qeli, the goddess of grain
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qeliβs (ππππ) name only appears once in the surviving corpus in the genitive qelehi. This sepuchral inscription (N322) was discovered in Pinara, and denotes the tomb owner, pEmodiya (πππππ πππ), as a priest of qeli.1 Neumann suggests that the name qeli might date back to the Bronze Age, and may relate with the Hittite grain goddess Halki.2 This Hittite goddess was specifically the patron of barley, and was honored as a fertility spirit and a hΓ£yamma (βqueenβ).3 Whether or not the Lycian qeli shared any of these characteristcs with her Bronze Age ancestor is impossible to tell with the current state of the surviving corpus.
Notes:
1 Bryce (1986) 179
2 Neumann (1979) 49-50
3 Archi (2004) 333
Sources:
Archi, Alfonso. βTranslation of Gods: Kumarpi, Enlil, Dagan/NISABA, αΈͺalki.β Orientalia, vol. 73, no. 4, 2004, pp. 319β336.
Bryce, Trevor R. The Lycians in Literary and Epigraphic Sources, vol. 1, Museum Tusculanum Press, Copenhagen, 1986.
Neumann, G. Neufunde lykischer Inschriften seit 1901, Vienna, 1979.