# A-RA-JU (ʾArāyu)

> a town of the kingdom of Ugarit, on the Ugarit–Alalakh border (toponym); rival Aralu

A Linear A word in the Linear A Lexicon. The reading is a proposal and carries its tier.

- Reading: ʾArāyu
- Confidence: Speculative. A proposed reading on a word too rare to test. Most occur only once.
- Root: ʾArāyu (Pre-Greek)
- Kind: Toponym
- Language: Semitic
- Signs: A (a) · RA (ra) · JU (ju)

## Compared forms

- Ugaritic: *ary* — ary 'Arāyu' (KTU 4.49:3; 4.68:8; 4.244:18; 4.380:23; DULAT 108, ảry II)
- Akkadian (Alalaḫ, rival): ᵘʳᵘA-la-la-aḫ (AIT 1:7; RGTC 12/2, 8)
- Akkadian (Ugarit): ᵘʳᵘA-ra-yu (RS 34.131 [RSOu 7 Nr. 4]:40); ᵘʳᵘA-ra-[ya] (RS 20.143B [Ug. 5 Nr. 103]:4′) (RGTC 12/2, 30); DULAT 108 reads RS 34.131:40 URU a-ra-wa and restores a-r[a-yu at RS 20.143B:4

## Attestations

- [HT 109](<https://linear-a.ai/texts/HT109/index.md>): A-RA-JU 123 — ʾArāyu, a town of the kingdom of Ugarit (toponym), 123; rival Aralu
- [HT 122b](<https://linear-a.ai/texts/HT122b/index.md>): A-RA-JU-U-DE-ZA 2

## Commentary

HT 109 .4 A-RA-JU 123, after KU-RO 129, and HT 122b .3 A-RA-JU-U-DE-ZA 2, each at the broken left edge; GORILA brackets HT 109's KU-RO line alike, and both lines begin with A (GORILA I 176–177, 208–209). With JU's second value yu, the yod (Melena 2014, 16), A-RA-JU spells ᵘʳᵘA-ra-yu sign for sign: ʾArāyu, a town of the kingdom of Ugarit on the border between Ugarit and Alalaḫ (van Soldt 1994, apud RGTC 12/2, 30). Rival: Aralu under the primary value lu, nearest place Alalaḫ, ᵘʳᵘA-la-la-aḫ, one vowel off with the final ḫ unwritten (RGTC 12/2, 8). HT 122b, under JE-DI · *346 · VIR, writes it with U-DE-ZA, listed alone on HT 122a.

## In the onomasticon

- [A-RA-JU](<https://linear-a.ai/names/A-RA-JU/index.md>): Place, Semitic

## References

- Reading: di Mino
- KTU: Dietrich, Manfried; Loretz, Oswald; Sanmartín, Joaquín (2013), Die keilalphabetischen Texte aus Ugarit, Ras Ibn Hani und anderen Orten / The Cuneiform Alphabetic Texts from Ugarit, Ras Ibn Hani and Other Places (KTU³). Ugarit-Verlag, Münster (Alter Orient und Altes Testament 360/1); ISBN 978-3-86835-014-2
- van Soldt, W. H. (1994), The Topography and the Geographical Horizon of the City-State of Ugarit. In G. J. Brooke et al. (eds.), Ugarit and the Bible, Ugarit-Verlag, Münster, pp. 362–382
- DULAT: del Olmo Lete, Gregorio; Sanmartín, Joaquín (2015), A Dictionary of the Ugaritic Language in the Alphabetic Tradition. Brill, Leiden/Boston (Handbook of Oriental Studies 1/112); Third Revised Edition, tr. and ed. Wilfred G.E. Watson; 2 parts
- GORILA I: Godart, Louis; Olivier, Jean-Pierre (1976), Recueil des inscriptions en linéaire A, volume 1: Tablettes éditées avant 1970 (GORILA I). École française d'Athènes (Études crétoises XXI, 1); Librairie orientaliste Paul Geuthner, Paris
- RGTC 12/2: Belmonte Marín, Juan Antonio (2001), Die Orts- und Gewässernamen der Texte aus Syrien im 2. Jt. v. Chr.. Dr. Ludwig Reichert Verlag, Wiesbaden (Répertoire Géographique des Textes Cunéiformes 12/2; Beihefte zum Tübinger Atlas des Vorderen Orients B 7/12/2)
- AIT: Wiseman, D. J. (1953), The Alalakh Tablets. British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara, London (Occasional Publications 2)
- Melena, José L. (2014), Mycenaean Writing. In Duhoux, Y.; Morpurgo Davies, A. (eds.), A Companion to Linear B: Mycenaean Greek Texts and their World, vol. 3,Bibliothèque des Cahiers de l'Institut de Linguistique de Louvain 133,Peeters,1–186

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Page: https://linear-a.ai/lexicon/A-RA-JU/
Licence: CC BY 4.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Cite as: di Mino, Tom. 2026. Linear A Lexicon. Plasma AI. https://linear-a.ai/. Data: kaphtor, commit add28e94.