WALWET and KUKALIM

Abstract

This paper examines the walwet and kukalim legends appearing on early electrum coinage from Lydia. After a survey of previous interpretations, it is argued that the appurtenance suffix in kukalim functions as a patronymic, ‘I am a son/descendant of Gyges’, referring to Alyattes, whose name is now generally and correctly seen in walwet. Building on this, the chronological implications that this reading poses for the dates of Alyattes are then considered in relation to the revised dating of coins from the Artemisium deposit. It is suggested that Alyattes was already on the Lydian throne by ca. 635 BC, a dating which has further implications for the chronology of other rulers of the Mermnad dynasty.

Alcaeus, Pittakos ‘son of “Hyrras”’, and the Lesbian aristocracy, or ‘How to do things with words’

“…Even allowing for * wrá - as the Lydian reflex of ura -, the morphophonemic alternation of w and u in Lydian, as well as the frequent realization of Lydian w as υ in Greek, would make /ur-/ the most likely outcome of /vr-/ in the transmission from Lydian to Greek. See further Dale (2016) 162–63.…”

“… 76 For Bronze Age Lesbos, see Houwink ten Cate (1983–1984); Mason (2008); Teffeteller (2013); for the Iron Age see Spencer (1995) and Rose (2008). On Lydian expansionism in the later seventh and earlier sixth centuries see Kerschner (2010); Dale (2016); Payne and Wintjes (2016); Högemann and Oettinger (2018). For Anatolian elements in Sappho and Alcaeus, see Watkins (2007); Dale (2020).…”