An Iranian Loanword for Clothing in Aramaic Documents from Ancient Bactria

The aim of this paper is to discuss a specific Iranian textile term in the light of new evidence attested in ancient Aramaic texts that elucidates ancient practices and the use of textiles in the Achaemenid world. Unfortunately a comprehensive study of Iranian loanwords in Achaemenid Aramaic has not yet appeared. The term on which we focused our attention is [’]srḥlṣ, attested twice in the Aramaic texts from ancient Bactria. The principal conclusion that can be drawn from our analysis is that a comparison with similar texts from Egypt helps us to identify the word [’]srḥlṣ attested in the Bactrian documents, as srḥlṣ and to establish its main semantic area. Indeed, this word is most likely a term that refers to a garment rather than ‘a harness’ or ‘a cuirass’ as the editors od Bactrian documents claim. Thus an Iranian etymology is proposed for this word on the basis of a comparison with an Iranian loanword also found in Armenian, sarkʻulay ‘headgear of the Armenian (unmarried) clergy’, and the Kurdish compound serkulāw, Sor. sarkiḷâw ‘wool cap’.