The Decipherment of Minoan Linear A, Volume I, Part II

    The author shows that the Holy Trinity of the main Hurrian Gods, Teub, ebat and their son arruma is addressed in a sophisticated and poetic way, usually at the beginning of the so-called 'libation formulas', by means of descriptive epithets. They appear in a fixed order of importance. First Teub's Linear A epithet a-ta-i-jo-wa-ja 'Our Father', absolutive/vocative attai=(j)=o/uwwa=(j)=a, consisting of attai 'father' + transitional semi-vowel -j- between 2 vowels + enclitic possessive pronoun 1st person sing. -o/uwwa- (my) + transitional semi-vowel -j- between 2 vowels + the pluralizer -a (our). Compare cuneiform Hurrian dTe-e-e-u-pa-a ........ eb-ri-iw-wa-u-u at-ta-iw-wa-u-u (3 ergatives), 'Teub .... Our Lord, Our Father' in the Turatta letter (Mit. IV 118).

   Then the epithet of Teub's wife ebat, a-di-ki-ti/e(-te), analysis adi-dagitti, 'The woman is a beauty / beautiful' > 'The (most) beautiful woman', appears (in haplography) in the libation formulas. The form is attested as a-di-da-ki-ti (KN Zc 6.2) in scriptio plena on the interior of a Middle-Minoan III cup at Knossos (adi = 'woman').

[In Linear A and B -s- preceding an occlusive is not expressed in consonant clusters.]

    Then the epithet of the young god arrum(m)a appears as a-sa-sa-ra-me, analysis ara-arr=a=me, 'The young man/boy, he is like the King of Gods'. The Linear A variant ja-sa-sa-ra-ma|-na (KN Za 10a-b) can be analysed as y(a)/y(e)-ara-arr=a=mann=a, 'as well as "The young boy (ara 'young man') is (mann=(i)a) like the King of Gods" ', (arr=a is the essive of Hurrian arr=i 'King of Gods').

    The contents of the prayers in the 'libation formulas' appear to be about the same subject as the meaning of many personal names, in which the birth of healthy children, sometimes after the death of an older child, is always in the minds of the parents.

    Linear A u-na-ka-na-si, Hurrian un=a-()an=a=i 'come childhood, childbirth' is an essent...