ḫauni-

The word is only attested in a LNS manuscript of a festival-ritual from Kizzuwatna (now booked under CTH 500 in the Konkordanz, previously with CTH 628) as an epithet of the goddess Ningal/Nikkal, who appears mostly in texts with a Kizzuwatnean-Hurrian background and has probably been introduced to the Hittites via Hurrian mediation (cf. Imparati 1998a:356f.)

[A.B.]

nom. sg. c. ?	ha-ú-ni	KUB 59.60 rev. iii 4	(CTH 500, LNS)
		KUB 59.60 rev. iii 5

The attestations follow Otten 1992a:39, Groddek 2004d:103 and HW (2nd ed.) Ḫ:537 (cf. van den Hout 2007a:250). The transliteration has been checked against the photo of the Mainzer Fotoarchiv. The form seems to be uninflected and appears in a logographic sequence. If it is an uninflected epithet, it belongs to the subject of the sentence and accordingly has the function of a nom.sg.c., cf. under Meaning.

[A.B.]

The word has not yet been translated, the dictionaries that list the lexeme at most indicate that it is an epithet; cf. HW (2nd ed.) Ḫ:537; Ünal 2007a:205; Ünal 2016a:182 (not included in HEG, HED, CLL, Laroche 1959a, EDHIL, Tischler 2008a and Tischler 2016a).

The context of KUB 59.60 rev. iii 2–5 (transliteration is based the photo of the Mainzer Fotoarchiv, also the hand copy as well as the transliterations and restorations of Otten 1992a:39; Groddek 2004d:103 and HW (2nd ed.) Ḫ:537 have been taken into account) shows:

(2)[…]x x nu-wa a-pu-u-uš az-zi-ik-kán-du (3)[…]⸢d⸣nin.gal a-bi ama ki.min (4)[… d]nin.gal ḫa-ú-ni ⸢⸣ma-ra-ni ki.min (5)[…]x ḫa-ú-ni ma-ra-ni ⸢ki.min⸣

(2)[…]“and they shall feast (3)[… the deit]y Ningal of father and (of?) mother, likewise (4)[… the deit]y Ningal ḫauni ⸢⸣marani, likewise (5)[…] ḫauni marani, likewise”

The verb in line 2 introduces a sequence of deities that shall eat, and Ningal ḫauni marani is hence one of them and the subject of the sentence. The marked form ḫauni appears paired with marani (cf. under the lemma marani-), both are apparently uninflected and presumably epithets. The parallelism between lines 3 and 4 shows that these are indeed epithets of the deity Ningal/Nikkal, however the beginning of line 5 does not show if there is another deity involved.

With regard to the meaning of this word, there is no lexeme from Hittite or Luwian that could be adduced for comparison. But since the accompanying Glossenkeilwort marani- is most likely a Hurrian word and these epithets have probably been imported together with the deity from Hurrian, one can assume that ḫauni- is a foreign (maybe Hurrian) word as well. Note that Richter 2012a:128 lists another Hurrian epithet of Ningal: ḫa-waa-ar-ra (with unknown meaning), which could belong to the same root (cf. under Origin). But the evidence is too uncertain to assign a meaning to this word at the moment.

[A.B.]

Although van den Hout 2007a:205 listed it under ‘marked Luwian words’, there is no attested word that would match ḫauni- in Luwian (or Hittite); it is not listed among the Luwianisms by Melchert 2005a. HW (2nd ed.) Ḫ:537 considers it a Luwian loanword (with question mark), and Ünal 2007a:205 (cf. Ünal 2016a:182) seems to assume a Hittite lexeme as he does not include any other origin for this word.

The form appears to be uninflected, which points to a foreign origin. If it is an i-stem, it is probably a loanword from an unidentified language (loanwords e.g. from Akkadian or Hurrian usually appear as i-stems in Hittite texts, cf. Hoffner & Melchert 2008a:53). As noted under Meaning, it is likely that ḫauni- (like the accompanying marani-) is of Hurrian origin. The Hurrian form ḫa-waa-ar-ra (cf. under Meaning) could include the same root as ḫauni-, but the morphological details remain unclear.

[A.B.]