/asharimis-^?/, á-sa-ha+ra/i-mi-sà

Attested three times, this lexeme can be found in inscriptions from Karkamiš, which all date to the late 10^th or early 9^th century BCE.

[AH.B.]

nom./acc. sg.?	/asharimis?/	(“*350”)á-sa-ha+ra/i-mi-sà	KARKAMIŠ A11b+c, b6§18a (Karkamiš)
			KARKAMIŠ A12, 4§11 (Karkamiš)
dat./loc. pl.?	/asharimisanz?/	á-sa-ha+ra/i[-mi]-sà-za	KARKAMIŠ A29h3, l. 1 (Karkamiš)

The attestation in KARKAMIŠ A11b+c, b6§18a is followed by a string of enclitics: 〈-pa-wa/i-ma-za〉.
The form attested in KARKAMIŠ A29h3, l. 1 is tentatively analysed as a dat./loc. pl., which should be taken with caution, as the form occurs on a small fragment and hence lacks sufficient context. Melchert 2004d:472 regards the form as a nom./acc. sg. with the neuter particle /=za/ attached, and analyses the other two forms as nom./acc. pl.

[AH.B.]

Despite the syllabic spelling, only the first part of this word, i.e. /ashar/ ‘blood’, is clear, because it is well-known from CLuw. and has many cognates in the Anatolian languages. The phonological interpretation of the remainder of the form is tentative for three reasons. Firstly, it is not obvious whether or not there is a vowel between /r/ and /m/, and if so, what its quality is; Melchert 2004d:472 thus reads /asharmis/, whereas Rieken 2010a:654 advocates /asharimis/. Secondly, the quality of the /m/ is not clear, i.e. /m/ or /mm/, because it does not appear to be part of a suffix known from many other words (see discussion of stem below). Thirdly, the endings are difficult to pin down for a lack of grammatical clues regarding number within the respective contexts, and it is therefore possible that the form given for the nom./acc. should be seen as a plural instead and be read as /asharimisa/.

[AH.B.]

While the morphological make-up of the word suggests a strong relation to ‘blood’ (thus e.g. HHG:36), the meaning of the word may have shifted to a more general ‘sacrifice’. In particular, the context of KARKAMIŠ A11b+c, b6§18a lays out the type of /asharimis/ to be given to various goods, including a commonly bloodless food such as bread, but Starke 1990a:556 n. 2059 argues that this describes a practice commonly found in rituals and should not detract from understanding the sacrifice to be a blood-offering.

[AH.B.]

Neither the gender, nor the stem and hence the inflectional pattern of this lexeme become clear in the attestations, because the contexts do not provide the necessary circumstantial evidence to temper the vagaries of the HLuw. writing system. The word has hence sparked some discussion among scholars, and it is unlikely to be resolved fully without further textual evidence. Melchert 2004d:472f. and Rieken 2010b:654 view the word as a neuter noun formed with the suffix /-mis-/, which can also be seen in CLuw. /sarlamis-/ ‘exaltation’. A less likely interpretation by Starke 1990a:556 and Hawkins 2000a:106 regards the word as the /-mma/i-/ participle of a verb /ashara-/ vel sim., derived from the noun /ashar-/ ‘blood’, not attested in HLuw., but with many cognates in the other Anatolian languages.

N. Oettinger (apud Melchert, pers. comm.) has tenatively suggested a compound of the Luwian words for ‘blood’ and ´flesh’, cf. also CLuw. ašhar- and mi(ya)ša- ‘(a body part)´.

[AH.B.]

For the lemma head see [672] HLuw. */ashar-/.