Another pre-Sasanian Middle Persian inscription

Abstract

A pre-Sasanian Middle Persian inscription on a silver bowl is published here for the first time and compared with a similar inscription published by P. O. Skjærvø in 2000 and identified by him as naming members of the dynasty which ruled Persis (Fārs) in the 1st century bce. The commentary concentrates on the word šʾtḥw, apparently a name for this type of bowl, and on the importance of these inscriptions for the history of the Pahlavi script.

Twenty years ago, P. O. Skjærvø published a well-preserved but rather clumsily written Middle Persian inscription on a silver bowl with gold inlay.¹ By identifying the names of several members of the dynasty which ruled Persis in the 1st century bce, including that of Prince (later King) Waxšahr,² who is named at the end of the inscription as the owner of the bowl, Skjærvø established both the region in which the text was written and the fact that it is far older than any other Middle Persian inscription (other than the coin-legends of the same dynasty). I shall refer to this inscription as “Persis 1”.

The new inscription “Persis 2”, published here in honour of my esteemed colleague and collaborator François de Blois, is inscribed in pointillé around about two-thirds of the circumference of the outer rim of a silver bowl. Although much more neatly written than Persis 1 it strongly resembles it in ductus and can certainly be ascribed to the same period and region. It seems that this bowl may once have borne an earlier inscription in the same pointillé technique, which has been almost entirely obliterated but of which traces can be seen, in particular immediately after the end of the present inscription. The bowl itself (weight: 498g; diameter: 24 cm; height: 5.1 cm) has repoussé decoration in what I am told is a pre-Sasanian, perhaps even Achaemenian style (Fig. 1). It belongs to a private collection in London, to whose owner I am grateful for permission to publish it. I am also grateful to Prods Oktor Skjærvø and Shaul Shaked, both of whom know Middle Persian much better than I, for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this edition.

Fig. 1. The bowl bearing the inscription “Persis 2”. Photograph used by permission of the owner.

The language of Persis 2 is certainly Middle Persian, as is clear in particular from the two verbal logograms in -WN, but the orthography is somewhat archaic, most notably in the case of the spelling YHWWN for later YḤWWN, as are the shapes of the letters. It is noteworthy that aleph has two distinct forms, one like that in the earlier part of Persis 1, the other like that in the added final sentence which names the prince as the owner of the bowl.³ Here too the older form occurs in the early part of the inscription and the later form towards the end, but in this case there is nothing to suggest that the last part of the inscription is a later addition.

An important feature of the new inscription is the fact that, in my opinion, it preserves a distinction between the letters w and r, which have become completely identical in all later varieties of Middle Persian script. Here w is rounded at the top, with a bottom stroke which may be either straight (giving a form resembling “2”) or rounded (like a reversed “S”), while r is flatter at the top (like an upside-down “2”). The two letters can be seen side by side in wrdpt and KTRWN, whose -rw- may be contrasted with the -ww- of YHWWN:⁴

The distinction between w and r is less obvious in Persis 1, where the writing is altogether sloppier, but here too the few examples of w are closer to the “reversed S” form, while most examples of r look like the “upside-down 2”. I admit, however, that even the new inscription includes some intermediate forms which could equally well be read either as w or as r.

Two letters which are surprisingly difficult to distinguish in the new inscription are y and z. While some examples of y are easily identified by a sharp bend or curve, as in nwydyt (twice), BYN and ʾYK, other examples, in which the bend or curve has been largely straightened out, as in WḤYLʾ, kwpdšy and YHWWN (for this last see the tracing above), could easily be read as z:

Both forms of y are also found in Persis 1, for example, the curved form in ʾḤʾyn and a much straighter form in dʾryn:

Finally, it is worth noting that the letters Ṭ, c/Ṣ and Q are not attested in either inscription. There is no ayin in Persis 1, but the new inscription has one example (in the logogram ʿL); this seems to be distinct from both w and r.

Inscription “Persis 2”: a tentative reading and translation (Fig. 2)

¹ZNH ²šʾtḥw ³nwydyt ⁴mtrdt ⁵wrdpt ⁶ssn ⁷wrdpt ⁸WḤYLʾ ⁹kʾyzrw (kʾzyrw?) ¹⁰Wswprskn (Wswpwmkn? wswpwskn?) ¹¹MNW ¹²BYN ¹³kwpdšy ¹⁴KTRWN ¹⁵ʿL ¹⁶ʾwswy (ʾwsry?) ¹⁷gwy ¹⁸ʾYK ¹⁹yʾndʾyn (zʾndʾyn?) ²⁰YHWWN

“This bowl was presented by Mihrdād the wardbed, Sāsān the wardbed and the army of …, which is stationed in Kōf…, at … *village. May it *grant *blessing!”

Fig. 2. Inscription “Persis 2”. Montage (not exactly to scale) © Nicholas Sims-Williams.

Commentary

The word read here as šʾtḥw must be the same as the sequence in Persis 1 which Skjærvø read as šʾt ḥn “may I be (> give) happiness” and compared with a supposed šʾt ḥny in a Parthian inscription on silver. It is now clear that all three contexts contain the same word and that this is a term which designates the type of vessel on which it is inscribed; only the reading of the last letter is subject to doubt. Assuming that all three examples are identically spelt, it seems to me that this letter must be -w. Philippe Gignoux, the first editor of the Parthian inscription, gave only šʾtḥ[.] in his text, but rightly stated that the last letter “ressemble à un w”.⁵ In the new inscription too, the reading -w is virtually certain. The only problematic example is that in Persis 1, where the letter in question consists of a simple vertical line. Skjærvø read this as -n, which is certainly possible from a palaeographical point of view, although all other examples of final -n in this inscription have a “foot” which is missing here. However, a reading with -n would be incompatible with the other two examples, and it does not seem to me impossible that the letter in question is a final -w, of which the inscription contains no other example. The implied simplification of the shape of w would be comparable to that of the initial d- in the words dʾrynkn and dʾryn, which, as Skjærvø states “is open to some doubt” from a palaeographical point of view, though in the light of the names of the rulers of Persis known from the coinage it “can hardly be anything else”.⁶ Moreover, a w consisting of a simple vertical line is well attested in the contemporary coin-legends of the rulers of Persis (see below, on sixth and seventh page of this article with Fig. 4, on the writing of the name wḥwḥštr).

The etymology of šʾtḥw “bowl” is a secondary consideration, but it is worth considering the possibility that it is identical with Sogdian šʾtyxw, šʾtwx “happy”, lit. “having a contented mind”. A similar formation is attested in Middle Persian via the abstract noun urwāhm-ox-īh “happiness” (Denkard 3.133.11), to which Skjærvø kindly draws my attention. For the concept of a “happy cup”, i.e. a “cup which gives happiness”, one may perhaps compare Middle and New Persian šādurwān in the sense “basin, pond, fountain”, which appears to be a compound meaning “having a contented soul”.⁷

nwydyt: secondary past stem of the verb attested in Zoroastrian Pahlavi as nwyd- “to announce, introduce, present”.

mtrdt “Mihrdād” and ssn “Sāsān” are well-attested Middle Persian names. The orthography without aleph for ā is somewhat archaic.

wrdpt is attested in Inscriptional Middle Persian as a personal name, but in origin it is a title, whose exact meaning is unknown. Cf. Armenian vardapet “doctor, master, archimandrite, etc.”.

ḤYLʾ I take to represent Aramaic ḥylʾ “strength, power; forces, army”, perhaps as a logogram for spāh “army”. If that is correct, the following word, of which the most likely reading seems to be kʾyzrw or kʾzyrw, may well be the name of the region to which the army in question belongs (the ezafe which would be expected in a later Middle Persian text being omitted as it is in Persis 1). Skjærvø has kindly suggested to me that the word might be read kʾzlwn, i.e. the name of the town Kāzarūn or Kāzerūn to the west of Shiraz. This interpretation would fit the context perfectly, but I find it impossible to accept from a palaeographical point of view. The first two letters are certainly kʾ, the third may well be z, and the fourth could conceivably be a dwarfed l (lacking the characteristic tall ascender seen in ḤYLʾ and ʿL, the only other examples of this letter). However, the last two letters can hardly be read otherwise than as rw or, if one rejects the “rule” proposed above for distinguishing these two letters, as wr; in particular, it seems to me that the last letter is far too short to be an n, of which the inscription contains many clear examples, including several in final position. Whatever the correct reading, it does seem likely that the word is a place-name, in which case the same may well apply to the following swprskn or swpwskn, a formation containing the common suffix -gān, perhaps derived from a personal name. An alternative, perhaps less likely, possibility is that kʾyzrw or kʾzyrw is itself a personal name, presumably that of the general commanding the army,⁸ in which case the following word might be his patronymic, family name or title.⁹

kwpdšy appears to be another geographical name, of which the first part is presumably kōf “mountain”. It is tempting to compare New Persian Kūfič, Qufṣ, Kūč < *kaufačiya-, the name of a mountainous region in Kerman and the people living there,¹⁰ though -dšy can hardly represent the outcome of the suffix -čiya-.

KTRWN is more archaic than KTLWN, the usual spelling of the logogram for māndan, mān- “to stay, remain”, the Aramaic root being ktr. As Skjærvø kindly points out to me, KTRWN is in fact attested in Zoroastrian Pahlavi beside KTLWN.¹¹

One might expect ʿL = ō “to, at” to introduce the indirect object of the verb nwydyt “presented”, but the following words do not suggest the name of a god or temple. A possible alternative is that ʾwswy (ʾwsry?) gwy is yet another geographical term, perhaps designating some smaller locality within the region kwpdšy. I have nothing to propose for ʾwswy or ʾwsry, but gwy allows several explanations, of which *gaw “village” from Old Iranian *gawa-, Ossetic qæu,¹² seems to me the most plausible.

yʾndʾyn (zʾndʾyn?) seems to be yet another unknown word, probably a compound. If the phrase ʾYK yʾndʾyn YHWWN expresses a wish, as seems likely, it is possible that yʾn- is the Middle Persian equivalent of Avestan yāna-, Sogdian yʾn “favour, boon, grace”.¹³ If so, a comparison with Christian Sogdian yʾn-θbʾrqyʾ “grace, favour, blessing”, lit. “the giving of a favour”, suggests that the second part of the compound might be a nominal form of dādan, dah-/day- “to give”, perhaps in origin a present participle middle (= Avestan daθāna-), though one would expect *-dyn or *-dyʾn rather than -dʾyn. It is tempting to read -dʾt, i.e. the past stem dād, but this would amount to an emendation, since -yn is quite clearly written as two letters.

YHWWN = būdan, baw- “to be, become”. The writing with H rather than with Ḥ as in Zoroastrian and Inscriptional Middle Persian is an archaism, cf. Aramaic hwy, hwʾ.

Appendix: Inscription “Persis 1” (Fig. 3)

¹ʾrtḥštr ²MLKʾ ³ʾḤʾyn ⁴dʾrynkn ⁵BRH ⁶dʾryn ⁷MLKʾ ⁸šʾtḥw ⁹ZNH ¹⁰YNGDWN ¹¹zl ¹²KSP ¹³s-20-20-10 ¹⁴wḥwḥštr ¹⁵BRBYTʾ ¹⁶NPŠH

Fig. 3. Inscription “Persis 1”. Tracing (not exactly to scale) © Nicholas Sims-Williams.

“Of the brothers of King Ardaxšahr (II), descendant(s) of Dārāyān (I), son(s) of King Dārāyān (II). This bowl of hammered gold (and) silver (weighs) 50 staters. (Added in a different style:) Property of Prince Waxšahr.”

Skjærvø reads the name of the prince as wḥyḥštr and transcribes it as Wahīxšahr. My preference for the reading wḥwḥštr is not so much based on the shape of the third letter in this inscription, which is rather indeterminate, as on the form attested on the coins, which on many good specimens is indistinguishable from the initial w- (see Fig. 4).¹⁴ Otherwise, my reading of this inscription differs from Skjærvø's only in one letter—šʾtḥw rather than šʾt ḥn, as discussed above—, but the fact that this word can now be seen to be a designation of the object on which it is inscribed necessitates a change in the understanding of the syntax. The other problematic word is ʾḤʾyn, rightly so read by Skjærvø, though his interpretation of the form as brādā-y-in “our brother” is hard to accept. For this meaning, to judge by Manichaean Middle Persian pdʾn, i.e. *pidā-n “our father”,¹⁵ one might rather expect *brādā-n. It seems to me more likely that ʾḤʾyn represents the oblique plural brādarīn, a form attested in the Pahlavi Psalter, where it is written ʾḤYtlyn.¹⁶ Admittedly, the spelling is still somewhat awkward, since the basic logogram appears elsewhere in Middle Persian as ʾḤY (representing Aramaic ʾḥy “my brother”), or in one early Sasanian inscription as ʾH,¹⁷ but in itself a logogram ʾḤʾ (emphatic state) is no more strange than MLKʾ.¹⁸ Since Ardaxšahr II and Waxšahr are both named on their coins as sons of Dārāyān, it seems that they were indeed brothers. The formulation of the inscription is certainly unusual, but can be understood as indicating that the bowl was one of a series made for the brothers of King Ardaxšahr, of which this particular specimen came to be assigned to Prince Waxšahr.

Fig. 4. Coin of Waxšahr. Harlan J. Berk, Ltd., 122nd Buy or Bid Sale, 6 September 2001, lot 272. Photograph used by permission.