Personal name · Semitic

KI-RE-TA₂

Kret (eponym of Crete)

Reading
Kirēta / Kret
Type
Personal name Probable
Language
Semitic Probable
Sites
Haghia Triada
Attestations
2
Lexicon
KI-RE-TA₂

Commentary

HT 85b and HT 129, allocation context; written with TA₂, where KI-RE-TA and the gentilic KI-RE-TA-NA have TA. Kirēta, cf. Ugaritic krt /kirta/, the king of the Kirta epic (KTU 1.14–16). Rival: the island’s own name, a pre-Greek toponym later fitted to √k-r-t.

Compared forms

From the lexicon entry KI-RE-TA₂.

  • Ugaritickrt Kirta, king of bt ḫbr and hero of KTU 1.14–1.16; krt ṯʿ ‘Kirta the Hero’ (KTU 1.15 II 8; DULAT 453)
  • Hebrewכָּרַתkāratkārat (כָּרַת) ‘to cut’, wəhikrattî ʾet-kərētîm ‘and I will cut off the Kerethites’ (Ezek 25:16); negeb hakkərētî ‘the Negeb of the Kerethite’ (1 Sam 30:14)
  • Akkadiankarātukarātu ‘to cut off’ (CAD K 215); Ki-ir-ta, a king of Mitanni and a man of Alalakh (Niedorf 2008, 489)
  • Linear Bke-re-te-u Krētheus, a man’s name (PY Ea 59; Ventris and Chadwick 1956, 420), set beside krt by DULAT 453
Linear A Lexicon