Abstract
Abstract The present paper deals with the controversially discussed relationships between the gods Alalu, Anu, Kumarbi, and Tarḫunnaš in the Hittite Song of Going Forth (CTH 344). On the basis of a new philological analysis, of comparisons with theogonies or succession myths in other ancient cultures and on the background of considerations on the cross-cultural stratification of various mythical traditions in the surviving Hittite text, various proposals on the genealogical relationship of the deities in question are weighed against each other and reasons are presented for the plausibility of the proposed new translation and general reconstruction that the divine kingship always passes from father to son within a single genealogical line.
Highlights
At the beginning of the Hittite Song of Going Forth,[1] the office of king of the gods passes by way of battles first from Alalu to Anu, from Anu to Kumarbi; Kumarbi, in turn, later brings the weather god into being
On the basis of a new philological analysis, of comparisons with theogonies or succession myths in other ancient cultures and on the background of considerations on the cross-cultural stratification of various mythical traditions in the surviving Hittite text, various proposals on the genealogical relationship of the deities in question are weighed against each other and reasons are presented for the plausibility of the proposed new translation and general reconstruction that the divine kingship always passes from father to son within a single genealogical line
DA-la-lu-wa-aš ⌈NUMUN-ŠU⌉ is usually taken to refer to Kumarbi, and Kumarbi is regarded as a descendant of Alalu.[4]
Summary
347. This last change of rulership is not evident in the Song of Going Forth itself (the end of which has survived only in very fragmentary form). Hoffner 1975: 139. Haas argues for the above-mentioned case 2.b)β), which assumes Alalu as Anu’s father and Anu as Kumarbi’s father (in the continuation, Kumarbi as father of Teššub/ Tarḫunnaš), and which entails case 1.b) (Kumarbi not as son, but as grandson of Alalu).[13] Haas assumes only a single genealogical line. One reason for this is that he is attempting to interpret the mythical material in the Song of Going Forth as a calendar myth (“Kalendermythos”), in which Anu, Alalu, Kumarbi, and Teššub represent four month-kings (“Monatskönige”) who alternate and emerge directly from one another (see figure 3). 12 For example, Rutherford 2016: 13: “there are three stages (generations in the Greek but not in the Hittite)”; likewise van Dongen 2011: 194; explicitly López-Ruiz 2010: 93: “A distinctive characteristic of the Hurro-Hittite Succession Myth, and one in which it clearly differs from Hesiod’s, is that the succession line is not straight from father to son, as in the case of Ouranos-Kronos-Zeus.”
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
