SOAS Research Online

Abstract

The following article presents an overview of the attestations of the sign catalogued as L. 160 VITIS, “vine, wine”, phonetic reading wi(ya), in Anatolian Hieroglyphs as used both during the Late Bronze and the Iron Ages. Some distinctions as against other hieroglyphic signs are revisited and further insisted upon following previous work by the author, and the cultural complexes involving wine and the vine in different locations during the Iron Age are examined. Although the evidence is slim, slightly different cultural backgrounds including associated mythologies and varying use contexts of the specific terms for “wine” and “vine” according to geography become apparent when the evidence is collected and presented analytically.