bebint

Relatively well attested in Carian graffiti from Egypt from around the mid-7^th c. BCE (during the rule of Psammetichus I, from the tomb of Montuemhat in Thebes) and c. 593/592 (Abu Simbel, Adiego 2007a:31 with ref.), the date of the graffito from Silsilis is unknown.

[Zs.S.]

unknown	bebint	E.AS 7, E.Si 4, E.Th 30
	bebịnt	E.Th 28

Attestations follow Adiego 2007a:358, checking against the published photographs was only in one case possible (E.AS 7, O. Masson 1979a:Pl.IV.3, but cf. below), since the overwhelming majority of the Theban graffiti (including these) have not been published properly yet, present cases have not even been published in drawings (Adiego 2007a:95f.). On the reading of E.Si 4 see Adiego 2007a:112f. The state of E.AS 7 has deteriorated since its discovery (cf. O. Masson 1979a:44), thus the penultimate letter of bebint is visible only in the drawing of the original publication (most recently Sayce 1893a:Pl.1), but not later (O. Masson 1979a:42 Fig. 7 = Adiego 2007a:118).

Adiego 2007a:357f. cautiously (“perhaps” and “seems”, resp.) mentions that bebnd of E.Th 6 may be related and bebi of E.Th 23 could be an incomplete form of bebint. Both are possible, but note that both graffiti consist only of these words and their identification with bebint requires an explanation of ‹d› in E.Th 6 and of the missing part in E.Th 23. Moreover, due to the lack of proper publication of these inscriptions the basis of the reading bebnd corrected against the drawing showing only bebn is, strictly speaking, unknown (Adiego 2007a:95, 98).

[Zs.S.]

Adiego 2007a:358 calls attention to the circumstance that this word is preceded by a diamond-shaped sign of unknown function in E.Th 28 and E. Si 4. Setting aside that these signs are not identical, other attestations of this word are not preceded by these signs (cf. already Adiego 2007a:253f.), thus, they have nothing to do with this word, the form of which is assured also by the word dividers in E.AS 7 and E.Th 30.

[Zs.S.]

Hajnal 1995b:18 with n. 18 claims that this word as 3rd sg. pres./pret. belongs to the same stem as Carian binq, which he translates as ‘ich schenkte’, although admitting that the texts remain opaque. He entertains also the possibility that be° in bebint is in fact only a (sentence initial) pronoun, for which there is no evidence whatsoever. Although his translation of binq is erroneous (see the discussion s.v. with an analysis of the possible phonological problems affecting bebint, too), a formal connection would still be possible, but there are good arguments that binq is in fact a substantive bi- in accusative with =q ‘and’ (see the discussion s.v.). All in all, there is no evidence for Hajnal’s claim.

Schürr 1996a:65f. cautiously (“dürfte”) suggests that we are dealing with a verb in 3rd sg. pret. (with the ending -t), since in E.Si 4 and E.Th 28 & 30 it is followed (although in E.Th 30 not immediately) by accusatives in -n. Later (Schürr 2001d:108) he even proposed a meaning ‘beopfern’ (with question mark), but there is no evidence for such a meaning and it does not illuminate the texts.

Finally, according to Adiego 2007a:358 the meaning of the word is unknown. His judgement is fully justified: Formally speaking it may indeed be a verb, following Schürr’s original argumentation, but the context of all instances is completely unclear, thus, the meaning of this word remains unknown.

[Zs.S.]