The Postdeterminative ki in the Hittite Cuneiform Corpus

Abstract

Abstract Among almost 20,000 attestations of place names in Hittite cuneiform texts, only ca. 120 feature the geographic postdeterminative ki (“place”). This present paper explores possible reasons for such a modest number, analysing the data according to various criteria, including the geographical dispersal of toponyms determined by ki, the dating of the texts, their language and their cultural provenance. It is argued that the use of ki in the Hittite corpus is not random and should be viewed in the context of early Hittite scribal tradition. A catalogue of all attestations of the postdeterminative ki is included.