Ancient Greek "herma"

Dear listmembers,

While looking for the etymology of Greek god Hermes and its connection with the Mycenean e-ma-a₂   (dat. Hermaai, nom. *Hermahas), I’ve been realized that before the decipherment of Linear B, Hermes’ name was considered to be from Ancient Greek herma (=§rma, “cairn”) (e.g. Nilsson, Geschichte der griechichen Religion, pp. 474 f.).

Ventris and Chadwick (Documents in Mycenaean Greek, 2nd edition, 1976, p. 289) seem to reject this explanation, supposing that in this case the Mycenean form would have “w”, which is proved to be absent in Linear B e-ma-a2.

Elsewhere, I read that Greek “herma” is supposed to be from *uers-mn (according to Boisacq) or *suer-mn (according to Frisk). However, I couldn’t find the works of those scholars, nor learnt the meanings of these hypothetical roots (*uers-mn / *suer-mn).

Any information about the bibliography or the meanings of the roots will be appreciated...

Thanks in advance.

(By the way, I’m studying Mycenaean religion and therefore have more questions about the etymologies of some words... I hope, such questions will not be too irrelevant for this group, as long as they’re concerned with indo-european roots...)

Hüseyin Ç. Öztürk