Eteocretan isalabre, isaluria

Eteocretan is a non-Greek language attested in a few alphabetic insciptions of ancient Crete, some of which are bilingual¹. This is the case of Dreros 1, where we find the forms isalabre, isaluria, interpreted by Van Effenterre as variants of a compound word translated as 'goat cheese' upon an apparent resemblance of its first member with Greek íksalos '(castrated) male goat', of Pre-Greek origin², as well as a presumed match to the forms turon, turo- (presumably 'cheese') in the Greek text³.

However, I think this interpretation is highly questionable, and in my opinion the fragment et isalabre komn could be translated as 'in/to the town of Isalabre' (Greek kó:mê 'village'⁴). Also the form isala-bre would be an unstressed variant of isal-uría, whose second member can be identified with Thracian -bría 'town' < *wrijā (Tocharian A ri, Tocharian B riye 'town')⁵, a femenine form corresponding to the Greek masculine rhíon 'mountain top, promontory' (Mycenean RI-JO) < *wrijo-.

 

Interestingly enough, in the ancient Kingdom of Urartu (9th-6th centuries BCE) there was a fortress named Ispilibria, Ispilabria, Ispallure⁶ in Assyrian documents and whose resemblance to the Eteocretan forms is amazing: *Ispili-bría, *Ispila-bría, *Ispall-ure, also with an alternance between stressed -bría and unstressed -ure. It's then possible for isalabre, isaluria to be derived from Urartian if we assume a shift -sp- > *-sf- > -s- happened in Eteocretan⁷, so the original forms would be *Ispala-bre, *Ispal-uría.

The first member is possibly reflected in the ancient toponym Ispal/Spal (modern Sevilla), whose possible Phoenician origin hasn't been established.
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¹ It's quite possible, alhough not certain, that Eteocretan is a descendant of Minoan, the Pre-Greek language of Crete attested in Hieroglyphic Cretan and Linear A. 
² There's also a femenine iksalê 'goatskin', with variants isálê, itthélê, ittélê, issélê, isséla, isthlê, itthéla, etc. See R.S.P. Beekes (2010): Etymological Dictionary of Greek, p. 593.

³ See Ray Brown's web page.
⁴ A Pre-Greek word with cognates in Baltic *keĩm-/*kaîm- 'yard', Germanic *xaim- 'home' and Sino-Tibetan *qim (~ *q^wim) 'house'.
⁵ V. Georgiev (1981): Introduction to the History of the Indo-European Languages, p. 112. 

⁶ V. Sarkisian (2007): Onomástica vasco-armenia: comparación a través de reconstrucción.
⁷ But otherwise p > f (φ /ph/ in the Greek alphabet), as in Praisos ~ Fraiso-.