ḫiari
REVIEW
Meanings:
(a festival; a month)
Distribution: OBOB: Old Babylonian (ca. 2000–1600 BCE), MB-AlalaḫMB-Alalaḫ: Middle Babylonian texts from Alalaḫ (ca. 1500–1200 BCE)
Domain: Months
Grammar:
pos: subst.Substantive
Etymology: Uncertain Regarding the etymology proposed by Durand 1988, 121f., who connects the word with an Amorite term for “stallion”, Krebernik 2001, 158f. has pointed out that the latter should rather be reconstructed as *ʿaj(a)ru (cf. Hebrew and Arabic ʿajr), and would therefore correspond in Ugaritic to ʿr. It seems more likely, however, that ḫiari should instead be connected with the month name and festival ḫi-ia-re-e attested at Alalah. This hypothesis is further corroborated by the fact that in Ugaritic the name of this month and festival is rendered as ḫjr, which must therefore be distinguished from the hypothetical root *ʿr for “stallion”.
3Attestations
OBOB: Old Babylonian (ca. 2000–1600 BCE) ina šalāšat ūmī ana GN amaqqut a[k]kīma lāma nīq ḫi-ia-ri-im šalāšat ūmī ūlū erbet ūmī akaššadu ARM 26/1, 127 no. 17: 16 ARCHIBAB “I will make my appearance in GN in 3 days so that I will arrive 3 or 4 days before the sacrifice of the ḫ. -festival.”
OBOB: Old Babylonian (ca. 2000–1600 BCE) warki nī[q ḫi-i]a-ri ARM 26/1, 108 no. 11: 41 ARCHIBAB.
OBOB: Old Babylonian (ca. 2000–1600 BCE) lāma nīq ḫi-ia-ri-im ḫamšat ūmī akaššad ARM 26/1, 131 no. 19: 5 ARCHIBAB “I will arrive 5 days before the sacrifice of the ḫ. -festival”.