# TA-NI-KA (Taʿnaku)

> Taanach (place name); rival a personal name

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

- Reading: Taʿnaku
- Confidence: Speculative. A proposed reading on a word too rare to test. Most occur only once.
- Root: [\*ʕnk](<https://linear-a.ai/roots/4414/index.md>) 'closure (of a door), fastening, barring'
- Kind: Toponym
- Language: Semitic
- Signs: TA (ta) · NI (ni) · KA (ka)

## Compared forms

- Hebrew: *Taʿnak* — Taʿnak 'Taanach', melek taʿnak ʾeḥād 'the king of Taanach, one' (Josh 12:21; HALOT 1770)
- Akkadian: {uru}Ta-aḫ-n[a-k]a, Amarna, EA 248:14 (RGTC 12/2, 281, s.v. *Taʿannaku)
- Egyptian: Tʿnk in the Thutmose III list, Urk IV 650:10 (RGTC 12/2, 281)

## Attestations

- [HT Wc 3004](<https://linear-a.ai/texts/HTWc3004/index.md>): TA-NI-KA SE
- [HT Wc 3005](<https://linear-a.ai/texts/HTWc3005/index.md>): TA-NI-KA SE

## Commentary

HT Wc 3004 and HT Wc 3005, two roundels by one scribe, each reading TA-NI-KA with SE (GORILA II 73): one context. Taanach is Hebrew Taʿnak (HALOT 1770; Josh 12:21; 17:11; 21:25; Judg 1:27) and Amarna URU Taḫnaka, EA 248:14, 'perhaps biblical Taanach' (Moran 1992, index). The name is a taqtal of ʿ-n-k, Arabic ʿanak 'closure of a door' (Boehmer, apud HALOT 1769, which calls it questionable). ʿ is unwritten, NI writes the a, and a Canaanite town on Haghia Triada roundels is unexplained. Rival: a local personal name.

## In the onomasticon

- [TA-NI-KA](<https://linear-a.ai/names/TA-NI-KA/index.md>): Place, Semitic

## References

- Reading: Moran 1992, EA 248:14; di Mino; HALOT
- EA: Moran, William L. (1992), The Amarna Letters. Johns Hopkins University Press
- 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
- GORILA II: Godart, Louis; Olivier, Jean-Pierre (1979), Recueil des inscriptions en linéaire A, volume 2: Nodules, scellés et rondelles édités avant 1970 (GORILA II). École française d'Athènes (Études crétoises XXI, 2); Librairie orientaliste Paul Geuthner, Paris
- RGTC 12/2: Belmonte Marín, Juan Antonio (2001), Die Orts- und Gewässernamen der Texte aus Syrien im 2. Jt. v. Chr.. Dr. Ludwig Reichert Verlag, Wiesbaden (Répertoire Géographique des Textes Cunéiformes 12/2; Beihefte zum Tübinger Atlas des Vorderen Orients B 7/12/2)

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Page: https://linear-a.ai/lexicon/TA-NI-KA/
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 add28e94.