Graphic ambiguities and compensatory mechanisms in Old Persian

As is well known, the writing system called Achaemenid cuneiform is mainly attested in the royal inscriptions of the ancient Persians. Although it was the decipherment of this script that paved the way for the understanding of the other cuneiform systems throughout the Ancient Near East, even today some aspects of Achaemenid cuneiform lack a convincing explanation. In this respect, it is worth mentioning that while Achaemenid cuneiform cannot be considered a direct continuation of other writing systems, a synergy of graphic models contributed to its creation. The Mesopotamian, Elamite and Aramaic writing systems are of particular importance in this process, even though scholars do not agree on the role each played. As an adaptation of “other” scripts, Achaemenid cuneiform involves a number of integrative mechanisms used in a systematic way: these are actual “orthographic conventions”, and they present modern scholars of Old Persian with various interpretative difficulties. One of the most problematic positions is the final part of the word where inflectional morphemes can occur. This paper focuses on specific contexts in which the spelling of an inflectional morpheme was potentially ambiguous, apparently for the “writers” of the inscriptions themselves. In particular, we aim to demonstrate that some compensatory mechanisms, both graphic and linguistic, were used in Achaemenid inscriptions to overcome instances of interpretative ambiguity in the spelling of endings.