Fragment of a locally made limestone bowl or krater · Lachish

LACH Za 1

Site
Lachish
Object
Fragment of a locally made limestone bowl or krater
Period
—
Scribe
—
Findspot
Tel Lachish, Area D, Locus 7059 Upper, Level VI
Edition
—

Text1 line

Linear ATransliteration
  1. 1]-MI(?)RI-DA-USE³⁄₄

Translation

[…]-MI(?) · Ridāyu · SE ¾ […]

Word by word2 words

  • RI-DA-URidāyupersonal name, 'Helper' (hypocoristic, as DI-NA-U Dīnāyu); rival a vessel or contents nameSpeculative
  • SEcommodity ideogram or capacity measure

Commentary

Incised right-to-left on a locally made limestone bowl or krater fragment; both ends are broken. The first preserved MI is probably the end of a lost word. Finkelberg, Uchitel and Ussishkin (1996, 195-203) offer only two functional possibilities: ‘RI-DA-U: 3/4 of the SE commodity,’ or a container for RI-DA-U of 3/4 SE capacity. Their closest parallel, KN Zb 27 DI-NA-U · VIN 17, is name, commodity, number. RILA-S1 D 5 classifies the inscription as doubtful Linear A.

Epigraphic note

Fragmentary right-to-left inscription, broken at both ends. Finkelberg, Uchitel and Ussishkin (1996, 195-203) read ]-MI(?) · RI-DA-U · SE 3/4[. RI-DA-U is divider-bounded but untranslated; SE is an ideogram or metrological sign, and *732 (formerly merged as JE) is the fractional sign probably worth 3/4. The object probably carried a commodity or capacity label, not a prayer. RILA-S1 D 5 classifies the inscription as doubtful.

Linear A Lexicon