LAPIS
‘tanding stone (?)’
- Language
- Hieroglyphic Luwian
- Grammar
- subst
- ID
- 3314
1. Individual Anatolian Languages
1.1 Hieroglyphic Luwian
LAPIS
‘tanding stone (?)’1.1.1Transmission
This hapax is attested in a single inscription from Malatya, dating to the early 11th or 10th century BCE.
[A.P.]
1.1.2Forms
| (nom.)/acc. sg. | /…/ | LAPIS | DARENDE, §3 (Malatya) |
It is not entirely clear if the attestation at DARENDE, §3 represents a separate lexeme, or if the logogram should be judged incomplete (thus implied by Hawkins 2000a:305) and the word be considered part of one of the lexemes that use STELE (i.e. LAPIS+SCALPRUM) in their spelling: HLuw. /wanid-/ ‘stele’, HLuw. /tanid-/ ‘installation’, or HLuw. /kuttassar(i)-/ ‘orthostat’, cf. the discussions below.
The attestation at DARENDE, §3 does not allow a glimpse at the grammatical gender of the word, because the preceding demonstrative pronoun /za-/ hosts a chain of clitics and its final /n/, if present, would be graphically elided: 〈za-pa-wa/i〉 can stand for nom./acc. sg. n. /za=ba=wa/ or acc. sg. c. /zan=ba=wa/.
[A.P.]
1.1.3Graphic Features
1.1.3.1Phonological Interpretation
Unknown, provided the spelling is not a mistake for STELE, i.e. LAPIS+SCALPRUM.Usually, LAPIS appears with an inset SCALPRUM (*268), a combination representing the semantogram STELE. It is not clear what phonological form is represented by the logogram LAPIS (sign *267), which is found with only one further word, viz. HLuw. /ziPattann(i)-/ ‘(a volume measure / tool)’, attested also with the logogram *255 besides.
The HLuw. corpus holds another word for ‘stone’, viz. HLuw. /assu-/, whose spelling consistently relies on the logogram SCALPRUM (*268), either as a determinative or representing part or all of the phonological form of the word. The disparate choice of logograms suggests that LAPIS stands for a word other than /assu-/.
[AH.B.]
1.1.4Meaning
Assuming that the present word is separate from those lexemes using STELE at all, the semantic assignment ‘standing stone’ should be understood as provisional. A brief dedicatory inscription, DARENDE, §3 concludes the text: za-pa-wa/i LAPIS DEUS-ni PONERE-wa/i-ha, approx. /za(n?)=ba=wa … massani tuwahha/, meaning ‘I put up this standing stone for the deity’ (cf. Hawkins 2000a:305). The word behind LAPIS quite likely references the carrier object of the text, a “[s]mall, 4-sided, round-topped, tapering stele” (Hawkins 2000a:304). Further finds of the sign LAPIS may result in a reappraisal.
[AH.B.]
1.1.5Stem
Unclear. Even the grammatical gender of the word cannot be deduced form the context, cf. the discussion under Forms above.
[AH.B.]