# A-ZU-RA (ʾAṯirat) > Athirat (divine name: the Goddess) A Linear A word in the Linear A Lexicon. The reading is a proposal and carries its tier. - Reading: ʾAṯirat - Confidence: Candidate. A comparison worth testing; the evidence is thin or the word is rare. - Root: [\*ʾaṯir-at-]() 'sacred grove/pole; goddess (Asherah)' - Kind: Divine - Language: Semitic - Signs: A (a) · ZU (zu) · RA (ra) - Rank: #99 of the top 100 ## Compared forms - Akkadian: *Ašratu* — Ašratu 'the goddess Ašratu' (HALOT 99) - Ugaritic: 𐎀𐎘𐎗𐎚 *ʾaṯrt* — ʾaṯrt (Athirat) 'goddess of the sea' (DULAT 125) - Hebrew: אֲשֵׁרָה *ʾăšērā* — ʾăšērā (אֲשֵׁרָה) 'Asherah, goddess/cult pole' (HALOT 99) - Phoenician: 𐤀𐤔𐤓𐤕 *ʾšrt* — ʾšrt 'Asherah' (DNWSI 117) - Amorite: ʔaθeratum — ʔaθeratum 'the Favourite, Lucky One', a-še-ra-tum = DINĜIR.MAḪ (Sanmartín 2026, 140; Hess 2025, 3–4) ## Attestations - [KN Zc 7](): A-KA-NU-ZA-TI DU-RA-RE A-ZU-RA — Athirat (the Goddess) ## Commentary KN Zc 7, an inked vessel: A-KA-NU-ZA-TI · DU-RA-RE · A-ZU-RA ·, the divine name after 'this bowl' and DU-RA-RE, before JA-SA-RA-A-NA-NE. ZU, AB 79, is the one sign dedicated to ṯ and covers the whole ṯ-series, as Old Babylonian PI writes wa, we, wi and wu (Huehnergard 2011, 69); elsewhere scribes wrote ṯ in the T-series (di Mino, Ya Diktu 16–17 n. 27). A-ZU-RA writes ʾAṯirat (di Mino, Ya Diktu 40). Final RA writes the live /a/ of the feminine ending, which rules out ʾaṯirt- (Amarna a-ši-ir-te, Aramaic ʾăšērtā). ʾAṯirat is the West Semitic form: Ugaritic ʾaṯrt /ʾaṯiratu/ (Huehnergard 2012, 142) and Amorite a-še-ra-tum, whose second vowel 'is not elided as in Akkadian' (George and Krebernik 2022, 130). Rival: ʾAṯrat, with the middle vowel syncopated, as ᵈaš-ra-tu at Ugarit (RS 20.24: 20), a god list in Akkadian forms, ᵈaš-ra-tum in Old Babylonian, and 18 of the 95 Amarna spellings of ʿAbdi-Aširta, his own EA 60 among them (Hess 2025, 1–2, n. 14). Final -t is unwritten, and the ṯ is kept against the š of Akkadian and Hebrew. ## In the onomasticon - [A-ZU-RA](): God or goddess, Semitic ## References - Reading: di Mino; Huehnergard 2011; George and Krebernik 2022; Hess 2025; Huehnergard 2012; Sanmartín 2026 - Huehnergard, John (2012), An Introduction to Ugaritic. Hendrickson - EA: Moran, William L. (1992), The Amarna Letters. Johns Hopkins University Press - George, Andrew R.; Krebernik, Manfred (2022), Two Remarkable Vocabularies: Amorite-Akkadian Bilinguals!. Revue d'assyriologie et d'archéologie orientale,116,Presses Universitaires de France,113–166 - Hess, Richard S. (2025), New Evidence for Asherata/Asherah. Religions,16,MDPI - HALOT: Koehler, Ludwig; Baumgartner, Walter; Stamm, Johann Jakob; Richardson, M. E. J. (trans. and ed.) (1994), The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament, vols. I–IV. E. J. Brill, Leiden · New York · Köln - 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 - Huehnergard, John (2011), A Grammar of Akkadian. Eisenbrauns, Winona Lake, IN (Harvard Semitic Studies 45); Third Edition - Sanmartín, Joaquín (2026), New contributions to the Old Syrian vernacular: Additions and corrections to GlOS 1 and 2. Scholium: naming the left-hand columns. Aula Orientalis,44/1,135–166 - Ya Diktu: di Mino, Tom (2026), Ya Diktu: Grammar of the Minoan Peak Sanctuary Libation Formula. Minoan Mystery, online,46 pp. - DNWSI: Hoftijzer, J.; Jongeling, K.; with appendices by R. C. Steiner, A. Mosak Moshavi and B. Porten (1995), Dictionary of the North-West Semitic Inscriptions. E. J. Brill, Leiden/New York/Köln (Handbuch der Orientalistik I/21), 2 parts --- Page: https://linear-a.ai/lexicon/A-ZU-RA/ 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 50525edd.