▪ The item is believed to be a loan from Aram
zep̄ṯā, which in turn (according to
DRS) is from a (W?)Sem *
zipt‑ ‘pitch, pine-resin’.
▪ »Resin was extracted by tapping conifers. The liquid collected was solidified or heated in order to obtain a tar-like product. However, it could also be used in its fresh and unprocessed state. Wood tar was manufactured through dry distillation of wood. Theophrastus describes the method used in Macedonia. Similar to the production of charcoal, a round wood pile was stacked up that was covered almost completely with earth to control the inflow of air. Only a small opening remained through which the smouldering fire was lit; the fire could be kept burning for up to two days. The tar (
pítta) flowed slowly from a trough under the kiln through a channel and into a catch pit (Theophr. Hist. pl. 9,3,1-4). Pliny mentions kilns out of which, after an aqueous preliminary discharge, a more viscous wood tar flowed that was further processed through boiling into actual pitch or refined through the addition of asphalt (bitumen) or vinegar (Plin. HN 16,52-5). By re-boiling it,
palimpissa (Plin. HN 24,40) was obtained.
Zṓpissa (Grk ζώπισσα;
zṓpissa) was pitch drenched in salt water that was scraped off old ship timber (Plin. HN 16,56).« – art. »Pitch« (R.-B. Wartke, A. Burford-Cooper), in
Brill’s New Pauly.
1
▪ Are Aram
zep̄ṯā, or WSem *
zipt‑, in any way related to this Grk
zṓpissa (Attic
zṓpitta) ‘pitch drenched in salt water that was scraped off old ship timber’? Phonologically not very likely (how should one explain the loss of long stressed
ṓ in the first syllable?), but the meaning ‘diluer le moût de la bière’ of Gz
zafata, which is akin to the Sem words for ‘pine-resin, pitch’, could be conspicuously reminding of the drenching of pitch in salt water to produce
zṓpissa.
▪ Does
zift possibly belong to ↗ZFT_2
†zafata ‘to fill (a vessel)’, pitch and resin dripping into a vessel when the conifers (or the kiln) are tapped?