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üKurangu and üLal(l)angu as Possibly ‘Rice’ and ‘Indigo’ in Cuneiform

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 April 2016

R. Campbell Thompson
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Extract

In certain Assyrian botanical vocabularies there is a group devoted to a series of plant-names many of which begin with ŠE ‘corn’ and GÛ ‘vetch’ (C.T. xiv. 31, K. 8846, r. 1-8: 32, K. 4588, ii, 2–10; S. Smith, C.T. xxxvii. B.M. No. 108860, pl. 29, 11. 35-50). These contain such words as üuṭṭatu ‘barley’, ükibatu ‘wheat’, üšu’ ‘emmer’, ükiššenu ‘vetch’, üḫalluru ‘lathyrus’, üduḫnu ‘millet’, with their Sumerian equivalents.

Type
Research Article
Information
IRAQ , Volume 6 , Issue 2 , Autumn 1939 , pp. 180 - 183
Copyright
Copyright © The British Institute for the Study of Iraq 1939

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References

page 180 note 1 i.e. gurinj, guranj as ‘rice’, and gurinjār, a rice ground.

page 182 note 1 Perhaps.

page 182 note 2 ‘Seed of nîlâ which comes from India.’

page 183 note 1 I had hoped to see in this word a possible corruption of a Sanskrit word iṣupuṅkhā said to be indigo (Böhtlingk, Sanskrit-Wörterbuch, s.v.), but on this point I am indebted to Professor E. H. Johnston, who tells me that this is difficult: ‘Işupuṅkhā occurs (1) in a Kashmiri medical dictionary, the Rājanighaṇtu, about 1250 A.D.: and (2) in the Pañcasāyaka ( Schmidt, , Z.D.M.G. LXXI. 1917, 8)Google Scholar, date not earlier than the eleventh century, which may also be a Kashmiri work. The word is possibly a popular Sanskritization of a misunderstood vernacular word, and may indicate some plant which gives a blue dye other than indigo, if the meaning attributed to it by Böhtlingk is correct.’