PA-KU / PU-KO

Two spellings of one vessel word. PU-KO stands alone on the HT 31 vessel inventory directly before *410-VS, the only vessel on the tablet without a name ligatured to its sign. PA-KU (KN Zc 6, an inked cup, written as one unit after DA-KI-TI) is a segment of continuous writing on a dedicatory object, where an oil-vial word fits: Hebrew pak ‘flask’ (HALOT 926), the vessel of royal anointing (1 Sam 10:1; 2 Kgs 9:1–3). PU-KO pukku keeps the older vowel that Hebrew pak lost after the labial; -KO writes final -ku, as -RO does in KU-RO. Ugaritic bk rb ‘a large vessel’ (KTU 1.3 I 12) stands in the same passage as krpn, the counterpart of HT 31's KA-RO-PA₃. Rival: bk is commonly compared with Greek βῖκος, and Smith and Pitard (2009, 108) call it ‘apparently an Indo-European Kulturwort’.