer, University of Chicago.
The crowds in the Egyptian galleries of art museums
all over the world are a constant reminder that ancient
Egypt never ceases to fascinate the public. To fuel this
interest, library shelves are filled with introductory
books covering various aspects of Egyptian society.

Since a thorough knowledge of the Egyptian language

is not required for casual readers of hieroglyphs to appreciate some of its peculiarities, Egyptologists have
attempted to share their philological and linguistic
knowledge of a language which is now, apart from its