/uraiya-/, MAGNUS+ra/i-ia-zi-ha-

The lexeme is attested only once in an inscription from Karkamiš, which is dated to the 8^th century BCE.

[AH.B.]

The meaning ‘commander’ was suggested first by Hawkins 2000a:150, later built on by Giusfredi 2010b:131f., who stated that the word perhaps denotes a class of administrators. However, both of these interpretations may be rather too semantically specific, because the meaning does not become fully clear from the context in CEKKE inscr. 2, §14: (LIGNUM)ha-za-ni-sa-pa-wa/i za-sa ha-pu-zi-sa INFANS.NI-wa/i-za-sa á-sa-ta BRACCHIUM-la/i/u [DOMINUS]-ní-sa MAGNUS+ra/i-ia-zi-ha, approx. /hazannis=ba=wa zas happuzzis nimuwizzas asta …-rula nannis uraiyanzi=ha/, meaning ‘It was the mayor, the son of a certain Hapuzi, the lord of the BRACCHIUM-rula-, and the grandees’. While it is perfectly reasonable to assume the word to denote high-ranking officials, nothing can be said about their sphere of power, and hence a less specific interpretation such as ‘grandee’, based mainly on the morphology of the word, is more appropriate, until further textual evidence facilitates a pinpointing of the denotation.

[AH.B.]

The lexeme is a derivation in /-i(ya)-/ of */ura-/, cf. Rieken 2005b:68, at first an adjective, but subsequently substantivized. Sasseville 2021a:97 suggests that a further derivation with /-a-/ has taken place, which explains the fact that the form does not show i-mutation.

[AH.B.]

*This lemma was co-written with the trainee Marian Wehrstein.

For the lemma head see HLuw. /ura/i-/.