Personal Names in the Aramaic Inscriptions of Hatra

209 Pages·2017·1.88 MB·English

IP Antichistica 17 e-ISSN 2610-9336
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SER ISSN 2610-881X
CS Studi orientali 7
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Enrico Marcato
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Edizioni
Ca’Foscari
Personal Names in the Aramaic Inscriptions of Hatra
Antichistica
Studi orientali
Collana diretta da
Lucio Milano
17 | 7
Antichistica
Studi orientali
Direttore scientifico
Lucio Milano (Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia, Italia)
Comitato scientifico
Claudia Antonetti (Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia, Italia)
Filippo Maria Carinci (Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia, Italia)
Ettore Cingano (Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia, Italia)
Joy Connolly (New York University, USA)
Andrea Giardina (Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa, Italia)
Marc van de Mieroop (Columbia University in the City of New York, USA)
Elena Rova (Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia, Italia)
Fausto Zevi (Sapienza Università di Roma, Italia)
Direzione e redazione
Dipartimento di Studi Umanistici
Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia
Palazzo Malcanton Marcorà
Dorsoduro 3484/D,
30123 Venezia
e-ISSN 2610-9336
ISSN 2610-881X
URL http://edizionicafoscari.unive.it/it/edizioni/collane/antichistica/
Personal Names in the Aramaic
Inscriptions of Hatra
Enrico Marcato
Venezia
Edizioni Ca’ Foscari - Digital Publishing
2018
Personal Names in the Aramaic Inscriptions of Hatra
Enrico Marcato
© 2018 Enrico Marcato per il testo | for the text
© 2018 Edizioni Ca’ Foscari - Digital Publishing per la presente edizione | for the present edition
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URL http://edizionicafoscari.unive.it/it/edizioni/libri/978-88-6969-231-4/
DOI 10.14277/978-88-6969-231-4
Personal Names in the Aramaic Inscriptions of Hatra
Enrico Marcato
Abstract
This book offers a comprehensive linguistic evaluation of the 376 personal names attested in the
roughly 600 Aramaic inscriptions of Hatra, the famous Northern Mesopotamian city that flour-
ished in the Parthian age, between the 1st century BC and the 3rd century AD. This study benefits
from the publication of many Hatran inscriptions during recent decades, which have yielded rich
onomastic data, and some fresh readings of these epigraphic sources. This work is subdivided into
three main parts: an “Onomastic Catalogue”, a “Linguistic Analysis”, and a “Concordance” section.
The “Catalogue” is organized as a list of entries, in which every name is transliterated, translated
(whenever possible), discussed from an etymological perspective, provided with onomastic par-
allels, and accompanied by its attestations in the Hatran Aramaic corpus. The “Catalogue” is
followed by a “Linguistic Analysis” which describes, firstly, the principal orthographic, phonologi-
cal, morphological, and syntactical features of Hatran names. The linguistic discussion proper
is followed by a semantic taxonomy of the names which make up the corpus and an overview
of the religious significance of the theophoric names. Charts of “Concordance” end the book.
Keywords Hatra. Aramaic. Inscriptions. Onomastics. Linguistics.

Personal Names in the Aramaic Inscriptions of Hatra
Enrico Marcato
Acknowledgements
This book is the result of the teaching and encouragement of many people, who guided and
supported me along a five-year-long path.
The initial version of this work was the core of my M.A. thesis L’onomastica di Hatra alla luce della
società e della cultura mesopotamica, which I submitted in Oct. 2013 to Ca’ Foscari University of
Venice under the supervision of Prof. Lucio Milano and Dr. Eleonora Cussini. I am very grateful to
them for guiding me attentively during its preparation and for encouraging with enthusiasm its
subsequent development. Prof. Lucio Milano also proposed to publish it with Edizioni Ca’ Foscari
and gave much advice on editorial matters.
A second, substantial phase in the preparation of this volume was enabled due to a DAAD short-
term research grant which allowed me to spend six months (Sept. 2015-Mar. 2016) at the Institut
für Orientalistik, Indogermanistik, Ur- und Frühgeschichtliche Archäologie of the Friederich-Schil-
ler-Universität of Jena, Germany. A second stay at the same Institute (Mar.-July 2017) allowed me
to refine the catalogue. A thorough revision of this work would not have been possible without
the supervision of PD Dr. Christa Müller-Kessler, to whom goes my sincere gratitude for her keen
interest in my work, the countless suggestions regarding this research and Aramaic in general,
and her gracious hospitality within and beyond Jena. I am grateful also to Prof. Dr. Norbert Nebes
and Prof. Dr. Manfred Krebernik, who warmly welcomed me and fostered stimulating discussions
of Aramaic and non-Aramaic sources.
The chance for exchanging views on Hatran inscriptions with members of the Missione
Archeologica Italiana a Hatra represented a major opportunity. I thank the Director, Prof. Roberta
Ricciardi Venco, for her generosity in sharing information from the Mission’s archive; a special
thank-you to Dr. Enrico Foietta for his enthusiasm in discussing the archaeological context and
his impeccable hospitality. My thankfulness goes also to Prof. Marco Moriggi, who showed a great
deal of interest in my work and helped in many ways, from checking readings and literature to
discussing the numbering of the inscriptions; he also most kindly shared information on unpub-
lished graffiti, which contributed significantly to the present volume.
The analysis of Hatran names benefitted also from a study of the Aramaic inscriptions from Par-
thian Assur which I carried out in Mar. 2017 at the Vorderasiatisches Museum of Berlin, using the
photographs of the German Archaeological Mission to Assur. I wish to express my gratitude to Dr.
Helen Gries for facilitating my stay and for her willingness to discuss several aspects of these texts.
Prof. Riccardo Contini, Dr. Paola Corò, Dr. Ermenegildo Nitta, Prof. Fabrizio A. Pennacchietti, and
Prof. Dr Wilfred H. van Soldt gave precious advice on various issues concerning Aramaic and Ak-
kadian onomastics and suggested bibliographical resources that I would have otherwise missed.
The meticulous remarks of three anonymous peer-reviewers led to significant improvements.
Finally, I am grateful to Geraldina Rozzi for her help in retrieving useful literature and to Emily
Zeran for her painstaking English language check, which saved me from several painful calques.
Of course, all mistakes or inaccuracies remain my own.
To my family, llwysʾ wlmksms wlmrqs ʾwrlys, whose love and support has never failed, this book
is dedicated.

Personal Names in the Aramaic Inscriptions of Hatra
Enrico Marcato
Table of Contents
0 Introduction 11
1 The Numbering of Hatran Inscriptions 17
2 Onomastic Catalogue 21
2.1 Attestations of Personal Names 21
2.2 Incomplete Names 135
3 Linguistic Analysis 141
3.1 Summarizing Charts 141
3.2 Orthographic And Phonological Features 143
3.3 Morphological Features (in Semitic Names) 148
3.4 Syntactical Features (in Semitic Sentence-Names) 152
3.5 Hypocoristic Suffixes to One- and Two-Word Names 153
3.6 Semantic Taxonomy of Hatran Semitic Personal Names 155
4 Religious Significance of Hatran Theophoric Names 163
5 Concordance 169
5.1 Entries in Abbadi (1983), Namensliste and Lexikon 169
5.2 Entries in Abbadi (1983), Unvollständige Namen
and Frühere Lesungen als Personennamen 175
5.3 Entries in Abbadi (1983), Familien- Und Stammesnamen 177
5.4 Concordance Between Complete Hatran Names
and Abbadi (1983), All Sections 177
5.5 Concordance Between Incomplete Hatran Names
and Abbadi (1983), All Sections 186
List of Abbreviations and Bibliography 187