The value /me/ of the sign <MAN> in Achaemenid Elamite

Abstract

The aim of this article is to show that in Achaemenid Elamite the sign <MAN> had a secondary phonetic value /me/. The evidence collected in support of this claim consists mainly in Elamite transcriptions of Iranian words in the Achaemenid Royal Inscriptions and in the Persepolis administrative texts, which are impossible or very difficult to account for only contemplating the usual value /man/.

Introduction

It has long been noticed that in some Elamite transcriptions of Old Persian words the Elamite sign <MAN> seems not to reflect the Old Persian sequence man or van, as expected. The most quoted examples are the following:

• – Dātavahya- (d-a-⸢t-v⸣-h-y-h-y-a, DB IV, 85):¹ this anthroponym is rendered as Da-ad-du-MAN-ia in Elam., but the attestations in other languages (Bab. Za-’-tu-’-a, Aram. ztwhy etc.)² and the etymology (*J́ātavahya(h)- ‘born better’) speak against the existence of a -n- in the OP form.

• – patiyāvahyai (p-t-i-y-a-v-h-y-i-y, DB I, 55): this verbal form is transcribed as bat-ti-ia-MAN-ia-a in Elam., but, again, there is solid evidence to suggest that the OP verb had no nasal. In my view, the most plausible etymology proposed for this verb is pati-ā-vah-, from the same root as Av. vahma- ‘prayer’, Inscr.MP ptwh-, Man.MP pywh-, Man.Parth. pdwh-, all meaning ‘to pray, to beg’, and Bactr. πιδοοαυ- ‘to request’.³ A possible alternative, accepted by Kent⁴ is to take the verb as a denominative from OP *avah- ‘help’ (Av. auuah-, Ved. ptc. avasyant-).⁵ Wackernagel tried to explain the Elamite spelling with <MAN> reading the OP form as patiyāvanhyai (with pre-consonantal nasal regularly unwritten), a ‘futurum historicum’ of a verb ā-van- (to be compared with Ved. ā-vanⁱ- ‘to beg’).⁶ Despite being embraced by Schmitt,⁷ this hypothesis is quite uneconomic because it requires postulating both an isolated root in the Ir. languages and an isolated morphological formation in OP (the future) endowed with a marginal semantic nuance.

• – *R̥štivaiga-: it is commonly accepted that the Ir. name of the Median king Astyages (Gr. Ἀστυάγης and Ἀστυίγας, Bab. Iš-tu-me-gu) should be interpreted as a compound *R̥štivaiga- ‘spear-shaker’ (or, as Schmitt humorously pointed out, ‘Shake-speare’),⁸ following a proposal first put forward by Markwart.⁹ The identification of this anthroponym with the Elam. forms Ir-iš-ti-MAN-ka₄ or Iš-ti-MAN-ka₄ from the Persepolis administrative texts, first proposed by Cameron, has been widely accepted,¹⁰ and the alternative explanations advanced so far are not very convincing.¹¹ New evidence supporting the association of the quoted Elam. forms with Ir. *R̥štivaiga- comes from the spelling variants ⸢Ir ^?⸣-iš-ti-mi-⸢ka₄ ^?⸣ and ⸢Ir ^?⸣-iš-ti-mi-ka₄-na found in the unpublished tablets Fort. 1005-101 and Fort. 2329-104, which seem to refer to the same individual elsewhere named Ir-iš-ti-MAN-ka₄. ¹²

There have been many different attempts to justify these puzzling Elam. spellings. Cameron simply listed the phonetic values vai and vah among the ‘normal Old Persian equivalents’¹³ of the Elam. sign <MAN> besides man and van. Gershevitch thought that the unexpected nasal in the Elam. transcriptions was the only detectable trace of a nasalisation before h in OP similar to the one attested in Avestan.¹⁴ Although this position is questionable in several respects,¹⁵ it allowed Gershevitch to put forward some convincing etymologies (especially containing -vahyah- ‘better’ as a second element; see below for some examples) which enlarged the number of problematic occurrences of the Elam. sign <MAN>. Schmitt, polemically replying to Gershevitch's hypothesis, tried to explain all the problematic forms adopting different Iranian etymologies (for example, Elam. -man-ia for Ir. *-vanya- ‘winning’ or *-manya- ‘having power, authority’, Elam. -man-ka₄ for Ir. *-manga- ‘offering’, on which see below).¹⁶ Most of his proposals were accepted in subsequent publications dealing with Ir. personal names in the Persepolis administrative texts,¹⁷ but, as Schmitt himself recognised in more recent publications, this approach did not solve all the existing difficulties. J. Harmatta proposed to recognise a secondary value /ma/ for the Elam. sign <MAN>,¹⁸ in analogy with a tendency shown by the Assyro-Babylonian syllabary to lose the nasal coda in <CVm> and <CVn> signs. Despite not being very likely from a historical point of view,¹⁹ Harmatta's proposal was probably going in the right direction by attributing a <mV> value to Elam. <MAN>. A significant step forward towards solving this matter has been made by Schmitt in some recent works. First, he proposed to explain some spelling oscillations in the Elam. transcription of the OP month-names postulating a secondary value /mi/ for Elam. <MAN> (for example, MAN-ka₄-na-áš to be read as /mi/-ka₄-na-áš for OP *Viyax(a)na-).²⁰ Then, he acutely linked this idea with the spelling Ir-iš-ti-MAN-ka₄ suggesting, albeit with some hesitation, that a reading Ir-iš-ti-/mi/-ka₄ could match the etymology *R̥štivaiga-.²¹ Finally, he adduced the Elam. form hitherto read as ab-ba-nu-ia-ak-ka₄-kam-MAN, rendering OP apaniyāka-mai in A²Sa, as a further piece of evidence supporting a value /mi/ for the sign <MAN>²².

A value me₀ for <MAN>

In my view, Schmitt's solution is the most convincing so far. However, as he himself admitted, such a proposal «sollte […] einmal an dem gesamten Belegmaterial überprüft werden».²³ The purpose of the following pages is to slightly adjust and definitively demonstrate Schmitt's hypothesis. To do so, we are going to start exactly where he left off, namely from the Elam. version of A²Sa.

As I argued elsewhere,²⁴ the last word of A²Sa should be interpreted as Elam. /me/-ul-ka₄-in (a form of the verb melka- ‘to damage’). However, the first sign of the word is clearly not <ME> (532),²⁵ but rather <MAN> (471), that is, it is identical to the last sign in ab-ba-nu-ia-ak-ka₄-kam-MAN.²⁶ This not only constitutes a further example of the usage of <MAN> to convey a different phonetic value than usual, but also allows us to improve our knowledge of what this phonetic value could be. In Elamite a phonological opposition between the vowels /e/ and /i/ surely existed, even though it was not always represented in writing.²⁷ Therefore, it is likely that in this case <MAN> expresses /me/ rather than /mi/, as suggested by Schmitt. At a closer look, all the examples quoted so far are compatible with an Elam. sign with an /e/ vowel: in ab-ba-nu-ia-ak-ka₄-kam-/me/ (OP apaniyāka-mai)²⁸ and Ir-iš-ti-/me/-ka₄ (*R̥štivaiga-) it would reflect the Ir. diphthong /ai̯/ or its monophthongised outcome /ē/, and in Da-ad-du-/me/-ia (OP Dātavahya) and bat-ti-ia-/me/-ia-a (OP patiyāvahyai) it would reflect the Ir. sequence /ahya/, which in Elam. is regularly rendered leaving -h- unwritten.²⁹

Quite ironically, the only attestations that do not support unambiguously a value /me/ are the month-names from which Schmitt formulated his hypothesis:³⁰ for OP *Viyax(a)na- a spelling with initial mi-ia- or simply mi- would be expected rather than /me/-ka₄-na-áš (PF 1775), and for -ma- in OP *Anāmaka- the only possible ‘regular’ spelling would be -ma-, surely not ha-na-/me/-ka₄ (PF 1048) or ha-na-/me/-kaš (PF 862). However, as was observed by several scholars,³¹ the transcriptions of OP month-names in Elam. administrative documents show an exceptional degree of spelling variability, often implying irregular phonetic correspondences with the OP form and suggesting that deformed pronunciations of these words circulated among non-native OP speakers.³²

In light of this special status of month-names, it is safer to trust the data coming from royal inscriptions, which show more systematic phonetic correspondences between OP words and Elam. transcriptions. Therefore, I propose to assign the Elam. sign <MAN> (471) a secondary phonetic value /me/ peculiar to the Achaemenid period. In the present article, I shall refer to this value as me₀ for the sake of clarity.³³

Whether or not this new label me₀ should be adopted in the transliteration conventions of Elamite widely depends on one's opinion about the possible origin of this secondary value, a problem for which I have no certain solution to propose. If it is regarded as the generalisation of a phonetic variant (perhaps [maj] ~ [mã:] for /man/ in pre-consonantal position),³⁴ one may not want to represent it in the transliteration, following the model of regular spelling rules such as the lack of graphic distinction between /m/ and /w/ (both transliterated with <mV(C)> signs) or between /i/ and /u/ in <Cu> signs (so that <NU> can both represent /ni/ or /nu/). However, such a phonetic explanation is largely hypothetical and, as was pointed out in fn. 19 discussing Harmatta's position, there is no other evidence of a productive rule deriving /Ce/ values from <Can> signs in Elamite, so the status of <MAN> would be isolated anyway. I regard as equally possible that the secondary value /me/ for <MAN> has its basis in the paleographic similarity existing between <MAN> and <ME>, which could sometimes lead to ambiguous realisations of both signs.³⁵

In my view, as long as the value of the sign is not predictable on the basis of a general spelling principle, a special label like me₀ would be useful inasmuch it would spare the modern reader the need to learn an ad hoc rule to properly read a single sign.

Evidence from onomastic data

In order to corroborate the abovementioned proposal, the following paragraph will be dedicated to the analysis of several Ir. anthroponyms from the Persepolis administrative texts containing dubious attestations of the sign <MAN>, some of which have already been mentioned in par. 1.³⁶

The most convincing examples supporting a reading me₀ are cases in which the sign is followed by a <VC> sign, so that a value man would imply an irregular spelling not reflecting syllable boundaries (for example, -man-iz- instead of -man-nu-iz- or -ma-nu-iz-):

• – Har-me₀-iz-za (T. 4.2.114): the name is clearly the same as T. 4.2.112 *Arvaica- (Har-ma-iz-za, Har-me-za), a hypocoristic from Ir. *arva- ‘swift’. It can be compared with Parth. ’rwyš, which could either be read as Arwēč or Arwič (< *Arv-ica-).³⁷

• – Ia-u-me₀-iz-za (T. 4.2.2030): as Tavernier himself recognised,³⁸ the man bearing this name is referred to elsewhere using spellings pointing unequivocally to *Yuvaica- or *Yuvica- (for example, Hi-ú-ma-iz-za, I-ú-mi-za etc.). To explain the irregular usage of <MAN>, Tavernier embraced Harmatta's hypothesis postulating a /ma/ value for the sign <MAN> (see above).

• – Ra-me₀-iš-(na)? (T. 4.2.1340):³⁹ as we said, on a merely orthographic basis, it is better to read Ra-me₀-iš than Ra-man-iš. Since neither of the two options leads to an obvious etymology, one could interpret the -na following this anthroponym in PF 384 not as a genitive suffix, but as part of the name itself.⁴⁰ Ra-me₀-iš-na could then be interpreted as *Rāmayašna- ‘praying peacefully’ or ‘praying for peace’.

The following names should probably be read as beginning with me₀-ia- standing for OP *vahya(h)-:

• – Me₀-ia-ba-du-iš (T. 4.2.1047): OP *Vahyabādu- ‘having a better arm’ to be compared with Gr. Οἰόβαζος, Ir. *Vahyabāzu-.⁴¹

• – Me₀-ia-bar-ma (T. 4.2.1052): OP *Vahyaparuva-, a variant with thematised first member of the more common Vahyasparuva- ‘first and better’ attested in DB IV, 83 and in the P(ersepolis)F(ortification)T(ablets).⁴²

• – Me₀-ia-iš-kur-ra (T. 4.2.1782): as rightly recognised by Tavernier, this should be regarded as a spelling variant of Mi-iš-kar-ra or Mi-iš-kur-ra transcribing OP *Vahyaskara- ‘doing what is better’.⁴³

• – Me₀-ia-iš-na (T. 5.3.2.111): the name is formally compatible with Ir. *Vahyayašna-, which could either be interpreted as ‘better through prayer’ or, taking vahya- as the present stem of the verb vah- ‘to pray’ (see above par. 1), ‘reciting the prayer’.⁴⁴

• – Me₀-iš-da-ad-da (T. 2.2.64): this is clearly a variant spelling of Mi-iš-da-ad-da etc. for OP Vahyazdāta- ‘whose law is better’ attested in OP and in the PFT.⁴⁵ Once again, a reading man is highly unlikely because of the following <VC> sign.

The following names can all be interpreted as (mostly theophoric) compounds having vahya(h)- as a second member:

• – Ab-me₀-ia (T. 4.2.12): this spelling and the similar Ab-ma-ia (without /n/!) can hardly reflect Ir. *Abivanya- ‘victorious’, as suggested by Tavernier. They could rather be connected with an Ir. form *Āpvahya- ‘better through Water (god)’.⁴⁶

• – Ba-ku-me₀-ia (T. 4.2.294): as recognised by Tavernier, this name should not be separated from Gr. Βαγόας and Aram. bgwhy as a rendering of Ir. *Bagavahya- ‘better through god’.

• – Ir-du-me₀-ia (T. 4.2.1522): in light of the parallel formation *R̥tavahu- (T. 4.2.1517, 1526) this form could well be read as *R̥tavahya- ‘better through R̥ta’ also attested in Aram. ’rtwhy (T. 4.2.1518).

• – Mi-iš-šu-me₀-ia (T. 4.2.1919): since Benveniste,⁴⁷ this name has been interpreted as *Visavanya- ‘vanquishing all’. However, a theophoric name such as *Miçavahya- ‘better through Mithra’, paralleled by Gr. Μ(ɛ)ιθρόας (< *Miθravahya-)⁴⁸ is an equally good alternative.

• – Kur-ra-ad-du-me₀-ia (T. 4.2.1963): Ir. *Xratuvahya- ‘better through wisdom’ possibly continued by MP Xrad-weh.⁴⁹

• – Zí-ut-ru-me₀-ia (T. 4.2.431): this name could either be reconstructed as *Ciθravahya- ‘better by lineage’ by comparison with *Ciçava(h)u- (T. 4.2.406, 408) and *Ciθravahišta- (Gr. Τιθραύστης,⁵⁰ or as *Ciθravā̆ya-, an extension of *Ciθrava-/*Ciçava- (T. 4.2.404, 430).

There are two names left, Ka₄-mu-me₀-ia (T. 4.2.921) and Mi-du-me₀-ia (T. 4.2.1872), which would yield plausible compounds postulating a second member -vaya- ‘chasing’ (from the Ir. root *vaiH-):⁵¹ *Kāmavaya- ‘chasing his desires’ and *Vaida(h)vaya- ‘chasing possessions’. However, it cannot be excluded that also in these cases the second member was -vahya(h)- (for *Kāmavahya- one could cite the specular formation Mi-iš-ka₄-ma *Vahyaskāma).⁵²

The group of names containing a sequence written as MAN-ka₄ in Elam. needs a more detailed discussion. Hinz,⁵³ followed by Tavernier, reconstructed an element *-manga- «zu gathisch mang- ‘verherrlichen’». This position is probably related to a cautious proposal made by Schmitt,⁵⁴ who compared the name Ia-iš-na-MAN-ka₄ (see below) with the OAv. form mimaγža- ‘willing to offer’. However, unlike Schmitt, the two scholars did not make clear that the identification of the root underlying OAv. mimaγža- (an adjective deriving from the desiderative stem) is conjectural, both from the formal and the semantic point of view. First, the reconstruction of a present stem with nasal infix *manj- from an Iir. root *mag^h- has no comparative basis, except for the superficial similarity of this verb with Ved. maṃh- ‘to give away, offer’ (< Iir. *manȷ́^h-, OAv. mąza- in comp.) which led some scholars to hypothesise a contamination between the two roots.⁵⁵ In my view, it is much more preferrable to accept the other explanation proposed in the literature, according to which mimaγža- should belong to a denominal verbal root *mag- from Av. maga- ‘gift, offering’ (Ved. maghá- ‘id.’).⁵⁶ Furthermore, a meaning ‘to glorify’ for the alleged root *mang- depends on Bartholomae's outdated translation of the passage where mimaγža- occurs (Y. 45.10), whereas the most recent and authoritative translations of the OAv. texts interpret mimaγža- as ‘trying to present’⁵⁷ or ‘cherchant à gratifier’,⁵⁸ taking into account the likely etymological link with maga-.

Therefore, it seems well justified to reject the etymological proposals based on a verbal root *mang- and to look for other solutions made possible by a reading -me₀-ka₄ instead of -man-ka₄. As a matter of fact, most of the names containing this graphic sequence can be interpreted as compounds with a second member -vaiga- found in *R̥štivaiga- (see above) and in the Kurzname *Vaiga- (Elam. Ma-a-ka₄, T. 4.2.1785):

• – Mi-šá-me₀-ka₄ (T. 4.2.1917): Ir. *Miçavaiga- ‘striking like Mithra’. Since the Av. root vaēj- and its derivative vaēγa- are only attested in the very concrete sense of ‘swinging a weapon’ or ‘hitting with a weapon’,⁵⁹ the element *-vaiga- clearly cannot have a verbal meaning as in *R̥štivaiga- ‘swinging the spear’. The name should rather be interpreted as a bahuvrīhi with the noun *vaiga- ‘stroke, blow’ as its second member. The connotation of Mithra's fighting power by means of vaēj- and vaēγa- is very well attested in Av. texts: for example, Yt. 6.5; Yt. 10.69, 96, 98.

• – Ir-da-me₀-ka₄ and Ir-ti-me₀-ka₄ (T. 4.2.1544): Ir. *R̥tavaiga- ‘striking through R̥ta’. As an alternative, one could think of *R̥tavaika- ‘who has chosen R̥ta’ from an Ir. root *vaic- ‘to choose, select’⁶⁰ with the same meaning as *R̥tafravara- (T. 4.2.1465).

• – Me₀-ka₄-par-na (T. 4.2.1034): Ir. *Vaigafarnah- ‘glorious for his strokes’. A similar formation having a noun as a first member would be *Ciθrafarnah- ‘glorious for his origin’ (T. 4.2.399).

• – Me₀-ki-iz-za (T. 4.2.1035): Ir. *Vaigica-, hypocoristic of the Kurzname Ma-a-ka₄ *Vaiga- (T. 4.2.1785).

The only name which clearly cannot be explained as a compound with *-vaiga- is the abovementioned Ia-iš-na-MAN-ka₄. However, a new etymological proposal implying a reading man rather than me₀ can be formulated:

• – Ia-iš-na-man-ka₄ (T. 4.2.2014): the first element of this name is clearly *yasna-/*yašna- ‘prayer, worship, sacrifice etc.’, but, as was argued above, the traditional reconstruction of a second member *-manga ‘glorifying’ is inadequately founded. A possible alternative would be *Yašnavā̆nka- ‘reciting the prayer’ having as a second member either the OIr. antecedent of MP wāng ‘voice, cry’, Bal. gwānk ‘sound’, Arm. vank (loanword from pre-Sasanian Parthian or MP) ‘voice, sound’ or a form of the corresponding verbal root *vanc- attested in Khot. pyūṃj- ‘to deny’ (< *pativancaya-), byūṃj- ‘to abuse’ (< *vivancaya-), vaṃj- ‘to dispute’ (< *abivancaya-?).⁶¹

Finally, there remains a last anthroponym which does not belong to any of the previous groups:

• – Bat-ti-me₀-za (T. 4.2.1268): Ir *Pativaica- ‘chosen one’ to be compared with Parth. ptwšyk, Patwēčik, hypocoristic of the same name.⁶² A similar formation from OIr. *Vaicana- could be at the basis of Inscr.MP wycn, Inscr.Parth. wyzn, Man.Parth. wyjn (probably all representing a Parth. name Vēžan, cf. NP Bīžan).⁶³

Conclusion

Although not all the proposed etymologies are equally certain, I believe that I have collected enough evidence to show that a value me₀ for the Elam. sign <MAN> should be recognised. Admittedly, in order to clarify completely the usage of this sign, a thorough analysis of the genuinely Elam. lexicon in the Achaemenid Royal Inscriptions and in the Persepolis administrative texts would be needed. What needs to be looked out for are unexpected occurrences of <MAN> or cases in which <ME> could have been misread—or rather ‘normalised’—in place of me₀/man. Such an enquiry goes beyond the aim of this article, but I believe that the collection of Ir. evidence offered here represents a good starting point for further research on this subject.