- Reading
- ʾAšmūn
- Confidence
- Probable
- Root
- *šam(a)n- ‘fat (also oil)’
- Kind
- Divine
- Language
- Semitic
- Rank
- #67 of the top 100
Compared forms
- Phoenicianʾšmn ʾEšmūn, god of Sidon and of healing: bt lʾšmn ‘a temple for Eshmun’ (KAI 14:16–17; KAI 15–16); ʾšmn mʾrḥ ‘Eshmun the Host’, who healed the dedicant (KAI 66:1–2) (Krahmalkov 2000, 82–84)
- Punicʾšmn in names from Sidon, Cyprus, Sardinia, Carthage, Spain and Italy: ʾšmnytn ‘Eshmun has given’, ʾšmnʿzr ‘Eshmun, help!’, ʾšmnʾdn ‘Eshmun is lord’, ʿbdʾšmn ‘servant of Eshmun’ (Benz 1972, 70–73, 278–279)
- Ugariticšmn (III) DN Šamnu, the noun ‘oil’ as a god’s name, two birds l šmn ‘for Šamnu’ (KTU 1.164:9; Pardee 2002, 75, 283), the later Eshmun (DULAT 817)
- AkkadianᵈIa-su-mu-nu beside ᵈMi-il-qar-tu in Esarhaddon’s treaty with Baal of Tyre (SAA 2 5 r. iv 14′); ᵈIa-su-mu-na (SAA 2 2 r. vi 22); /ʾAsmūn/ (Krahmalkov 2000, 82)
Attestations1 cited
Commentary
ZA Zb 3 (Zakros, LM IB), with VIN 32, an offering context. The skeleton (ʾ)-š-m-n is Eshmun, the Sidonian healing god, Ph. ʾšmn; the initial a is archaic, ʾAšmūn, as Assyrian ᵈIa-su-mu-nu keeps it (SAA 2 5 r. iv 14′; Krahmalkov 2000, 82). The name is šmn ‘oil’: Ugarit already has the god as šmn Šamnu, the noun as a name (Pardee 2002, 283), the later Eshmun (DULAT 817). Eshmun is a Phoenician god carried abroad from his cult centre at Sidon, and theophoric names are common in Linear A accounts. Rivals: šamnu ‘oil, fat’ as a commodity; *ṯamāniy- ‘eight’, Eshmun as the eighth son of Sadykos (Brown 1995, 36); Woudhuizen’s Akkadian assammû ‘a large drinking vessel’ (2016, 229–230; CAD A/2 339–340), the pithos’s own name. PK Za 12 A-NE is damaged between A and NE, with no sign loss established; a restoration there favours A-[KO-A]-NE (PK Za 11) over A-[SA-MU]-NE. One attestation. See OLE and *308.