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JOURNALOF THK

ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY.1919

VI

THE PAHLAYI DOCUMENT FSOM AVKOMAN

BY A. COWLEY

T N the Journal of Hellenic Studies for 1915, p. 22,Mr. Minns published two Greek documents of the

Parthian period acquired by Dr. Sa'id Khan from Avromanin Kurdistan, together with the facsimile of a third, notin Greek, which was found at the same place.1 As thewriting of this third document (on parchment) seemed tobe Aramaic in character, he very kindly sent me a photo-graph of it at the time, and has since, given me additionalinformation. The following note represents mainly whatI then made out of the text, but it has lain in a drawerever since because the results seemed hardly worthpublishing. It is only in the hope bf attracting theAttention of more competent Iranian scholars to it thatI now print these few remarks, on the principle that

btsab omn p row xbi -naab raNban "fyv vbThe text is in Pahlavi, written in an Aramaic alphabet,

with a number of Semitic words in it. The writing is socursive that it is difficult to distinguish letters whichresemble one another, as % "], 1; 3/ 3 ; % lj \ ]. Moreover,the parchment is broken or defaced in some places. Sofar as it is legible, it seems to read as follows:—

1 For a full account of them see the article in question.JRAS. 1919. 11

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148 THE PAHLAYI DOCUMENT FROM AVBOMAN

p-nn n a "\SDTTD issn nnnN xim pm n«r 1r\tr abo frerrax no -pox anna "o^ i . . // a

i //// ]}"[ jrn *£>a n x *n psora "na b*itt r a n anncnp £TX "nan . . .n .. « vnnoia p n o *

XITWIX "UBH "Ha . . . . f DX "H2 "|Tn JPTTIIB s

asanxD •na ^ D Hunno •'•n Tiaema rax "na e

p b ix jvn xa-o JTIDDK xana 7

1 //// \\] ]TIT xba ^BDnB s

Line 1 begins with a date. After "year" the threestrokes are no doubt units, as in Aramaic papyri,1 thoughrather more rounded. The next letter is like a regularAramaic p, not the p of this document (if it occurs, see1. 4), so that it would seem that the more original formwas preserved as a cipher, for 100. It is true that lettersare never used as numerals in the papyri, but their use assuch became common, probably long before the date ofthis text. It is hardly possible that the letter is D andstands for Persian jw = hundred. The name of themonth is Arotat, Zend Haurvatat.2 The next word isvery puzzling. We should expect a verb if it wereAramaic, but it is similar in form to 31, and as a namefollows in both places it is more probably a title. Themiddle character seems to be a combination of perhapsai or a". I suggest that it is T3TO-u;W* a"wine-merchant ". At the end are two words connected by "na.This is clearly the Aramaic na with the Persian izdfat," son of," as in the Hajiabad inscription B. Hence thewords on either side of it must be names. There are noreally satisfactory parallels to them in Justi's IraniachesNamenbuch,

1 This refers throughout to the papyri from Elephantine, publishedby Sayce & Cowley (Aram. Pap. discovered at A&suan) in 1906, and bySachau (Aramdische Papynu) in 1911. Both with good facsimiles.

2 See Benfey, Monatsnamen, pp. 79, 93.9 So denoted by Westergaard. The language is generally called

Chaldseo-Pahlavi. It is on the upper part of plate 2.

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THE PAHLAVI DOCUMENT FROM AVROMAN 149

Line 2. The beginning is defaced. There are first twostrokes, then a word illegible, then a strange sign followedby S3"i(?). I at first thought this might be the Persianword for "one", and the whole group might be 221.But this is improbable, and I can suggest nothing else.The next word is xana, Aramaic for "vineyard". Ifthe preceding words were a numeral, we might read itKO"n= *.j, supposing the form to be possible at this date.

•pDK is probably the name of the vineyard.TO is no doubt to be 30 read. The second letter

corresponds to the sign which we used to read as -manin accordance with the Fahlavi tradition. It is almostidentical in form with the n (especially when final) in thepapyri. It is not the same as the ligature in W& (1. 1).

pi&TaM looks like a good Persian word, as if com-pounded with J ^ I J , but meaning ?

Aramaic " half ". One would expect TUBE

seems to be the only way of reading the word.A relative ?

Line 3. i a n = wb ;. is formed in the same way asaTC in 1. 1.The names following are not found in Justi.Tl = J\J.

Yttt. The same sign is used for n medial as for n.I thought at first that TTK TJ must mean ^ j l j , but "yougave" is unlikely in a document of this kind.

VOt is probably the Pahlavi a4, " this," meaning"that is".

vha Aramaic " the whole ".The next word is very puzzling. I think it must be

]TIT. since the Aramaic XTTT is sometimes found as equivalentto a drachma,1 the coin used in the Greek deeds.(Originally a Vague term for a small coin; Assyrianzdzu is "to divide".2) But the plural is written p—

1 E.g. in Palmyrene; cf. de Vogue, Syrie Cenlrale, p. 21, No. 17, 5,where Q«^ WR corresponds to 8[;»x/uki] or 'Ar[Ttniis')itvplas.

2 Cf. Meissner in OLZ, 1918, p. 171. It then meant a half-shekel.

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150 THE PAHLAVI DOCUMENT FROM AVROMAN

in p w , 1. 5. It might be the Persian ^ j "gold

(piece)", but the Parthians are not known to have hada gold coinage. The following signs are numerals:10 + 20 + 20 + 5. The form of the 20 is modified fromthat found in the papyri.

Line 4. PIO probably, as in 1. 2."p Aramaic " from " or " by ".TTnOtl is a possible Persian compound for " landlord ",

though it does not appear in the dictionaries.The next word is broken and I cannot restore it. One

would expect a name and that the landlord was ARIL (?),but it cannot be that.

"tn might be the old form of Persian -», the verbalparticle, or the Pahlavi hamM = " all".

"font or into should be a verb, something like "received",but the form is impossible.

nrtDip. After much thought. I read the word so,comparing it with the same word in Hajiabad B 5," before," " in the presence of " (Aramaic). The p hasnearly the same form as the letter o above.

Line 5. pTW Aramaic " witnesses ". The form withV is still used, as in the papyri, not D as in later Aramaic.It had, no doubt, become fixed as a legal term.

Their names should then follow, and, in fact, we havea series of pairs connected by "HS.

"JTD. Justi gives Tirik. "pin (Turak) would also bepossible.

pax not in Justi.The next name is obliterated.13BH. Justi gives Rasnu, a name derived from that of

the genius Rasnu.nnWttt. Justi gives Arstad, also derived from the

gejiius of that name.Line 6. "Ha can be restored with certainty,

not in Justi.

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THE PAHLAVI DOCUMENT FROM AVHOMAN 151

YUBH3 is the most probable reading, but I know of nosuch name.

"TOnrtO not in Justi, but a good Persian formation."Mithra is protector." Cf. Mnpa^drrit, Hdt. iii, 120.The th is noticeable. In the Greek documents we haveMipaSaTtii, etc. It looks as though the change was notyet established.

Justi Sinakes.The reading is uncertain.

lines 7 and 8 seem to be a sort of endorsement,re-stating the matter.

Line 7. The beginning is unfortunately lost.IBS-O as in 1. 2, followed by jnBDX (n uncertain);

ef. 1&DM. 1. 2. It is difficult to sec how the second NO"0is to be construed.

The reading of the next word is uncertain. Perhapsthe first letter is 7. The second might be 3, or moreprobably O)1. One thinks of Aramaic pT, or Persian^p : in one of its many meanings, or Zend vid, but I do

not venture any suggestion.*?ntt as in 1. 3.p Aramaic " from ".Line 8. "JBOriB as in 1. 1.The rest is repeated from 1. 3.The meaning appears to be somewhat as follows:—(1) Year 300, month Arotat, the vintner PTSPK son

of TURIN,(2) the price of (?) the vineyard ASMK, which is the

payment (?) of half belonging (?) to(3) the wine-grower ARIL son of BSNIN, gave; that

is, total zuzin 55.(4) Which by the landlord X . . . is acknowledged (?)

before(5) the witnesses Tirik son of APIN, Y . . . son of

Rasnu, Arstad

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1 5 2 THE PAHLAVI DOCUMENT FROM AVROMAN

(6) son of ABNU, GRIPNHI son of Mifchrapadi, Sinakson of MATBNG.

(7) Price of(?) the vineyard ASMTN, the vineyardbelonging (?) to ARIL, from

(8) PTSPK: total, zuzin 55.That is to say, the vineyard belonged to the landlord

X . . . who had let half of it to ARIL. This half is nowbought by (or the lease of it assigned to) PTSPK for55 zuzin (or drachmae). The landlord certifies beforewitnesses that he agrees to the deal and that the moneyis paid.

Some points are still obscure, but one need not beashamed of that when one considers how liitle is under-stood of the Hajiabad inscriptions, even after the effortsof such scholars as Haug and West.1

Assuming that the Seleucid era is used, as in the Greekdocuments (so Minns), the date 300 Sel. is 12 (or 11) B.C.This text therefore stands about midway between thelatest cuneiform Persian and the earliest Sassanianinscriptions, and is the only specimen we have of thelanguage during that interval of 600 years. The writingmay best be compared with the character used in theHajiabad inscription2 B, of Sapor I, and allowing for thedifference of material shows an earlier stage of develop-ment from the Aramaic alphabet as it appears in thepapyri. Other early specimens of Pahlavi are those inthe Rainer Collection, on parchment and papyrus, andthose published by Sachau in the Zeitschrift fiir dgyptischeSprache, 1878, p. 114, which he ascribes to the eighthcentury. It is more probable that they date from thefew years during which the Pe.rsians held Egypt(616-25 A.D.). There are also some fragments, on paperand linen, in the Bodleian Library (MS. Pers. b. 2 (P)).

1 Cf. also the strange translation of another inscription in the IndianAntiquary, xi, p. 225.

2 See plate 2.

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THE PAHLAVI DOCUMENT FROM AVROMAK 153

In all these the writing has reached the same hopelessstate of confusion which is familiar to us in MSS. ofmodern " book-Pahlavi", so much so that Sachau does notattempt to transliterate his fragments, though he noticessome variations from the traditional forms, showing thatthese were not yet fixed.

As to the language of the document it is better notto say much until it has been more fully explained.Cuneiform Persian contains no Aramaic words, althoughAramaic was regularly used in the Great King's ForeignOffice correspondence. By the date of this documentAramaic had become firmly fixed in the language,very much as we find it at Hajiabad. Thus we haveroar. XRN\ ia. no. AT. xbD. p . nnmp. prior, and xrna.all but the last two being found in later Pahlavi. Fromthe use of the izdfat in "H2 We may perhaps concludethat the words were read as Persian, being regarded asa sort of ideograms, just as Sumerian signs in Babylonianwere read as Semitic words. The practice seems to havebeen natural to the countries in contact with Mesopotamia.In the purely Persian words, if I am right about 13271 =tjjj. and TI= J!J, it appears that d was not necessarilymarked by X. The retention of n in HBTTVQ has alreadybeen noted.

The subject of the text seems to be related to thatof the Greek documents accompanying it, though notnecessarily concerned with the same estate. Still, if thevineyard was called Dadbakanras (i A ,11) or Ganzake(i B 12) or Dadbakabag (ii AB 7), it might even havehad a fourth name, ASMK or ASMTN. [The lastsuggests a derivation from Pahlavi asimin, Persian . j ,as if "silver-bodied", but this is unsuitable as a place-name.] At any rate, it is noticeable that appax'entlythe half only was sold, as in Greek i B 14, and thatthe price is 55 zuzin (?) as in Greek ii, 6, it is 55drachmae.

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154 THE PAHLAVI DOCUMENT FROM AVROMAN

On the back of Greek i there are some lines of Pahlaviwriting, but, after many attempts I have failed to readany complete word with certainty. The existence of thisendorsement, however, shows that there is some connexionbetween the Pahlavi and the Greek.

The accompanying plates give (1) a facsimile of thedocument from a block kindly lent by the HellenicSociety; (2) for purposes of comparison, a reproductionof the Hajiabad inscriptions from casts in the NationalMuseum, Dublin. I am very much indebted to Dr. Smyly,Librarian of Trinity College, for telling me of the where-abouts of the casts, and to Dr. Scharff, the Acting Directorof the Museum, and Mr. J. J. Buckley, the Keeper, fortheir readiness to send me a photograph. A photographwas published in the JRAS. for 1868, p. 241, but it wasnot very good and is by now rather faded, so that itseemed worth while to reproduce this much better photo-graph from a different set of casts. The best hand-copyis still that in Westergaard's Bundehesh (1851).

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THE HAJIABAD INSCETPTIONS.

I T o face p .

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