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The structure of verbs of Keftiw/Minoan incantation against samuna ubuqi

disease from London Medical Papyrus demonstrates close resemblance with

the structure of Hattic verb

Alexander Akulov

independent scholar; St.Petersburg, Russia; e-mail: aynu@inbox.ru

Abstract

In Keftiw/Minoan incantation against samuna ubuqi disease from London Medical Papyrus

there three verbs: sabujajəjədʒa (a verb of movement), humakatu/humakātu, pawrəj/paurəj

(supposedly verbs of oral/mental activity). The structure of these verbs demonstrates close

resemblance with that of Hattic verb. In sabujajəjədʒa component sa- correlates with Hattic

negative prefix šaš, -bu- correlates with Hattic marker of 2nd

person singular subject/agent -u-,

ʒa/ʃа correlates with Hattic suffix/particle -aš (supposedly optative). The component hu- of

humakatu/humakātu is probably allomorph of above mentioned -bu-, -ma- looks like Hattic

marker of patient/direct object of 1st person -m-. Component pa- of pawrəj/paurəj correlates

with Hattic marker of 1st person singular agent/subject: fa-, and -w- correlates with a Hattic

marker of object (supposedly an object marker of 3rd

person).

Keywords: Minoan language; Keftiw language; Hattic language; comparative linguistics

1. Introduction

London Medical Papyrus (pic. 1) is a collection of recipes, descriptions of magic means and

incantations. First it was published by Walter Wreszinski (Wreszinski 1912). The papyrus is

dated to about 1627 – 1600 BC (Friedrich et al. 2006). It contains some incantations in

languages other than ancient Egyptian: in Semitic, Nubian and in so called Kaftiw/Keftiw1

(Haider 2001: 479). There are two Keftiw incantations in the papyrus. In current paper attention

is paid to the incantation that is conventionally named: incantation against samuna ubuqi2

disease. This incantation is the most interesting Keftiw/Minoan part of the papyrus since it

contains enough words belonging to different grammatical classes/categories. The incantation is

recorded by so called group-writing with the use of Egyptian determinatives (pic. 2), so it’s

possible to reconstruct original sounds; and determinatives help to see borders of words and to

determine unambiguously classes of words and sometimes even say something definite about

lexical meaning.

The transliteration3 of the text of incantation is the following:

Sntw Det. “to speak” ( “to eat”/ “to drink”, “to think”) nt sAmawnA Det.

“illness” wbqj Det. “illness”

sAt Det. “bread”

Det. “land” (?),

Det. “plurality”

1 Kaftiw/Keftiw (KAftjw) was ancient Egyptian name of Crete and Cretan people.

2 The incantation is usually named “incantation against/for samuna illness”, however, as far as the text of

incantation begin with words: samuna and ubuqi which both have determinative of “illness” I suppose that name of

illness is formed by these two words and so it is more accurate to name it “incantation against samuna ubuqi

illness”. 3 The transliteration made by Haider (Haider: 480) contains some mistakes, so it isn’t satisfactory for interpretations

and so a completely new transliteration of the incantation has been made.

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sAbwjAjjDAA Det. “to go” hwmakAAtw Det.

“to speak” (“to eat”/ “to drink”, “to think”) rpAAj Det.

“god” pAA wrj Det.

“to speak” (“to eat”/ “to drink”, “to think”) majA Det. “god” Dd tw rA 4.

Pic. 1. London Medical Papyrus; fragment of text with Keftiw incantations is marked by white

lines (source: Kyriakidis 2002: 215)

Pic. 2. Hieroglyphic transliteration of the incantation (source: Kyriakidis 2002: 214)

There are three verbs in the text of the incantation. Two verbs are marked by determinative A2

(according to Gardiner’s sign list) “to speak”, “to eat”/ “to drink”, “to think” (pic 3, 4), and the

third one is marked by determinative D54 “walking legs” (pic. 5) that is marker of verbs of

movement.

Pic. 3. Verb hwmakAAtw Det.

“to speak” ( “to eat”/ “to drink”, “to think”)

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Pic. 4. Verb pAAwrj Det. “to speak” ( “to eat”/ “to drink”, “to think”)

Pic. 5. Verb sAbwjAjjDAA Det. “to come”

The verb of movement was analyzed in special paper (Akulov 2017), and was shown

resemblance of its structure with that of Hattic verb.

Also was analyzed the structure of some cells of Phaistos disc which were identified as verbs

and was shown that structure of verbs of Phaistos disc demonstrate resemblance with structure

of Hattic verbs (Akulov 2016). However, any attempts to state something about the idiom of the

disc always are seriously questioned so it’s more useful to show resemblance of Keftiw/Minoan

and Hattic verbs on a more reliable material, i.e.: on the samples of Keftiw/Minoan language

found in Egyptian papyruses.

Pic. 6. Approximate territory occupied by Hattians in 3rd

– 2nd

millennia B

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2. sAbwjAjjDAA – sabujajəjədʒa Form sAbwjAjjDAA is transliteration used by Egyptologists and a more convenient representation

of the verb for linguistic purposes is the following: sabujajəjədʒa (in current context ə

represents unidentified sound).

Ending ʒa seems to be marker of optative mood. It seems that initially this ending was ʃа that

correlates well with Hattic particle -aš (Table 1, position 2), and this ʃа could become ʒa under

the influence of voiced consonant ending of verbal stem, i.e.: d (Akulov 2017: 38 – 39).

Thus, it seems that the root of the verb is jed.

The verb evidently contains partial triplication of root: ja-jə-jəd is left-handed triplication of

main root: jed. Also triplication is accompanied by alteration of vowel that takes place in the

terminal left variant of the root. Triplication can have the meaning of intensification so its usage

is rather logical in the context of incantation (Akulov 2017: 40).

Component sa- that is placed in terminal left position of the considered verb seems to be much

alike Hattic prefix expressing negation šaš/šeš (Table 1, position -9).

Component -bu- looks much alike Hattic u- (Table 1, position -7), that is subject marker of 2nd

person singular (Kassian 2010: 179).

The root of the verb, i.e.; jed4 seems to mean “approach” and thus sabujajəjədʒa can be

translated as: “let you/it not to approach me” (Akulov 2017: 40).

-9 -8 -7 -6 -5 -4 -3 -2 -1 0 1 2

Neg. Opt. Sb. Ref.

(?)

Dir.Ob. Loc. Loc. Loc. ? Root Tense/

aspect/

mood

Prtcl.

taš

šaš

teš

šeš

ta

te

fa

u,un

a

ai, e, i

tu/šu h, k, m,

n, p, š,

t, w(a),

waa

ta,

za,

še,

te,

tu

h(a),

haš,

kaš,

zaš?,

pi,

wa

k(a),

zi

f(a) R u

e

a

ma, fa,

pi

(= fi?),

aš/at

Table 1. Scheme of positional distribution of grammatical meanings inside Hattic verbal word

form (Kassian 2010: 178);

(Neg. – negation; Opt. – optative; Sb. – subject; Ref. – reflexive; Dir. Ob. – direct object; Loc. –

location; Prtcl. – particles)

3. hwmakAAtw – humakatu/humakātu.

Form hwmakAAtw can be represented as humakatu/humakātu. It seems that the root of the form is

katu that seems to be correlated with Hattic word katakumi “magic power” (Soysal 2004: 287).

And thus verbal root katu probably means “provide magical power”/ “to protect”.

4 In Hattic verbal root usually has the following view: CVC and CV (Kassian 2010: 180).

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Component hu- seems to correlate with Hattic u (Table 1, position -7) that is subject marker of

2nd

person singular (Kassian 2010: 179), it seems to be the same morpheme as bu in

sabujajəjədʒa; it seems that in position between vowels (in sabujajəjədʒa) hu becomes bu (see

section 2.)

Despite hV syllables are unknown for the idiom of linear A (Packard 1974: 35), but the Keftiw

idiom recorded in Egyptian papyruses could be slightly different, also it’s rather logical to

suppose certain distortion of Keftiw words in Egyptian recordings.

And -ma- seems to correlate with Hattic direct object/patient marker -m- (Table 1, position -5).

Precise meaning of Hattic equivalent is unclear, however, it’s possible to state that this is a

marker of direct object/patient of singular number (Kassian 2010: 179)

This verb evidently is connected with name rpAAj deity (pic. 7), that is placed immediately after

the verb.

Pic. 7. Name rpAAj

The word rpAAj can be represented as erupaj/erupāj. This form evidently contains name

Erupa/Erupā5.

Ending -j looks alike singular form of Hattic locative case marker -i (Kassian 2010: 176),

however, it probably can be marker of ergative in Keftiw6. It seems that this case marker

became -j after vowel ending of the stem.

Thus, it is possible to say that hu-ma-katu Erupa-i probably means: “you protect me, Erupa”.

4. pAA wrj – pawrəj/paurəj

Form pAA wrj can be represented as pawrəj/paurəj. This verb evidently is connected with name

majA deity (pic. 8), that is placed immediately after the verb.

Pic. 8. Name majA

Name majA evidently is name Maja7 (for more details see: Akulov 2017a).

5 Name Erupa/Erupā looks much alike name Europa that is a personage of Greek mythology. According to Greek

mythology Europa was a woman of Phoenician origin, she was abducted by Zeus in the form of a white bull and

moved to the island of Crete where she became mother of king Minos.

It seems that name Erupa/Erupā contains root *rup that correlates with Hattic root *lup that is a variant of word

milup “bull” (Soysal 2004: 294). Keftiw/Minoan language seems to be a language that has only /r/ phoneme and

has no /l/ since Linear B and Linear A have no signs for syllables with /l/ (Packard 1974: 34, 36).

Thus it’s possible to say that name Erupa/Erupā probably means “a being/person of bull”. 6 Hattic seems to be ergative (Kassian 2010: 182)

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The fact that name Maja seems to have no case markers means that Maja is object/patient.

Thus pawrəj/paurəj has the following structure: pa-w-rəj, where pa- correlates with Hattic -fa-

(Table 1, position -7) that is subject marker of 1st person singular (Kassian 2010: 179), and -w-

looks much alike Hattic -w- (Table 1, position -5), that is one of direct object markers.

The meaning of verbal root rəj is now unclear; however, it can be supposed that rəj probably

means “to call”.

5. Conclusion

Positional distributions of certain syllables within Keftiw/Minoan verbs look much alike those

of material implementations of morphemes expressing grammatical meanings in Hattic verb. It

means that Keftiw/Minoan and Hattic are very close. i.e.: belong to the same group.

References

Akulov A. 2017a. A Minoan deity from London Medicine Papyrus. Cultural Anthropology and

Ethnosemiotics, Vol 3, № 2; pp.: 13 – 17

Akulov A. 2017b. Some notes on the grammatical structure of a verb from a Minoan incantation

from London Medicine Papyrus. Cultural Anthropology and Ethnosemiotics, Vol. 3, № 1; pp.:

35 – 41

Akulov A. 2016. The idiom of Phaistos disc seems to be a relative of Hattic language. Cultural

Anthropology and Ethnosemiotics, Vol 2, № 4; pp.: 28 – 39

Friedrich W. L, Kromer B., Friedrich M., Heinemeier J., Pfeiffer T., Talamo S. 2006. Santorini

Eruption Radiocarbon Dated to 1627 – 1600 B.C. Science, Vol. 312 (5773), pp.: 548

Gardiner’s Sign List of Egyptian Hieroglyphs A. Man and his Occupations

http://www.egyptianhieroglyphs.net/gardiners-sign-list/man-and-his-occupations/ – accessed

October 2017

Haider P. W. 2001. Minoan Deities in an Egyptian Medical Text, in Laffineur R. and Hägg R.

(eds.), POTNIA. Deities and Religion in the Aegean Bronze Age, Aegaeum 22; pp.: 479 – 482

Kassian A. S. 2010. Khattskii yazyk (Hattic language), in Kazanski N.N., Kibrik A.A.,

Koryakov Yu. B. (eds.) Yazyki Mira. Drevnie reliktovye yazyki Perednei Azii (Languages of the

World. Ancient relic languages of Western Asia). Academia, Moscow; pp.: 168 – 184

Kyriakidis E. 2002. Indications on the nature of the language of the Keftiw from Egyptian

sources. Ägypten und Levante, Vol. 12 (2002), pp.: 211 – 219

7 Maja of Keftiw/Minoan incantation evidently is connected with Maia of ancient Greek mythology. Maia of

ancient Greek mythology is the oldest of seven Pleiades. Pleiades were connected with seafaring since the season of

navigation in Mediterranean region began with their heliacal rising. Keftiw/Minoan Maia could be a protector of

sailors; use of name Maja in an incantation against a disease is completely logical since seafaring was very

important for Keftiw/Minoan people, and so a deity that was protector of sailors evidently was considered as a

mighty one and could also be an effective protector against other troubles (Akulov 2017a)

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Packard D. W. 1974. Minoan Linear A. University of California Press, Berkeley

Soysal O. 2004. Hattischer Wortschatz in hethitischer Textüberlieferung. Brill. Leiden – Boston

Wreszinski W. 1912. Die Medizin der alten Ägypter. Band 2: Der Londoner medizinische

Papyrus (Brit. Museum Nr. 10059) und der Papyrus Hearst. In Transkription, Übersetzung und

Kommentar. Hinrichs, Leipzig