maḫḫuršani-

This lexeme is attested in Assyrian Transmission, i.e. in a medical omen text written in Akkadian and preserved in the archives of Ḫattuša.

[D.S.]

nom. pl.	ma-aḫ-ḫur-ša-ni-in-[zi]	KUB 37.195, 8’	(CTH 537, N/N)
	[ma-a]ḫ-ḫur-ša-ni-en-⸢zi⸣	KBo 9.49 obv.? 5’	(CTH 537, N/N)

Pace Wilhelm 1994a:47, who treats maḫḫuršaninzi as two words, i.e. maḫḫur (treating it as Akkadian) and šaninzi, although it is spelled as one word as pointed out in the lemma x(-)ḫa/uršāni-.

[D.S.]

Checked against the photographs in the Konkordanz (Mainzer Fotoarchiv). The choice of reading ḪUR instead of ḪAR is based solely on etymological suggestions; see under Stem.

[D.S.]

No translations are offered in Wilhelm 1994a:49, 50 and Giusfredi & Pisaniello 2021a:272 “a body part (?)”. The context in KBo 9.49 shows the Akkadian word kiṣṣatu denoting a sickness, which usually appears related to the nose in Mesopotamian medical texts. Due to the fixed order of those Mesopotamian medical texts, M. Wehrstein (pers. comm.) suggests a meaning related to the nose for maḫḫuršaninzi. As both attestations show a plural form, the word likely does not refer to the nose, but rather the nostrils.

Unfortunately, if maḫḫur- is to be connected to Hitt. mēḫur n. ‘time’ (see unter Stem below), any semantic link to nostrils seems farfetched.

[D.S.]

Wilhelm 1994a:49, 50 suspects maḫḫur(-)šaninzi to be Hittite/Luwian words, pointing out the Luwian nom. pl. c. ending -inzi. Giusfredi & Pisaniello 2021a:272 suggest for the second part a suffix -š(a/e)na/i-, which could only be a suffix chain out of *-ša- and -na/i-. Since no such morphological chain exists, it is more attractive to view it as a compound consisting of maḫḫur- and a lexeme *šan(i)-, perhaps related to PIE *sn̥ “apart from, distant, without” (LIPP II:710); cf. HLuw. /san(n)a/ and HLuw. /san(n)awi-/ under Reconstruction. The semantics of “separation” would accord well with the meaning ‘nostrils’.

M. Wehrstein (pers. comm.) also suggests for the first part maḫḫur- an etymological connection with Hitt. mēḫur/mēḫūn- n. ‘time’ (CHD L-N:239-242), which is highly attractive from a historical point of view: the noun goes back to a acrostatic paradigm *mḗh₂ur̥/méh₂un- (Eichner 1973a:69), from which Luwian would have generalized the outcome of the root in the oblique cases, whereas Hittite went the opposite way and generalized the strong cases with its lenited variant of the laryngeal after Eichner’s Law. However, if the word denotes a body part and especially the nostrils, it seems hardly possible to semantically keep the connection. Instead, one should perhaps consider the Hittite words maḫḫūri- n. and maḫḫurišša (CHD L-N:113), though both semantically obscure, as potential cognates. In any case, more evidence is needed.

[D.S.]

The proposed Luwian origin of the noun is based on its ending in -inzi (Wilhelm 1994a:49, 50, Giusfredi & Pisaniello 2021a:272).

[D.S.]