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The Semitic Goddess of Fate, Fortuna-Tyche
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 March 2011
Extract
Assyriologists have neglected the fundamental meaning of the common Semitic verb 
, to test, assign, allot. From this verb the name of the Arabic goddess of fate is derived. Curiously enough the earliest known Arabic name of Manât is written 
in the Thamudic (Minæan) n. pr. Ta'bad- Manât. In Nabatæan the ordinary form is 
, which Wellhausen Reste des Arabischen Heidentums, p. 24, takes as a plural, defending this etymology by the Arabic derivative maniyyat, fate, death, and broken plural manāya, in same sense. Goldziher, Archæologische epigraphische Mittheilungen aus Æsterreich vi (1882), 109, also takes the Nabatæan name as a plural, defending it from the Latin inscription from Aquileia, which has Manawat. Lidsbarski, Handbuch der Nordsemitischen Epigraphik, 313. reads Manāwatu. G. A. Cooke, North Semitic Inscriptions, 79, 5 et p. reads Manūthu, as singular; the writing in the Coran is Manātun. Arabic derivatives of this verb are maniyyatun, fate, māni(n), one who determines, assigns, manā(n), death, fate, number, size. Hebrew derivatives are, mānā, portion, menāth, pi. mĕnayōth, portion, share. Aramaic mĕnāthā, portion, part. Syriac mĕnātha, part, portion; menyānā, number, and qal participle māne kaukebe, one who determines by stars, astrologer.
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page 21 note 1 Arabic has both forms of this root, with corresponding imperfects ḭamnu, ḭamni. Hebrew had probably m-n-ḭ in the early period, but the root is treated as a 
passim. The name of the goddess Menî, the place names Menî and Menîth seem to prove this. The original Arabic is clearly m-n-ḭ. Note the.Nabatæan noun 
“counting”, Cooke, G. A., North Semitic Inscriptions, 250Google Scholar. The Aramaic and Syriac verb is ordinarily 
where the secondary meaning “to count” has entirely superseded the original “to allot”. The Assyrian verb manû has m-n-ṷ, as the preterite i mnu, imp. munu (v. Raw, 50, B 64) prove.
page 21 note 2 Littmann, , MVAG., 1904, i, p. 34Google Scholar.
page 21 note 3 Sura, 53, 20, 
. I think that the reading is Manawatuin Nabatæan, and is plural. Cf. Arabic manawiyyun, that which has reference to Manát. There is authority for the reading 
in the Coran, i.e. Manātun. Manūtu for the Nabatæan seems to me undefendable. Professor D. S. Margoliouth gives me another reading 
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page 22 note 1 This type of the Oriental Tychē, Fortuna, is the creation of the Greek Sculptor Eutychides, who produced the beautiful Tychē of Antioch in the third century b.c. See Gardner, Percy, in Journal of Hellenic Studies, vol. ixGoogle Scholar; Cumont, F., Fouilles de Doura-Europus, p. 98Google Scholar; Hill, G. F., Catalogue of the Greek Coins of Arabia, pp. xxiii, xxixGoogle Scholar.
page 22 note 2 On Dionysus and basillina (who represents Corē, Persephonē), see Girard, Jules in Daremburg, et Saglio, , Dictionnaire des Antiquités, article “Dionysia”, p. 233Google Scholar.
page 22 note 3 Chaabu, χααβοû, is the Arabic ka'bu, square stone, symbol of Dusares and Allat. Kazwîni Athar el-Bilad says that a four-sided stone was worshipped as Allat, and he calls her “mother of the gods”. See Brünnow, and Domaszewski, , Provincia Arabia, i, 189Google Scholar. For the Greek text of Epiphanius, see Mordtmann, , ZDMG., 29, 99–101Google Scholar.
page 23 note 1 Cf. Alulu = Alorus, a case of dissimilation of two l's as here.
page 23 note 2 Syria, v, pi. xx, 2; Rostovtzev, , Social and Economic History of the Roman Empire, pi. xxxvii, 1Google Scholar; see also Dusares in Daremberg et Saglio, and Pauly-Wissowa, Beal-encyclopædie, by Lenormant and Cumont.
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page 24 note 1 Ebeling, , in Gressman's, Altorientalische Texte, 190Google Scholar, has the transcription right, and uses gezählt “numbered”, for “allotted”.
page 24 note 2 Thompson, R. C., Reports, 85, 2Google Scholar, parallel, to ina simāni innammir, 119, 1Google Scholar.
page 24 note 3 In Arabic apparently in special sense, quo incertum est num conceperit camela nee ne.
page 24 note 4 Thompson, ibid., 11, 3; 5, 3; Chas. Virolleaud, , Astrol. Chaldéenne, Adad, 33, 26–7Google Scholar. In King, , Magic, 19, 23Google Scholar, mi-ni-ta BAL-ma has a variant [ . . . ] šu (?)-nu-ta. Myhrman, , PBS. i, 17Google Scholar, 22, and variant Ebeling, KAR. 68, Obv. 23, omits the word, and also the lines preceding, 20–21, in my edition, PSBA. 1912, 154. Hence minîta BAL-ma followed upon šîmti balaṭi-îa šîm “fix thou the fate of my life”. minîtu, then, is apparently a word for “desire” or “fate”, “fortune,” here. KAR. 68, 23 has [BAL-]ma ḫegalla karabâ for minîta Bal-ma ḫegalla šurka, hence minîtu syn. ḫegallu, wealth, abundance, “desire”, fortune” (good) fate, seems to be the meaning here. For BAL, I read tabāku, pour out, but a verb bâlu, “to decree, fix,” appears to be certain in Accadian. So in K. 9955, Obv. ii, 1 = AKF. i 21, Anu Enlil Ea u-ba-' -lu-ši, “fated” her, fixed her fate; cf. RA. 11, 149, 37–9; 12, 83, 54. ilu ul-ṣi u ri-ša-a-ti lu-bil ûmi-îa “May God decree me joy and gladness (all) my days”, King, , Magie, 6Google Scholar, 121 = 10, 20 = Myhrman, PBS. 12, 31. Hence read minîta bal-ma “decree (me) desire”, bal-ma ḫegalla karabâ “decree me abundance as my favour”. ûmu ub-til-la-an-ni ši-ma-ti, “When fate curses me,” i.e. when I die, Jensen, KB. vi, 64, 20; var. KAR. 169, Rev. iii 10 = Ebeling, , Berliner Beiträge zur Keilschriflforschung, ii, 1, p. 30, 20Google Scholar, ûmu šîmāti ub-til-la-an-ni; also Beiträge zur Keilschriftforschung, ii, 1, p. 30, 20, ûmu šîmāti ub-til-la an-ni; Berliner Beiträge i, 1, p. 6. The root seems to be Arabic bahal, Imp. yabhal, whose original meaning “to permit one to have his desire”, also “to curse”; it also means to be dumb, and in forms v, viii “to beseech”. The meaning “dumb” appears perhaps in PSBA. 1895, 139, 7, kima maḫḫê ša la idû u-ba-al “Like one possessed, who knows not I am dumb (?)”. Apparently Arabic bahal conceals various unconnected roots. In any case, Babylonian balû, to beseech, is the 
form of this verb.
page 25 note 1 Scheil, , Assarhaddon, 8, 9–10Google Scholar.
page 25 note 2 Winckler, , Forschungen, ii, 32, 5Google Scholar, corrected by Scheil, ibid., p. 32.
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page 26 note 2 Islamica, ii, 577, 582.
page 26 note 3 Smith, Sidney, Early History of Assyria, p. 233Google Scholar.
page 27 note 1 See Babyloniaca, ii, p. 144, pi. v, No. 11. Here the decoration of the top is a survival of the branches of the date palm. Cf. King, L. W., History of Sumer and Accad, p. 51Google Scholar.
page 27 note 2 See Langdon, , Tammuz and Ishtar, pi. i, No. 1Google Scholar.
page 27 note 3 Ibid., 79, n. 1; 100, 105, 108.
page 27 note 4 bêlit dadmê ra-i-mat niši, AKF. i, 21, 5.
page 27 note 5 Cf. Nidaba me-gal-ninnû šu-dú-a, who holds the fifty great decrees RA. 7, 108, ii 2. and me = mēnât, below.
page 28 note 1 RA. 22, 32.
page 28 note 2 RA. 22, 35, after Weidner's correction of my reading, PBS. x, 339, 8.
page 28 note 3 RA. 22, 32.
page 28 note 4 Dél Peṛse, i, pl. xi. See RA. 22, 38.
page 28 note Wellhausen, , ZDMG. 76, 698Google Scholar; Fischer, ibid., 77, 120; Dalman, , Petra, 52Google Scholar.