Hittite mythology - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Most of the narratives embodying Hittite mythology are lost, and the elements that would give a balanced view of Hittite religion are lacking among the tablets recovered at the Hittite capital Hattusa

Hattusa

Hattusa was the capital of the Hittite Empire in the late Bronze Age. It was located near modern Boğazkale, Turkey, within the great loop of the Kızıl River ....

and other Hittite sites: "there are no canonical scriptures, no theological disquisitions or discourses, no aids to private devotion". Some religious documents formed part of the corpus with which young scribes were trained, and have survived, most of them dating from the last several decades before the final burning of the sites. The scribes in the royal administration, some of whose archives survive, were a bureaucracy

Bureaucracy

A bureaucracy is an organization of non-elected officials of a governmental or organization who implement the rules, laws, and functions of their institution, and are occasionally characterized by officialism and red tape.-Weberian bureaucracy:...

, organizing and maintaining royal responsibilities in areas that would be considered part of religion today: temple organization, cultic administration, reports of diviners, make up the main body of surviving texts.

The understanding of Hittite mythology depends on readings of surviving stone carvings, deciphering of the iconology represented in seal stones, interpreting ground plans of temples: additionally, there are a few images of deities, for the Hittites often worshipped their gods through Huwasi stones

Huwasi Stone

In Hittite religion, a huwasi stone is sacred to a deity and is usually situated in a temple. Larger huwasi stones were placed in an open area surrounded by trees and other plants. The stones were treated as gods; they were given food and water, anointed, and washed. At any cult center, the...

, which represented deities and were treated as sacred objects. Gods were often depicted standing on the backs of their respective beasts, or may have been identifiable in their animal form

Zoomorphism

Zoomorphism is the shaping of something in animal form or terms. Examples include:*Art that imagines humans as animals*Art that portrays one species of animal like another species of animal*Art that creates patterns using animal imagery, or animal style...

.

Though heavily influenced by Mesopotamian mythology, the religion of the Hittites
Hittites
The Hittites were a Bronze Age people of Anatolia.They established a kingdom centered at Hattusa in north-central Anatolia c. the 18th century BC. The Hittite empire reached its height c...

and Luwians retains noticeable Indo-European elements, for example Tarhunt

Teshub

Teshub was the Hurrian god of sky and storm. He was derived from the Hattian Taru. His Hittite and Luwian name was Tarhun , although this name is from the Hittite root *tarh- to defeat, conquer.- Depiction and myths :He is depicted holding a triple...

the god of thunder, brought in by the Indo-European immigrants; his conflict with the serpent Illuyanka

Illuyanka

In Hittite mythology, Illuyanka was a serpentine dragon slain by Tarhunt , the Hittite incarnation of the Hurrian god of sky and storm. It is known from Hittite cuneiform tablets found at Çorum-Boğazköy, the former Hittite capital Hattusa...

resembles the conflict between Indra and the cosmic serpent Vrtra in Indo-Aryan mythology. His consort is the indigenous Hattic sun-goddess. This divine couple were presumably worshipped in the twin cella

Cella

A cella or naos , is the inner chamber of a temple in classical architecture, or a shop facing the street in domestic Roman architecture...

s of the largest temple at Hattusa.

The liminal figure mediating between the intimately connected worlds of gods and mankind was the king and priest; in a ritual dating from the Hittite Old Kingdom

History of the Hittites

Hittites were an ancient people who spoke an Indo-European language and established a kingdom centered in Hattusa in northern Anatolia from the 18th century BC. In the 14th century BC, the Hittite Kingdom was at its height, encompassing central Anatolia, south-western Syria as far as Ugarit, and...

period:

The gods, the Sun-God and the Storm-God, have entrusted to me, the king, the land and my household, so that I, the king, should protect my land and my household, for myself.

The Hittites referred to their own "thousand gods", of whom a staggering number appear in inscriptions but remain nothing more than names today. This multiplicity has been ascribed to a Hittite resistance to syncretization

Syncretism

Syncretism is the combining of different beliefs, often while melding practices of various schools of thought. The term means "combining", but see below for the origin of the word...

: "many Hittite towns maintained individual storm-gods, declining to identify the local deities as manifestations of a single national figure," Gary Beckman observed. The multiplicity is doubtless an artifact of a level of social-political localization within the Hittite "empire" not easily reconstructed. For example, the Bronze Age

Bronze Age

The Bronze Age is a period characterized by the use of copper and its alloy bronze as the chief hard materials in the manufacture of some implements and weapons. Chronologically, it stands between the Stone Age and Iron Age...

cult centre of Nerik

Nerik

Nerik was a Bronze Age city to the north of the Hittite capitals Hattusa and Sapinuwa. The Hittites held it as sacred to a storm god who was the son of Wurusemu, sun goddess of Arinna...

, to the north of the capitals Hattusa and Sapinuwa

Sapinuwa

Sapinuwa was a Bronze Age Hittite city at the location of modern Ortaköy in Turkey. It was one of the major Hittite religious and administrative centres, a military base and an occasional residence of several Hittite kings...

, the Hittites held as sacred to a local storm god who was the son of Wurusemu, sun goddess of Arinna

Arinna

Arinna was the major cult center of the Hittite sun goddess, known as dUTU URUArinna "sun goddess of Arinna". Arinna was located near Hattusa, the Hittite capital.The name was also used as a substitute word for Arinniti...

: he was propitiated from Hattusa:

Because the men of Kaška have taken the land of Nerik for themselves, we are continually sending the rituals for the Storm God in Nerik and for the gods of Nerik from Ḫattuša in the city of Ḫakmišša, (namely) thick-breads, libations, oxen, and sheep.

The weather god was identified there with Mount Zaliyanu near Nerik, responsible for assigning rain to the city's croplands.

Among the crowd a few stand out as more than local: Tarhun has a son, Telepinu

Telepinu (god)

Telipinu was the Hittite god of farming. He was the son of the weather and fertility god according to their mythology. In one story, he grew angry at the world and left his house, causing the crops to fail. Hannahannas, the mother goddess, sent a bee to find him; when the bee did, stinging Telipinu...

and a daughter, Inara

Inara

In Hittite–Hurrian mythology, Inara was the goddess of the wild animals of the steppe and daughter of the Storm-god Teshub/Tarhunt. She corresponds to the "potnia theron" of Greek mythology, better known as Artemis...

. Inara is a protective deity (^dLAMMA) involved with the Puruli

Puruli

Puruli was a Hattian spring festival, held at Nerik, dedicated to the earth goddess Hannahanna, who is married to a new king.The central ritual of the Puruli festival is dedicated to the destruction of the dragon Illuyanka by the storm god Teshub. The corresponding Assyrian festival is the Akitu...

spring festival. Ishara

Ishara

Ishara is the Hittite word for "treaty, binding promise", also personified as a goddess of the oath.In Hurrian and Semitic traditions, Išḫara is a love goddess, often identified with Ishtar...

is a goddess of the oath; lists of divine witnesses to treaties seem to represent the Hittite pantheon most clearly, though some well-attested gods are inexplicably missing.

The city of Arinna

Arinna

, a day's march from Hattusa, was perhaps the major cult center of the Hittites, and certainly of their major sun goddess

Solar deity

A solar deity is a sky deity who represents the Sun, or an aspect of it, usually by its perceived power and strength. Solar deities and sun worship can be found throughout most of recorded history in various forms...

, known as ^dUTU ^URUArinna "sun goddess of Arinna". In the 13th century some explicit gestures toward syncretism appear in inscriptions. Puduhepa

Puduhepa

Puduhepa was a Hittite tawanannas was married to King Hattusili III. She has been referred to as "one of the most influential women known from the Ancient Near East."...

, queen and a priestess, worked on organizing and rationalizing her people's religion. In an inscription she invokes:

Sun-Goddes of Arinna, my lady, you are the queen of all lands! In the land of Hatti you have assumed the name of Sun-Goddess of Arinna, but in respect to the land which you made of cedars, you have assumed the name Hebat
Hebat
Hebat, also transcribed Kheba or Khepat, was the mother goddess of the Hurrians, known as "the mother of all living".- Family :Hebat is the consort of Teshub and the mother of Sarruma. Originally, as Kheba or "Kubau" it is thought she may have had a Southern Mesopotamian origin, being the divinised...

.

Kumarbi

Kumarbi is the chief god of the Hurrians. He is the son of Anu , and father of the storm-god Teshub. He was identified by the Hurrians with Sumerian Enlil, and by the Ugaritians with El....

is the father of Tarhun, his role in the Song of Kumarbi being reminiscent of that of Cronus

Cronus

In Greek mythology, Cronus or Kronos was the leader and the youngest of the first generation of Titans, divine descendants of Gaia, the earth, and Uranus, the sky...

in the Theogony
Theogony
The Theogony is a poem by Hesiod describing the origins and genealogies of the gods of the ancient Greeks, composed circa 700 BC...

of Hesiod

Hesiod

Hesiod was a Greek oral poet generally thought by scholars to have been active between 750 and 650 BC, around the same time as Homer. His is the first European poetry in which the poet regards himself as a topic, an individual with a distinctive role to play. Ancient authors credited him and...

. Ullikummi

Ullikummi

In Hurrian mythology, Ullikummi is a giant stone monster, son of Kumarbi and the sea god's daughter. The narrative of Ullikummi is one episode, the best preserved and most complete, in an epic cycle of related "songs" about the god Kumarbi, who aimed to replace the weather god Teshub and destroy...

is a stone monster fathered by Kumarbi, reminiscent of Hesiod's Typhon

Typhon

Typhon , also Typhoeus , Typhaon or Typhos was the last son of Gaia, fathered by Tartarus, and the most deadly monster of Greek mythology. He was known as the "Father of all monsters"; his wife Echidna was likewise the "Mother of All Monsters."Typhon was described in pseudo-Apollodorus,...

.

The Luwian god of weather and lightning Pihassassa may be at the origin of Greek Pegasus

Pegasus

Pegasus is one of the best known fantastical as well as mythological creatures in Greek mythology. He is a winged divine horse, usually white in color. He was sired by Poseidon, in his role as horse-god, and foaled by the Gorgon Medusa. He was the brother of Chrysaor, born at a single birthing...

. Depictions of hybrid animals (like hippogriff

Hippogriff

A Hippogriff is a legendary creature, supposedly the offspring of a griffin and a mare.- Early references :...

s, chimera

Chimera (mythology)

The Chimera or Chimaera was, according to Greek mythology, a monstrous fire-breathing female creature of Lycia in Asia Minor, composed of the parts of multiple animals: upon the body of a lioness with a tail that ended in a snake's head, the head of a goat arose on her back at the center of her...

e etc.) are typical for the Anatolian art of the period. In the Telepinu Myth

The Telepinu Myth

The Telepinu Myth is an ancient Hittite myth about the god Telepinu whose disappearances causes all fertility to fail, both plant and animal. This results in devastation and despair among gods and humans alike. In order to stop the havoc and devastation, the gods seek Telepinu but fail to find him...

, the disappearance of Telepinu

Telepinu (god)

, god of farming and fertility

Fertility

Fertility is the natural capability of producing offsprings. As a measure, "fertility rate" is the number of children born per couple, person or population. Fertility differs from fecundity, which is defined as the potential for reproduction...

causes all fertility to fail, both plant and animal. This results in devastation and despair among gods and humans alike. In order to stop the havoc and devastation, the gods seek Telepinu but fail to find him. Only a bee

Bee

Bees are flying insects closely related to wasps and ants, and are known for their role in pollination and for producing honey and beeswax. Bees are a monophyletic lineage within the superfamily Apoidea, presently classified by the unranked taxon name Anthophila...

sent by the goddess Hannahanna finds Telepinu, and stings him in oder to wake him up. However this infuriates Telepinu further and he "diverts the flow of rivers and shatters the houses". In the end, the goddess Kamrusepa

Kamrusepa

Kamrusepa is a Hittite goddess of healing, medicine, and magic. She is a mother of Aruna. She is involved in the Telepinu Myth, about the "missing" vegetation god....

uses healing and magic to calm Telepinu after which he returns home and restores the vegetation and fertility. In other references it is a mortal priest who prays for all of Telepinu's anger to be sent to bronze containers in the underworld, of which nothing escapes.

See also