teššummi-

The noun occurs mostly in rituals and festival texts (from OS onwards), but not exclusively so. For a full record of attestations, see Soysal 2010a:339f.; the list below is a representative sample.

[E.R.]

nom. sg.	DUGte-eš-šu-mi-iš	KUB 34.88, 11	(CTH 677, MS)
	GIŠte-eš-šu-mi-iš	KBo 64.51, 4’	(CTH 670, NS)
	[D]UGti-šu-mi-š(=)	KBo 32.105 r. col. 5’	(CTH 789, MS)
dat./loc. sg.	DUGte-eš-šum-mi-ia	KBo 17.40 iv 11	(CTH 645, MS)
abl./instr.	DUGgal-me-et	IBoT 2.91 iii 7	(CTH 627, NS)
acc. pl.	te-eš-šum-me-uš-š(=)	KBo 17.6 ii 6’	(CTH 416, OS)
	te-eš-šum-me-uš	KBo 17.6 ii 19’	(CTH 416, OS)
	⸢DUG⸣te-eš-šum-mi-ia-a[š]	KBo 17.25 ii 7′	(CTH 752, OS)

Checked against the photographs in the Mainzer Fotoarchiv. – Around half of the attestations are spelled with a determinative (mostly DUG, only once GIŠ). The logographic spelling ^DUGgal ‘beaker’ is shared with zēri- ‘baked beaker’ (HW:457, Otten & Souček 1969a:101f., Soysal 2010a:337f.), only rarely distinguished by phonetic complements  (^DUGgal-i-, ^DUGgal-me- vs. ^DUGgal-ri-).

[E.R.]

The meaning of teššummi- was recognized by Neu apud Rosenkranz 1964a:251, who pointed to the interchanging use of the syllabic and logographic spellings (for the contexts, see Otten & Souček 1969a:101; cf. also the entries in HW:457, HHw:175, HEG T:342f., Ünal 2007a:715). The object is used as a drinking vessel for wine, beer and other liquids. It is made of clay, mud, wood, and copper (for details, see Soysal 2010a:337-342), the process being once described with the figura etymologica teššummin tiššā(i)- ‘to shape a beaker’ (Neu 1988b:239 n. 117).

[E.R.]

In Hittite, teššummi- inflects consistently as an i-stem noun. Rieken’s (Rieken 2002b:410) proposal that the word reflects a -mma/i- participle of an athematic verb with anaptyxis of -u- is challenged by the analysis by Melchert (DCL:s.v., in spite of the doubts raised by Soysal 2010a:338), who suggests a denominative suffix -umma/i- comparing annarumma/i- attached to a base *tišša(/i)-.

[E.R.]

The root, suffix, and i-stem inflection speak for a lexeme with Luwian origin (thus Rieken 2002b:410, DCL:s.v.; perhaps also implicitly Neu 1988b:239 n. 17; different Soysal 2010a:338f.), probably an old borrowing not only because of the early attestation, but also because of the e-vowel in the first syllable, which may represent an earlier stage in Luwian than -i- in the base verb tiššā(i)-.

[E.R.]

For the lemma head see CLuw. *tišš-.