*314-TA-MA

PH Wc 38, a Phaistos roundel (MM II), the sole word on it; TA is dotted (GORILA II 94). With *314 = ḤA, √ḥ-t-m ‘to seal, stamp’: Heb. ḥōtām (חותם) ‘seal, signet ring’ (HALOT 300), Arb. ḫatama ‘he sealed’ (Lane 702); Akk. ḫatāmu means only ‘to muzzle, block’ (CAD Ḫ 152). Either the noun ‘seal’, naming the sealing device, or the 3ms perfective ‘he sealed’, a performative inscription. Egyptian ḫtm ‘seal, contract’ extends the family. Rivals: Egyptian ḥtm ‘provide, supply’, which suits a roundel as receipt but lacks the pharyngeal ḥ of *314; with *314 = bu, a PU₂ variant, bṭm ‘pistachio’ (DULAT 249), Arb. buṭm ‘fruit of the terebinth’ (Lane 219), Ebla bù-da-ma-tim ‘pistachio’ (GlOS 1, 131), a roundel commodity, cf. *188 BUṬNU. Weak point: *314 = ḤA is a proposed value, and DU-*314-RE (KO Za 1) writes *314 for PU₂ in dubur, the value that gives the rival buṭm.