A-RE-TU-MI
Earth is my mother (NWS theophoric compound PN; pre-Greek Artemis)
- Reading
- ʾarṣ̂-ummī
- Confidence
- Candidate
- Root
- *ʾar(V)ṣ̂- ‘earth’
- Kind
- Personal name
- Language
- Semitic
- Rank
- —
Compared forms
- Hebrewאֶרֶץʾereṣʾereṣ (אֶרֶץ) ‘earth, land’; ʾēm (אֵם) ‘mother’
- Ugaritic𐎀𐎗𐎕ʾarṣʾarṣ ‘earth’; ủm ‘mother’ (DULAT 67); X-ummī name Anati-umme, RS 14.16:7 (Kinlaw 1967, 24)
- Akkadianerṣetuerṣetu ‘earth’; ummu ‘mother’
- GreekἌρτεμις (Artemis)—widely agreed pre-Greek; no convincing Greek etymology
- LydianArtimuś (dat. artimuλ)—u after the m, not in TU’s slot; Aramaic (Letoon) ʾrtmwš likewise
- Linear Ba-te-mi-to (PY Es 650, genitive)—drops pre-consonantal /r/ per standard LB orthography
- EtruscanArtumes (oldest), Artam[e]s, Aritimi, gen. Artmsl (Nielsen & Rathje 2009: 261–262)—u before the m, as in TU-MI; Cristofani’s cited Aretume unverified
Attestations1 cited
- ZA 7aA-RE-TU-MIPN/epithet: 'Earth is my mother' (pre-Greek Artemis)
Commentary
ZA 7a: U-JU 5, A-RA-TU 4, A-RE-TU-MI; MI opens line 3, which runs on into the break, so words or a number may have followed it. ʾarṣ̂-ummī ‘Earth is my mother’: √ʾ-r-ṣ̂ ‘earth’, Heb. ʾereṣ, Ug. arṣ, Akk. erṣetu (HALOT 90), with ʾummī ‘my mother’, its glottal elided in sandhi. TU writes ṣu, as TE writes ṣe in TA-NA-RA-TE-U-TI-NU, and MI writes mmī, the geminate unmarked. Cf. the sentence names Mari Eštar-ummī (ARM 23 610:7) and Ugaritic Anati-umme (RS 14.16:7). Cf. Artemis, LB a-te-mi-to and a-ti-mi-te, Greek Ἄρτεμις and West Greek Ἄρταμις, a scatter Beekes explains as adaptation from an a/i/u vowel system (Beekes 2014, 8, 25). RE has the e of Akk. erṣetu and Heb. ʾereṣ (PS *ʾar(V)ṣ̂-), where A-RA-TU on the same tablet writes A-RA-. Weak point: the tablet breaks after MI, so the word can run on. One attestation. See A-RA-TU-ME.
On the 3D inscriptions
Not written on any of the 82 inscriptions modelled so far.