tupe/i-

This lexeme is found in the inscription of the inscribed pillar of Xanthos, dated contextually to shortly after the ascension of Artaxerxes II in 405-404 BCE and stylistically to around 400 BCE (Borchhardt & Eichner 1997-1999a:19f.).

[D.S.]

nom./acc. coll.

tupa

TL 44a.36 (Xanthos)

The word tupa is the direct object of axã ‘I made’ and occurs in a passage, where it is explained who built the surrounding monuments and who performed certain rites:

me=ti=p[rz]ze axã : trm͂mile : izredi : pededi : ñterez[e] xubase : tupa : esbedi : hẽmenedi : trm͂mil[i]jedi : se=medezedi … se=mrbbẽnedi : tupelijã : trm͂mili (TL 44a.34-38)

‘I made for the first Lycians in the ñtereze xubase with (my) hands and feet (= with all my heart) tupa with combined Lycian and Median horses … and the Lycian inscription(?) with mrbbẽnedi.’

It is tempting to connect tupa with tupelija- ‘inscription (?)’ occurring in the same context. Considering the etymological connection accepted for tupelija- and tupazali(je)-, tupa- would have to be the equivalent of tuppi- ‘clay tablet’. However, since no clay tablets were used in Classical Lycia, the word must have come to mean simply ‘tablet’ in Lycian. That tupa- was still connected to something used to write on is supported by tupazali(je)-, in which a professional title in -aza- (not known in the Bronze Age sources) was derived from the existing base tupa-, i.e. *tupaza- (a kind of scribe). Concerning the exact semantics of tupa, all we can glean from the context is that it denotes something made with Lycian and Median horses, giving the impression that it refers to something drawn or carved. Schürr & Dönmez 2015a:136f. interpret the context differently and see instead a description of a wrestling match. Gehrisch 2018a:63f. translates tupa as ‘blow, strike’ and interprets it as the subject of the sentence, seeing in hqqadijedi the verb a(i)-^(di) ‘to make’, which she translates as passive despite the active ending; as a result, her syntactic and semantic interpretation of the sentence is wrong and unusable.

[D.S.]

The assignment of the stem as -e/i- depends on the etymological connection with Hittite tuppi-, whose i-stem would have been reinterpreted as a mutated stem in the Luwic languages. Thus, tupa is taken here as a collective form of tupe/i-.

[D.S.]

1. tupelija-
2. tupazali(je)-
3. tupelezi(je)-
4. tupleleime/i-

The Lycian word tupa ‘tablets (?)’ (probably a collective form of tupe/i-), its derivatives tupelija- c. ‘inscription (?)’, tupelezi(je)- ‘scribe (?)’, Lyc.B tupleleime/i- ‘inscribed poem (?)’, the related Hieroglyphic Luwian nouns /tuppala-/ SCRIBA-la- ‘scribe’ and /tuppalalliya-/ SCRIBA-la-ia- ‘writing’, go back to Hitt. tuppi- c. ‘clay tablet’, which was ultimately borrowed from Akkadian ṭupu(m)/tupu(m) ‘tablet, document’ and itself represents a loan from Sumerian DUB (HEG T:451). For the literature on the etymological connection of each Luwic derivatives to the Hittite word tuppi- c., see under the relevant lemma.

[D.S.]