Homer's Bathtub - A New Etymology of Mycenaean a-sa-mi-to and Greek ἀσάμινθος

This study proposes a new etymological analysis of Mycenaean a-sa-mi-to and Homeric Greek ἀσάμινθος ‘bathing tub, bath’. Conventionally classified as a Pre-Greek substrate word, the term is interpreted here as a cultural loan from the Cretan linguistic environment into Mycenaean Greek. The proposed Cretan compound consists of asam- ‘stone’, continuing the Indo-European word represented by Vedic áśman-, Avestan asman- and Lithuanian akmuõ, and a container term provisionally reconstructed as indʰ- or intʰ-. The latter is compared with Lithuanian iñdas ‘vessel, dish, container’ and related Indo-European formations connecting the concepts of putting, storage and containment. Greek -os is interpreted as a secondary inflectional ending. The compound would therefore originally have denoted a ‘stone vessel’ or ‘stone basin’. The analysis combines the Linear B evidence of KN Ws 8497, the Homeric and lexicographical record, comparative Indo-European material and archaeological evidence from Knossos and Pacheia Ammos. The Cretan sibilant reflex in asam- is attributed to Eteocretan substrate influence on inherited Pelasgian material and does not imply that Pelasgian itself was a satem language. The resulting reconstruction suggests that both the specialised bathing vessel and its name were borrowed from Crete: the word was foreign to Greek, but not foreign to Indo-European.