‘Tears’, ‘Blood’ and ‘Eyes’ in Hieroglyphic Luwian: Observations on HLuw. sign *311 = <ASḪA> and Related Problems

International audienceThe paper examines consequences of the reading of the HLuw. combination FONS.*311 as luliyasḫa- ‘swamp, marshland’ proposed by the author in an earlier publication. The identification suggests for the sign *311 a phonetic reading , which sheds new light on several words spelled with the sign and the contexts in which they appear. In particular, the word (*476.*311)ḫi-ru-r- (ASSUR letter f+g, § 7) can now be re-read as (*476)ASḪA-ḫi-ru-r- and recognized as a derivative based on the Luw. counterpart of Hitt. išḫaḫru- (ēšḫaḫru-) ‘tear’; the sign *476 can be identified, accordingly, as an ideogram/logogram for ‘eyes’ (§ 2). § 3 discusses *wala- unta and other verbal forms in -unta suggesting that they most probably represent infinitives etymologically related to the Hitt. infinitives in -wanzi. § 4 discusses the preceding clause of the same letter (§ 6), proposing to interpret “*474”-ḫi- as ‘body, torso’ (= wassinaḫid-), (BRACCHIUM)ḫu- mi+ra/i as ‘upper arms’ and zi-ku-na- as the name of an instrument (or an activity) associated with harvesting. § 5 argues for an interpretation of the word ḫa-tu-ra+a frequently attested in Luw. letters as ‘health’ (contra earlier connection with ‘writing’). §§ 6-8 discuss other contexts in HLuw. texts likely associated with ‘shedding tears’ (KARKAMIŠ A17c, § 5; YUNUS § 3; KARKAMIŠ A5a, § 9). § 9 proposes to identify in (“*476.*311”)a-li-ia- and (“*476”)LOCUS-li-ia- the Luwian verb ‘cry, wail’ (phonetically alaliya-). §§ 10-11 address the question of graphical etymology of *311 and *351. § 12 discusses the meaning of tawasḫa- and § 13 adds observations on the picto- graphic origin of *476 (= OCULI) and LITUUS, suggesting that the latter is simply a graphical variant of OCULU