war-

The only attestation of this form comes from the final sanction formula of a poetic inscription found in the necropolis of Sardis and datable to 5^th-4^th century BCE.  

[I.Y.]

The noun under discussion functions as the subject of kan-tro-^(d) ‘to allow (?)’. It must refer to the individual who will not allow a potential perpetrator to damage or desecrate the objects introduced in the inscription LW 11. The same noun is associated with the adjective wiswi- ‘pious, holy’. The same adjective frequently occurs in curse formulae, designating a pious person called to act as the agent of punishment. Although in this case we are hardly dealing with a prototypical curse formula, this parallelism still makes it more likely that waars designates here a human and not a god, contra Gusmani 1961a:197. This, however, is of little help for defining the lexical meaning of waars, which may be either a professional designation or an ad hoc role. The translation ‘protector’ would fit well the context, but independent etymological support would be required for its substantiation.

[I.Y.]

Synchronically, this is a consonantal stem. It is, however, noteworthy that waars did not undergo morphological renewal to **waarsiš > **waaršiš (contrast the case of prafršiš). It is, therefore possible that this is a historical vocalic stem and the stem-vowel of *wárVs was recently syncopated.    

[I.Y.]