# MA-RU (Maruʾ)

> Fattened (personal name), the bare stem of the Amorite MARUʾ- names; rival Maru 'Wool'

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

- Reading: Maruʾ
- Confidence: Speculative. A proposed reading on a word too rare to test. Most occur only once.
- Root: [\*mrʾ ~ \*mariʾ-](<https://linear-a.ai/roots/1084/index.md>) 'fat' 1, 'fat cattle' 2, 'to be fat' 3
- Kind: Personal name
- Language: Semitic
- Signs: MA (ma) · RU (ru)

## Compared forms

- Amorite: MARUʾ+JAT-UM, MARUʾ+LI+ʾEL, MAʾR-U+ZAʾT-U-HU, all written MA-RU- (Gelb 1980, nos. 4542, 4543, 4545); Tuttul dādu-marʾum 'my beloved is fat' (Buck 2018, 327)
- Ugaritic: *mrủ* — mrủ 'fattened; fatling' (DULAT 563); syll. ma-ru-u 'fattened' (GlOS 2, 46)
- Hebrew: *mərîʾ* — mərîʾ 'fatted steer' (HALOT 635)
- Linear A: rival MA+RU (A559), the wool logogram, and MA+RU-ME (HT 24a)

## Attestations

- [HT 117a](<https://linear-a.ai/texts/HT117a/index.md>): MA-RU 1 — personal name, 'Fattened'; rival Maru 'Wool'

## Commentary

HT 117a, the fourth of ten men at 1 each under MA-KA-RI-TE · KI-RO · U-MI-NA-SI (KU-RO 10), between KU-RA-MU Kurmu and KU-PA₃-NU Kubānu. Amorite names open with MA-RU on MRʾ: MARUʾ+JAT-UM MA-RU-IA-TUM, MARUʾ+LI+ʾEL MA-RU-LI-EL, MAʾR-U+ZAʾT-U-HU MA-RU-ZA-TU-U₂ (Gelb 1980, nos. 4542, 4543, 4545), beside MAʾR-A+ʾEL MA-RA-EL and MAʾR-AT-UM MA-RA-TUM (nos. 4531, 4536); Gelb lists MRʾ? as a verb. MA-RU is the stem alone, the glottal stop unwritten. Ugaritic mrủ 'fatling' (DULAT 563): an animal name, as TE-JA-RE Tayru 'Bull' on the same list. Rival: Maru 'Wool', the wool word of the ligature MA+RU (A559) and MA+RU-ME (HT 24a), source of Greek μαλλός; Linear B ma-ro-ne, a man at Knossos (KN Fh 347). One witness.

## In the onomasticon

- [MA-RU](<https://linear-a.ai/names/MA-RU/index.md>): Personal name, Semitic

## References

- Reading: di Mino; Gelb 1980; DULAT; Buck 2018; GlOS 2
- AS 21: Gelb, Ignace J. (1980), Computer-aided Analysis of Amorite. Assyriological Studies 21,The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago
- 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
- Buck, Mary Ellen (2018), The Amorite Dynasty of Ugarit: The Historical Origins of the Bronze Age Polity of Ugarit Based upon Linguistic, Literary, and Archaeological Evidence. 
- GlOS 2: Sanmartín, Joaquín (2024), A Glossary of Old Syrian, Volume 2: l – z. Languages of the Ancient Near East 8/2,Eisenbrauns (Pennsylvania State University Press), University Park

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Page: https://linear-a.ai/lexicon/MA-RU/
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.